D&D General Story Now, Skilled Play, and Elephants

[AbdulAlhazred]

That's not at all unwritten. The principles as presented cover not doing this, because it violates the cycle of play directly -- you can't do anything without putting it in front of the players. This is GM solo play, and it totally outside the game system altogether. There's no written thing to say "don't do this" because the way the game plays already doesn't allow it. It's like saying that "don't rob a liquor store while playing this game," is some unwritten rules of DW.

Yeah, but there are cases, like the fighter's sword, which are not so clearly outside what is written, but where you should not tread. I love that DW really IS very nailed down this way, but no system is 100%. Anyway, mostly it comes up in other games where such principles are not spelled out well.

 

[pemerton]

I think what @pemerton was saying here is that a realistically detailed world admits of so many possible variables which are unconstrained (because they are simply details which the game world's developer has not the time and energy to specify) that it would be basically just always DM Fiat what happens next, or else left up to some toss of dice.

Where I have struggled with that in this thread is where I perceive a dilemma created by this, when I try to also think about -


So then... is it that we must believe the DM was (and is) always obviating player independent decision-making and choice whenever there are details not specified in advance... that let in DM fiat?

@AbdulAlhazred asserted a disjunction: GM fiat or roll the dice.

He also stipulated certain conditions as underpinning the disjunction: a realistically detailed world, with unconstrained variables, such that solving it as a puzzle is impossible.

If we reduce the number of variables, by reducing the realism of the fiction and stepping up the number of recognisable tropes/conventions/stereotypes, then GM decision-making won't have to obviate player decision-making. This is how Gygaxian skilled play works. It's also how The Green Knight works, although the latter system reaches for a quite different set of tropes, conventions and stereotypes and so sets up the problem-solving in a different way.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

@AbdulAlhazred asserted a disjunction: GM fiat or roll the dice.

He also stipulated certain conditions as underpinning the disjunction: a realistically detailed world, with unconstrained variables, such that solving it as a puzzle is impossible.

If we reduce the number of variables, by reducing the realism of the fiction and stepping up the number of recognisable tropes/conventions/stereotypes, then GM decision-making won't have to obviate player decision-making. This is how Gygaxian skilled play works. It's also how The Green Knight works, although the latter system reaches for a quite different set of tropes, conventions and stereotypes and so sets up the problem-solving in a different way.

yeah, at some level all play in RPGs will work this way to a degree. I mean, we ignore a lot of stuff in the real world too, it just STILL EXISTS. This is why I get a headache when the discussion of 'CAW' comes up, because there is this drive there to come up with all the complexities of which Sun Tzu would advise you to consider, which is to say every aspect of the real world! lol.

Anyway, wargames work because they simply only take account of some stuff, and they abstract other stuff. An RPG can also abstract stuff, but then we're definitely not talking about GSP or its relatives anymore.

 

[Fenris-77]

Right, obviously a GM that is HOSTILE to the PCs will not be a GM for long... Realistically you cannot even be fully neutral. The 'best' you can achieve is favoring "the play of the game" in cases where it is a consideration (IE presenting the PCs with options which lead to stuff you have prepared as opposed to other stuff, or warding them away from sandbox areas where stuff is too high level for them yet). Beyond that though, often a classic GSP DM is faced with situations where player's interpretation of things is just as valid as his own, which does he go with? Or where they clearly extrapolated some information or circumstance which the DM has not defined, so she might just "go with it." This is actually IMHO a very large part of what happens in classic GMing. Tucker's Kobolds COULD wipe you out, but you interpret their mood as that they're not 100% sure of that, and they already gave you a bloody nose, so they turn back and go home instead of finishing the job.

Well, that's not what I was thinking. Running OSR I'm completely impartial when it comes ro adjudication, but I still manage to be a fan of the PCs. That fandom is more about moving player priorities to the forfront when it comes to framing rather than anything to do woth adjudication specifically.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Well, that's not what I was thinking. Running OSR I'm completely impartial when it comes ro adjudication, but I still manage to be a fan of the PCs. That fandom is more about moving player priorities to the forfront when it comes to framing rather than anything to do woth adjudication specifically.

Well, sure. I think that might also be somewhat covered in things like "presenting the PCs with certain options", though I didn't call out that specific case. I have said a few times, when you get into practical play that is functional and well-executed, there are less differences between styles. So OSR probably still means certain things, but it could also get a lot closer to Dungeon World than some people would think. DW just cans those techniques and tries to make sure everyone who plays is at least exposed to them.

 

[clearstream]

@AbdulAlhazred asserted a disjunction: GM fiat or roll the dice.

Absolutely. We have - roll dice for each decision - as a rational exit from the dilemma that I outlined.

He also stipulated certain conditions as underpinning the disjunction: a realistically detailed world, with unconstrained variables, such that solving it as a puzzle is impossible.

We're likely to find some clear water between our views here, as for me all TTRPG worlds have a vast number (literally infinite) unconstrained variables even if they are not realistically detailed. It might not be worth our debating that, but just accepting that we have differing views.*

If we reduce the number of variables, by reducing the realism of the fiction and stepping up the number of recognisable tropes/conventions/stereotypes, then GM decision-making won't have to obviate player decision-making. This is how Gygaxian skilled play works. It's also how The Green Knight works, although the latter system reaches for a quite different set of tropes, conventions and stereotypes and so sets up the problem-solving in a different way.

From descriptions of play and watching videos, I can see that DW is revealing in the way it manages and is successful with - roll for each decision. In terms of unconstrained variables, it relocates them (e.g. to 6s or less) and declares boundaries to the decision space (so that it is vast, but less vastly diverse - I recommend reading Borges Library of Babel to grok that).**

Still, one can see that whereas in an example a wand bounced down a shaft, there were a million (again, genuinely infinite) things that could have happened to that wand: the precise outcome wasn't defined and wasn't rolled for. Most choices might have amounted to different flavours of the same thing - e.g. 'I can't use the wand', or, 'I can use the wand if'. But then, there are so many ways that "if" could have gone - if I wait, if I do X, if I pay Y, if I roll and succeed at Z, etc - and the knock-ons from there.... a vast cascade.


* So I am saying that the intent of - "reduce the number of variables, by reducing the realism of the fiction and stepping up the number of recognisable tropes/conventions/stereotypes" - rationally only changes one kind of infinity into another kind of infinity. That is true unless you reduce to a stochastic or deterministic mechanic with properly bounded inputs, functions, and outputs. The second infinity is more useful (see below), but one thing it is absolutely not doing is removing DM-fiat. Only refining and relocating it. That is worth doing, but it is not the same as removing DM-fiat. Rather, we are making statements about better and worse kinds of fiat for given purposes... and there is nothing wrong with that! It is helpful to do.

** Making a space less vastly diverse is extremely valuable. It becomes a helpful subset of infinity (albeit also infinite). Say we have a principle - choose only numbers divisible by 7. There are an infinite number of them, but still fewer than there are numbers overall, and if what we care about is divisibility by 7, then we have done something useful. The picture is not quite so clear with TTRPG principles of course, as we see in debates as to what principles going by the same name include and exclude.


EDITED My view is more open than was captured in my words. Also, removed some text that might not have helped my explanation.

 

[clearstream]

My Earthdawn foo is pretty much limited to 2nd hand. I know there is a 'Thought Worm' ritual that grants a sort of telepathy to the PCs, right? I don't know if it has any sinister implications or not. The color seems a bit sinister, that sort of magic in ED is usually styled 'blood rituals' etc. The whole imagery of a 'worm in your thoughts' is a bit squiggy... OTOH AFAIK it sounds like the EFFECTS are just to allow a group of characters to have a sort of 'walkie talkie' kind of telepathic link? Wrath of God is fairly evocative in M:tG, yes. Of course, IN PLAY, the effect is generally more to 'punish the enemy' lol. Still, there's good color there.

It creates a telepathic link between character and horror. The horror can suggest acts and stake XP against them. If the PC performs the act they get the XP. If not, they get a lot of pain and the XP carries over to whatever the horror suggests next.

The way you play this is start with acts the PC just won't want to do - truly horrible things. Possibly making the suggestions at moments when sudden writhing in pain might not be favourable. After accumulating a really tempting pile of XP, the horror suggests something that doesn't seem so bad, really. Something a bit questionable, but not an obviously outright evil. The player likely prefers that pile of XP to the pain, and thus starts down a slippery slope.

Obviously I don't know about prototypes of 4e powers. That one seems like once the game design was 'there' then it is a relatively straightforward idea to depict 'valiance' via the mechanics of Valiant Strike. You can see similar design choices in things like the Avenger's class feature. That probably took some iterations of design. I'd note that some classes, like Wizard, obviously seem less robustly tied to their role/thematics. Honestly, IMHO, 'Arcane' is a bad choice of a power source, since its thematics is basically "anything you can do with magic, which is potentially anything at all." So, 4e certainly doesn't succeed in a really even way here.

I'd also note that I am of the opinion that the vast array of 4e powers worked against the game. It is what it is, but I would not do the way they did it, in that particularly respect. I guess hindsight is 20/20, right? Dungeon World's playbooks obviously have similar design considerations. I guess you could say that the same is true for other similar designs (other D&Ds).

Couldn't agree more about Arcane. In a game I used to run of my own design, I had two basic orders of power. Sources like Arcane that could in principle do anything, were bumped down a notch. Sources that could do only a well defined group of things were bumped up a notch. So out of an Arcane fireball and a Fire fireball (if there were such sources), the former would be weaker. I mention this because many games include broader and narrower power concepts fighting for design space.

Also agree about the vast array of powers working against 4e. I feel like 4e was a great design though, for what it taught. It articulated a way things could be done, and with expansive instantiation (numerous concrete examples). Something I appreciate about what posters are writing in this and similar threads, is that it wasn't until the conversation in this thread that I even saw the links between DW and 4e!

Now, what is interesting would be to consider other games. Traveller is quite thematic, but it entirely eschews this sort of design.

I need to ponder this a bit. There seems to be something fundamental going on here, that I don't quite grasp and cannot articulate as yet.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Hmmm, so, yes, I think your response is cogent. OTOH my impression of, particularly, how @Manbearcat put it was much more 'competitive' and seemed to vest the idea of constraint directly in the player's actions, and described the skill of so constraining the GM's options! I guess I'd have to go back and reread the post of yours I was responding to. Maybe his stance colored my perception of yours? I do see DW as much more of a cooperative game though than say B/X D&D where the GM is definitely NOT 'on the side of the players' in the same sense as in DW (though there are parallels in terms of unspoken forces which shape most RPG play).

Oh, fully agreed on the "whose side is the GM on" stuff. "Be a fan of the characters" is a Principle, after all, but again I see those as being more not-quite-rules but more-than-guidance "best practices." That is, less strident than proper rules, but way more strident than "suggestions" or "guidelines." Whereas the stuff about answering a question honestly or giving interesting and useful info really is a rule, where you really, really shouldn't break it unless there's an exceptionally good reason to do so, which should be a rare and noteworthy event. "Be a fan of the characters" should shape your behavior without defining it, while "answer honestly" and "the GM may ask what tale, song, or legend you heard this in. Tell them, now," should define your behavior unless doing so would be genuinely unacceptable.

Also, when you invoke Sun Tzu, you sound much more like you are resting on this oppositional formulation, but perhaps you are intending to mean that this 'logistical skill' is employed by the player on behalf of the PC in favor of the PC's IN GAME goals? I think we all have somewhat different concepts/styles of playing DW. One thing I think is true of myself as a GM is that I am much more focused on/interested in the experience of the players vs whatever is going on with the characters. So I don't usually focus on conflict or struggle as the salient experience. I can be competitive, but I see that as just a technique, not something fundamental.

Yeah, that's what I meant. The quote is, I admit, very purely adversarial, given the man was writing about how to win wars. The principle behind it, however, can be applied to anything where logistical skill and the wisdom of choosing the right objectives when having finite time and finite resources. The adversarial nature of war is what induces these finite limits for Sun Tzu; in something like business, it's applied by a mix of adversarial (competition) and environmental/procedural effects (resource availability, taxes, shipping, etc.); in something like novel writing, it's applied by publishers, editors, deadlines, prior work, and your personal financial needs; etc.

Interesting that you draw a distinction between "the experience of the players" and "whatever is going on with the characters." While I agree the two can never be identical, it seems to me that DW does its utmost to map the player experiences 1:1 with the characters' situations. That is, anything the players experience should either be rooted in or directly lead to some component of the characters' situations, and no part of the character's situation should fail to be the ground or product of the players' experiences. Do you disagree?

 

[Manbearcat]

Here is the thing though.

“Be a fan of the characters” as a GMing principle does not mean “you’re on their side.” It means “be intellectually and emotionally curious about their stories.”

When “follow the rules” (including everything that the rules entail - honesty, playing with integrity, playing to find out, and a completely table-facing system dynamic) + “fill their lives with danger” rides alongside “be intellectually and emotionally curious about their stories”, it creates an entirely different participant relationship and GM : System relationship than:

• GM-facing system +
• GMs don’t have to follow rules +
• GMs aren’t playing to find out +
• GMs are meant to be a different sort of “fan of the characters” (sub intellectually and emotionally curious about their stories for content curator that facilitates power fantasy and spotlight balancing/tailoring).

It’s a very different beast for players and GM alike. Even a configuration of a subset of the above 4 is a very different beast.

 

[clearstream]

I think I understand what you're trying to convey here, but you're going to have to demonstrate on something more substantial.

A goodly (his goddess is of Emotion and Truth) Paladin stumbles upon a hut with a mother and child.

The evidence in the hut reveals a twisted relationship of neglect and abuse.

Worse, the mother seems deranged, pestilential, or both.

The mother attacks as the frightened child attempts to intervene.

The small child could trivially be killed via the mother's crazy aggression and/or a violent reprisal by the Paladin.

Something has to be done immediately to spare the child. Does the Paladin:

• Slay her.
• Lay on Hands and draw forth her pestilential derangement.
• Adjure the demon within by his divine-bulwarked decrees, prayers, and sacred implements.

---

What happens here?

What is the player's say?

What is the system's say?

What is the GM's say?

You can pick your system and elaborate.

I'm rather stacked today, but will take a shot at this once time permits.