D&D 5E Respect Mah Authoritah: Thoughts on DM and Player Authority in 5e

[Malmuria]

So, in terms of how RPGs can or should be used. Cool. Can or should RPGs be used to accomplish goals in play? Do RPG rules have any affordances to do anything other than resolve conflicts? Can conflicts exist without goals being established? Is "win condition" not a particularly inelegant synonym for goal?

One thing that always comes up are mechanics for social encounters. You have the typical session spent in a city shopping. Maybe the characters have concrete goals--things they want to buy and haggle for, or steal--but maybe for the players there is a certain pleasure in just hanging out in character. In dnd this is kind of a blank space, but I don't think that means that something about dnd doesn't afford this type of session.

(Separately, when explaining a game, or even in design, I think the connotations around particular words matter. So using a term like "win" already constrains how you are conceiving of what's happening in play)

 

[pemerton]

A term like "win condition" for me is most useful in describing games that once the conditions are met, the game is over.

Back when I was young and idle, we would sit around and deal and play hands of 500, without scoring. The game was over when someone had to go home, or go to a class. Five hundred still has win conditions.

I've played poker (very badly) until me and my friend had to go home. He had $20 that used to be mine. The game didn't go on until he'd fully cleared out my wallet and won my shirt too!

I've never played pick-up basketball at a park, but some of those games must look a bit like the above. (@Manbercat?)

This idea of "win conditions" being tied to formal matches or innings or other regulation finitude is not plausible to me.

I think that the primary difference with TRPGs is that win-lose isn't as zero-sum around the table as it is in ... Monopoly, or five hundred. If the PCs don't achieve their goals, that doesn't mean the GM won. It also doesn't mean the players didn't have fun

Yes, RPGs typically aren't zero-sum in their win-conditions - though they can be, as we all know, if played as a team competition tournament-module style. Or if played in a style similar to Diplomacy - I've never played Paranoia, but maybe some Paranoia play is a bit like that? And when I was in a club I ran a club game, using modified AD&D rules, where all the players were in the same "dungeon", in four teams, and the final "room" was the confrontation between two successful teams to see which team was the winner.

As for the ability to have fun while losing, I think that's pretty fundamental to most non-hardcore/professional game play! A lot of my boardgame play is against someone who specialises in optimisation mathematics and financial planning; back in the day, much of my MtG play was with friends who would regularly win local tournaments and make it to the pan-Pacific finals. I am used to losing!, but it doesn't mean I don't enjoy myself.

I can also enjoy solving a crossword even if there are some clues that I can't get.

 

[Maxperson]

(though rescuing the dragon might come close).

Nah.. The ungrateful buggers just end up trying to eat you. Better to rescue the princesses. At least there all you have to deal with are stingy fathers.

I think maybe the usage of "win condition" has been over-broadened in the direction of "goal." At least, as regards being useful in a discussion of whether a game can be won.

Yeah. In D&D you succeed(or fail) at goals until the campaign ends. There's no real win condition other than everyone having fun, which is an atypical way to "win."

 

[Malmuria]

Back when I was young and idle, we would sit around and deal and play hands of 500, without scoring. The game was over when someone had to go home, or go to a class. Five hundred still has win conditions.

I've played poker (very badly) until me and my friend had to go home. He had $20 that used to be mine. The game didn't go on until he'd fully cleared out my wallet and won my shirt too!

I've never played pick-up basketball at a park, but some of those games must look a bit like the above. (@Manbercat?)

This idea of "win conditions" being tied to formal matches or innings or other regulation finitude is not plausible to me.

"Let's play some tennis"
"Do you want to play a game or just hit a few balls back and forth"

Sure, both a game where you keep score and hitting a few balls back and forth count as "playing" tennis as an activity. But only the former has win conditions. Moreover, it's very clear what playing a game of tennis, with win conditions, gets me. We start keeping track of points, and call balls that are out, and there will be one winner and one loser. That's a different sort of experience than just hitting balls back in forth, which might be practice or an opportunity for physical activity of some kind, but with no winners and losers.

 

[FrogReaver]

IMO, 'win con' or 'win condition' is not a very good term for this discussion as it has a different connotation than 'winning a game'.

I think the starting point is that the rules define what is required to win.

The difference between a game and a goal
1. A game has all participants on the same page about what is required to win
2. A goal doesn't require opponents or even other teammates on the same page

This is why it's easy for a player of an individual game to modify the game into a new game with a few self imposed rules/limitations.

Game is an overloaded term
1. It refers to the abstract game rules
2. It refers to a particular match of the teams using those rules to play the game in question.

This is why discussion gets a little confusing at times

A season is not a game
1. There is no rule that defines what is required to win a season.
2. However, there can be goals for seasons. Getting to the playoffs, winning the playoffs, showing substantial improvement, etc.

Playoffs are a game
1. There are rules that define exactly what it takes to win the playoffs (fairly simple rules for most sports, win each game/match and continue to advance until all other competitors have been eliminated.

Winning your conference in a particular season is a game.
1. There are rules that define exactly what it takes to win your conference

 

[pemerton]

I think it is worth going to the dictionary here, as you appear to be arguing that I am using the word "spectrum" improperly.

Here's Merriam-Webster's definition.

Definition 1b is the relevant technical definition, and definition 2a as the relevant colloquial definition. My usage of the term "spectrum" satisfies either definition. There is no requirement that a spectrum have specific exemplars/determinates along the range, only that the range exist as a continuum of a specific characteristic (or characteristics, as in the listed example of a mass spectrum that has two dimensions: mass and charge).

The sandbox spectrum as I've defined it in this thread is a continuum of campaigns based on how the percentage of occasions on which players are expected (based on that campaigns social contract) to select their strategic choices from a list offered by the GM rather than being able to make such choices without that constraint. That easily satisfies either definition: (1b) it is a continuum resembling a color spectrum by consisting of an ordered arrangement by a particular characteristic, and (2a) it is a continuous sequence or range. For my usage of the term "spectrum" to be improper, it would need to satisfy neither definition.

Well, here we disagree.

There is no continuum. There is on continuous sequence. There is no "ordered arrangement" by reference to a particular characteristic (eg the quality, such as colour, that I mentioned).

Suppose the question is: should we erect a statue of the Pied Piper in our town park? On that there can be a spectrum of opinion, from very strong yes through the dunno, don't cares to the ardent opposition.

Suppose the question is: who should be on the statue to be erected in our town park? If most people think either it should be the Pied Piper or it should be Little Bo Peep, then in a colloquial sense we might have a spectrum of opinion - and in characterising it as such we ignore the small minority who want Robin Hood.

But if there are significant blocs of opinion who want, respectively, the Pied Piper, Little Bo Peep, Robin Hood, and Daffy Duck, then what is the spectrum? All we have is variation. But there is no continuum on which all the relevant instances can be located.

As I've said, I don't regard this as a merely pedantic point because it occurs in nearly all discussions of the distribution of authority and is used as a premise in arguments that reach false conclusions, such as that the best or indeed only way to reduce GM authority over outcomes is to move to a sandbox: without considering that authority over outcomes is related to (i) authority over backstory and (ii) the role of backstory in adjudication and in framing, in ways that are different in various sorts of non-railroaded play - with a sandbox only being one of those ways.

 

[Campbell]

I think if we want to talk about how play actually works we need to either be extremely precise that we are talking about the game's objectives or goals or use language which cannot be easily used to elide the real world causes for the fictional things.

What I like about win condition is that there is zero doubt we are talking about the player trying to achieve the game's objectives. I'm not entirely happy with it, but not sure what I would use in its place.

Aside : It would bring me immense pleasure if instead of PC people would start using player's character when they are talking about the character and player when talking about the player. This is another case where eliding happens for the purpose of getting players in the right mindset for play, but fails to do a good job of communicating what is actually going on when we sit down to play a roleplaying game.

 

[pemerton]

You have the typical session spent in a city shopping. Maybe the characters have concrete goals--things they want to buy and haggle for, or steal--but maybe for the players there is a certain pleasure in just hanging out in character. In dnd this is kind of a blank space, but I don't think that means that something about dnd doesn't afford this type of session.

"Let's play some tennis"
"Do you want to play a game or just hit a few balls back and forth"

Yes. In one of my posts, maybe one that you quoted, I mentioned some 2nd ed AD&D Planescape-y modules that resemble this:

This notion that D&D is special because we win if we have fun and there's nothing more to be said is something I find unpersuasive. That's not to say that D&D always has win conditions. For instance, in some 2nd ed Planescape-y type modules, it seems like the whole point is just for the players to "experience" the events of the module as narrated by the GM, and there's nothing they're expected to accomplish beyond that.

From the fact that some D&D play does not have win conditions, it does not follow that it never has win conditions. @chaochou already gave a number of quotes upthread, of particular 5e products stating or suggesting possible win conditions. Here are some modules that I'm familiar with that have clear win conditions: C1, C2, S1, S2, G1, G2, G3, D3, Q1. I've deliberately left out D1 and D2 because I think they are a bit more ambiguous in this respect - they serve a transition purpose, and so in a sense have no win condition beyond the most basic make it through alive.

I'm not going to state the win conditions for all of these, because they're pretty well known. But I'll quote C2 and S2:

The Ghost Tower of Inverness, p 1 (splash page): A shadow from the past, the Ghost Tower of Inverness has loomed ever larger in the mind of the great Seer of Urnst. Now he has convinced the Duke that an expedition should be organized to go to the ancient keep and recover its greatest treasure - the fabled Soul Gem.

White Plume Mountain, p 2: The former owners of Wave, Whelm and Blackrazor are outfitting a group of intrepid heroes to take up the challenge. If the adventurers can rescue the weapons from this false Keraptis . . . the wealthy collectors have promised to grant them whatever they desire, if it is within their power to do so.​

That's pretty unambiguous. And these are undoubtedly paradigms of D&D modules!

 

[hawkeyefan]

So I think there’s something interesting in here other than the semantic debate about winning RPGs.

So during play, as players are trying to achieve the goals of their characters (however those may have been determined), what do you guys think about rules/resources players can use to essentially declare success at a stated task?

How do you feel about abilities that let the player essentially say “I succeed” rather than just giving like higher chances or a bonus or something?

 

[prabe]

Yes, RPGs typically aren't zero-sum in their win-conditions - though they can be, as we all know, if played as a team competition tournament-module style. Or if played in a style similar to Diplomacy - I've never played Paranoia, but maybe some Paranoia play is a bit like that? And when I was in a club I ran a club game, using modified AD&D rules, where all the players were in the same "dungeon", in four teams, and the final "room" was the confrontation between two successful teams to see which team was the winner.

I would be inclined to say that in Paranoia the rules and the published scenarios/adventures will do a good enough job of hosing the players/characters that the GM just has to run the game as written, without being especially antagonistic. It didn't feel zero-sum to me, the couple-three times my gaming group played it, but I make no claim it can't.

The kind of tournament (ish?) play you describe is also outside my experience. I suspect I should have added a "typically" or some such in my statement about TRPGs not being zero-sum.

As for the ability to have fun while losing, I think that's pretty fundamental to most non-hardcore/professional game play! A lot of my boardgame play is against someone who specialises in optimisation mathematics and financial planning; back in the day, much of my MtG play was with friends who would regularly win local tournaments and make it to the pan-Pacific finals. I am used to losing!, but it doesn't mean I don't enjoy myself.

That sounds like some of my experiences with MtG, but ... I think the fact I was never able to feel as though I was getting better had as much to do with putting me off the game as anything else. Also ... are we talking about enjoying the time with friends or the gameplay itself? (or both?) I can enjoy losing if I enjoy the company; I can think of very few games I enjoy the play of enough to enjoy while losing if I don't (or if it's a computer thing and there is no company). (is that last clear-ish?)