Indie Games Are Not More Focused. They Are Differently Focused.

[Campbell]

So I do think if you are either oriented towards GM as a war game referee or engaging in group storytelling (with a strong dose "Yes, And!" or "Yes, But") I am somewhat sympathetic to the idea that within that particular context not having defined rules can be a boon and be considered more flexible for that particular purpose. However I think it's a failure of imagination to not realize there are other ways to play where not having rules have a definite impact on play is an imposition rather than affording additional flexibility.

When I run D&D outside of combat scenes, overland travel, and some dungeon crawling tasks I am responsible for how things turn out because I have to decide if/when the dice are rolled, what the DC is, and what happens on success or failure. I have too much control over the outcome for my tastes.

When I run Apocalypse World I get to be genuinely surprised by how things turn out, don't feel tempted to turn things this way or that way, and can focus on the fictional situation. I can make my moves and just let the players make theirs. I do not have to pace the game. I don't have to engage in spotlight balancing other than like just moving it around to give everyone a chance to act.

I get that if you are engaging in a game of "Yes And!" basically the binding social mechanics of something like Go Aggro feel constraining. What's missing is if you are not interested in collaborative storytelling forcing the GM to make a bunch of decisions about how things will go can feel just as constraining. As a player having complete control of my characters thoughts and emotions can also feel constraining because that's far from my personal experience of life. It also means that I have a storytelling role instead of character inhabitation role.

The other thing that does not make a lot of sense to me is why stuff like detailed combat mechanics, resources that recharge on a daily basis (forcing me to pay excessive attention to time and place), concrete tracking of distances in spells and stuff like light sources, assumed key and map resolution, specific defined spell effects, and the like are not seen just as constraining. Why doesn't Blades get credit for where it's flexible? Namely that time and place can be played loosely with no mechanical costs, that there are no detailed combat mechanics getting in our way, that I can epend on my understanding of the fiction rather than detailed stat blocks for NPCs. That attuning to the ghost field is more flexible and less dependent on defined rules than spells are in D&D.

As @Manbearcat can attest to in conversations we have had elsewhere I have some pretty strong sim tendencies myself. I just do not think they should be limited to just the physical dimension. Stuff that interfaces with psychosocial elements are just as suitable for simulation in my opinion. That's why I love Dogs in the Vineyard so much. It matches my impression of how conflicts can escalate from differences of opinion to violence. The mounting stress and trauma of Blades is another element that speaks directly to some of my own life experiences. I value a lot of these games from a primarily character inhabitation / simulation of inner life perspective.

 

[Manbearcat]

As @Manbearcat can attest to in conversations we have had elsewhere I have some pretty strong sim tendencies myself. I just do not think they should be limited to just the physical dimension. Stuff that interfaces with psychosocial elements are just as suitable for simulation in my opinion. That's why I love Dogs in the Vineyard so much. It matches my impression of how conflicts can escalate from differences of opinion to violence. I value a lot of these games from a primarily character inhabitation / simulation of inner life perspective.

This is a really, really good point.

Where do the typical sim proclivities go (for people who claim to have sim proclivities) go when things turn emotional? For example, where is the (now well understood) amygdala hijack and the cortisol/adrenaline dump happening in systems that don't allow for "martial mind control" or mundane loss of volition given sufficient provocation + circumstance + lack of mental/emotional preparation?

Its pretty much the antithesis of sim to have players decide when their PCs do or do not succumb to emotional/neurochemistry-driven loss of volition.

 

[pemerton]

Where do the typical sim proclivities go (for people who claim to have sim proclivities) go when things turn emotional?

We roll on the Depression crit table! (Found in Rolemaster Companion III.)

The Purifications spell list in RM Spell Law deals mostly with diseases and poisons, but it also has the Cure Mind Disease spell which certainly saw use in our games.

 

[Aldarc]

The other thing that does not make a lot of sense to me is why stuff like detailed combat mechanics, resources that recharge on a daily basis (forcing me to pay excessive attention to time and place), concrete tracking of distances in spells and stuff like light sources, assumed key and map resolution, specific defined spell effects, and the like are not seen just as constraining. Why doesn't Blades get credit for where it's flexible? Namely that time and place can be played loosely with no mechanical costs, that there are no detailed combat mechanics getting in our way, that I can epend on my understanding of the fiction rather than detailed stat blocks for NPCs. That attuning to the ghost field is more flexible and less dependent on defined rules than spells are in D&D.

There are pages and pages of ink spilt on describing how combat works in D&D, but I found it so liberating when I realized that Fate reduced all of that to its basic resolution system, fiction first principle, and four basic actions (i.e., attack, defend, overcome, create an advantage).

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I think the reliance on pre-established setting puts real limits on this.

This makes me wish I had more than just today off to get back into this thread...

Like so many things, folks are talking about how much you can hack other games, and how the game is built with a setting in mind but you don't have to use it, and stuff like that, but the idea that DnD relies on pre-established setting just flies right by without challenge.

Like...either the default assumptions of a game matter even if they aren't technically hard-coded into the rules text, or they don't.

 

[hawkeyefan]

This makes me wish I had more than just today off to get back into this thread...

Like so many things, folks are talking about how much you can hack other games, and how the game is built with a setting in mind but you don't have to use it, and stuff like that, but the idea that DnD relies on pre-established setting just flies right by without challenge.

Like...either the default assumptions of a game matter even if they aren't technically hard-coded into the rules text, or they don't.

I think what was meant by pre-established in this context was not setting choice like are we playing in Ebberon or Middle-Earth, so much as the timing of when things are determined, and by whom. The need for NPCs, maps, traps, challenges, etc. to be predetermined kind of prevents the kind of co-DMing that was being described.

Meaning, you can't take The Keep on the Borderlands and then take turns DMing it as you also play through it. It simply doesn't work.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Its pretty much the antithesis of sim to have players decide when their PCs do or do not succumb to emotional/neurochemistry-driven loss of volition.

To be fair, I don't think I've ever seen a sim enthusiast claim that DnD is very flexible.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I think what was meant by pre-established in this context was not setting choice like are we playing in Ebberon or Middle-Earth, so much as the timing of when things are determined, and by whom. The need for NPCs, maps, traps, challenges, etc. to be predetermined kind of prevents the kind of co-DMing that was being described.

Meaning, you can't take The Keep on the Borderlands and then take turns DMing it as you also play through it. It simply doesn't work.

No, I was referring to exactly that. DnD doesn't rely on that, it just includes it as the "easiest way to play". To me, reliance on something means that the thing in question cannot be done without the thing supposedly relied upon. I've run DnD with 3 players and no DM, creating the world as we played. I've done it in a very freeform manner, simply improvising the world based on how we built our characters and then on how we played them and what we needed the world to be in order to do the thing we are trying to do or establish the thing about our character we are trying to establish. I've a friend who does it by borrowing from AW and BiTD, but I haven't played in that game.

We used the "This Is Your Life" chapter of Xanathar's, hacked somewhat using Heroes of The Feywild from 4e, to create characters, and used those prompts to create what turned into a small island kingdom in which we were starting out, simply going turn by turn to keep things simple until we had characters with all the bits filled in, and each had at least 2 contacts within the world, one chosen by the player and one chosen by the other two players.

Then we played dnd. Random hook generators are easy to find, but our first adventure was just me saying, "There's a festival of lights and masks going all week, so the capital is crowded with celebrants and people trying to make money off them" and then the next person said, "And we're here to stage an event that will upset people and direct that upset at the foreign governor" because that tied it into her backstory and a shared love of the book Tigana, and we went from there.

Thing is, "is there a chance of failure and consequences for failure?" is 99% of the time quite obvious to everyone at the table. The DMG has suggested DCs. Fail forward, yes and, success with complication, all allow for less need to even think about arguing with adjudication. Whoever isn't acting can determine how hard something is, and even CR is just a guideline, not an actual rule. Just make it up. We had a chart for what HP range, to-hit range, and average damage, a creature should have when coming up against us at a given level, and just used that to quick-and-dirty sketch enemies and other NPCs.

I'm not saying it's not something that could use fleshing out and possibly a chapter or two in a book to really work well for new players, but we didn't have to change any of DnD's rules to do it.

 

[Manbearcat]

To be fair, I don't think I've ever seen a sim enthusiast claim that DnD is very flexible.

I don't know about this to be honest with you (my "I don't know here" not being objection...but being literal...I don't feel confident either way).

I've been involved in a lot of conversations (even recently) that are all over the map in terms of people who claim to be sim enthusiasts who say a lot of patently "not-sim-things" either because (a) they're unfortunately ignorant as to how a thing actually works (eg they've internalized a mental model that is just not correct...it smuggles in stuff from media or their own unexamined life experience or a bad heuristic or something) or (b) they're philosophically or cognitively disinclined to believe the present scientifically understood reality about a phenomena (eg "actual agency" vs "perceived agency") or (c) their status as "sim enthusiasts" is on shifting grounds (despite their protests to the contrary) and they really mean "I'm a sim enthusiast when it pleases me to be...but 'eff all that noise' when it competes with another priority that I have."

The only thing I know is that (a) + (b) + (c) makes conversations around these kinds of things incredibly fraught. It becomes particularly fraught when someone is brashly assertive about something that they're fundamentally wrong about. I have no clue how people on here perceive me (probably a lot of you think I'm an aggressive jerk), but my actual instinct is to be kind. But I honestly have no idea how to move someone off of their flawed mental model (when they are brashly and assertively wrong about something - eg how the intricacies of a person's neurological loop is the primary causal factor in their ability to get their body to suddenly and correctly respond to spatial relationships) without (a) putting a lot of word count into it and therefore (b) coming off like a jerk to certain parties.

People's "ah ha" moments are different (in both frequency and how it occurs). The unfortunate reality is that these sorts of environments don't make for the sort of slow-moving exchanges underwritten by "massage people's tender egos" + 10 % what you say and 90 % how you say it dynamics. If humanity survives another 100 years, my guess is our descendants will look back upon internet forums and the like (especially social media) and declare WHAT IN THE EFF WERE THESE STUPID MONKEYS THINKING?!

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I don't know about this to be honest with you (my "I don't know here" not being objection...but being literal...I don't feel confident either way).

I've been involved in a lot of conversations (even recently) that are all over the map in terms of people who claim to be sim enthusiasts who say a lot of patently "not-sim-things" either because (a) they're unfortunately ignorant as to how a thing actually works (eg they've internalized a mental model that is just not correct...it smuggles in stuff from media or their own unexamined life experience or a bad heuristic or something) or (b) they're philosophically or cognitively disinclined to believe the present scientifically understood reality about a phenomena (eg "actual agency" vs "perceived agency") or (c) their status as "sim enthusiasts" is on shifting grounds (despite their protests to the contrary) and they really mean "I'm a sim enthusiast when it pleases me to be...but 'eff all that noise' when it competes with another priority that I have."

The only thing I know is that (a) + (b) + (c) makes conversations around these kinds of things incredibly fraught. It becomes particularly fraught when someone is brashly assertive about something that they're fundamentally wrong about. I have no clue how people on here perceive me (probably a lot of you think I'm an aggressive jerk), but my actual instinct is to be kind. But I honestly have no idea how to move someone off of their flawed mental model (when they are brashly and assertively wrong about something - eg how the intricacies of a person's neurological loop is the primary causal factor in their ability to get their body to suddenly and correctly respond to spatial relationships) without (a) putting a lot of word count into it and therefore (b) coming off like a jerk to certain parties.

People's "ah ha" moments are different (in both frequency and how it occurs). The unfortunate reality is that these sorts of environments don't make for the sort of slow-moving exchanges underwritten by "massage people's tender egos" + 10 % what you say and 90 % how you say it dynamics. If humanity survives another 100 years, my guess is our descendants will look back upon internet forums and the like (especially social media) and declare WHAT IN THE EFF WERE THESE STUPID MONKEYS THINKING?!

Oh for sure. Especially on the long post part. I had to take a break from this thread, and don't plan on going back on re-engaging with the main thrust of the thread, because having to respond to 4+ sets of novels by 4 different posters, only half of whom I actively enjoy interacting with, was exhausting.

But reading what I've missed so far...yeah I just have too different a set of experiences from most of the folks in this thread for it to be useful for me to try to fully engage with the thread. Nearly every claim 2 posters in particular have made about what "DnD can't do" or what "Will happen" if you try to do a given thing in dnd without "rewriting" the system just seem totally bonkers to me, not to mention how differently from eachother people define all kinds of relevant terms.