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

[Ovinomancer]

I'm referring to my reading of the way that this theoretical framework have been used in this thread, in several other related threads on this site, and in general from what I've read of forge-era theory/big model discourse online (in case I was not clear, the ability to analyze a play report is not in question, but that it seems that this analysis is about filtering varied experiences of play into baskets A, B, C, etc, all of which have been predetermined and don't seem very amenable to change).

Right, there are things in play that can be analyzed and separated, but you feel that this is being mean, or just unfair, because there's the ability to say "this is like this, and that is like that?" I mean, the rigor with which you've addressed these things and shown that it's just arbitrary binning rather than noting distinct differences in how play occur and what play prioritizes is right up there with having feelz [sic].

 

[Malmuria]

Yes, my rigid framework is that system matters. You've caught me.

What would be interesting, though, would be if you actually presented cases of importing play from DW into 5e in a coherent way that shows 5e adopting DW style play. Instead, your one example was taking Fronts and turning it into a fairly generic bad guy descriptor for driving GM plotlines at players. That this is pretty far from how it's implemented in DW seems to have escaped you?

Tracing the (ongoing) influence of DW in 5e is not a matter of saying one's 5e game can be exactly like a DW game. Rather it's saying, can aspects of basket B games influence basket A games in a way that creates areas of overlap between the categories? But if the categories have very rigid boundaries that is not going to be possible.

 

[Ovinomancer]

Tracing the (ongoing) influence of DW in 5e is not a matter of saying one's 5e game can be exactly like a DW game. Rather it's saying, can aspects of basket B games influence basket A games in a way that creates areas of overlap between the categories? But if the categories have very rigid boundaries that is not going to be possible.

What is that overlap! Whence does it come from? Do some of the work, here!

 

[Malmuria]

Right, there are things in play that can be analyzed and separated, but you feel that this is being mean, or just unfair, because there's the ability to say "this is like this, and that is like that?" I mean, the rigor with which you've addressed these things and shown that it's just arbitrary binning rather than noting distinct differences in how play occur and what play prioritizes is right up there with having feelz [sic].

I can see how it can be extraordinarily useful...if you buy into the framework. It's especially useful if you want to run a "story-now" game, because it does a lot of work to zero-in on that particular playstyle. But it does strike me as a closed system that does not admit overlap between its categories (at least in the way that I've seen articulated) and that becomes self-referential. I mentioned upthread one thing I liked about that "six cultures of play" article was that it was open: it admitted overlap between the styles, showed how they influenced each other (positively and negatively) and left itself open to there being a 7th or 8th culture of play. As someone else phrased it, descriptive rather than prescriptive.

 

[Malmuria]

What is that overlap! Whence does it come from? Do some of the work, here!

What I have already said? Taking aspects of one game and letting it influence another. Thinking about "failing forward," or "thinking offscreen," and adapting it to a 5e context. Or, let's say you adapted the mechanics around "load" from BitD to 5e. That seems doable (and in fact I think some classes have features where they can create certain kinds of items). Would it serve the same function in a typical 5e game? No, but it would change one facet of the game in ways that seem meaningfully different that default 5e play (in which you write down your equipment beforehand).

 

[prabe]

I think the GM in PbtA-type play has a crucial role in pacing things, by the choice of how to manage the soft move/hard move sequence. And upthread I already quoted the BW rules text that expressly discusses the GM's responsibilities for managing pacing.

In my (very limited) experience of PbtA play, there is no management of the soft move/hard move sequence. There is just the dice running hot and cold, and the GM taking advantage of what moments the dice allow them.

I recognize that my notoriously peculiar dice luck may play a role in my experience and my understanding.

What sorts of things does the GM make happen? Until we start to talk about that, we can't even describe the difference between a "living sandbox" and the DL modules (which also require the GM to make things happen in response to what the players are doing).

I figure in a "living sandbox" it means something (player action, random table result, some mechanic that translates roughly to "the world takes a turn") has come up, and the GM has an opportunity to move pieces of some sort, and there will be dice hitting the table. It's not my bag, from either side of the screen, so I'm probably not the best-qualified interlocutor for you in this. Since I've never read or played anything Dragonlance (other than the 1E setting book) I really can't be your huckleberry for that, either.

 

[Ovinomancer]

I'd like to hear how you do that, even with some examples, if you want.

As an aside, I'm also curious about players' self-authored quests, how did they work in 4e.

Sure, although I'm talking 5e, so I'm not going to speak to player authored quests much in the context of how they work in 4e.

So, using a situation-framed or fiction-first skill challenge is a matter of taking a question (and I made these questions the players wanted answered) and then framing in a dramatic situation in front of the players. The example I'll use is one where a PC had received information that their character background nemesis was operating in Sigil. The PC wanted to find this nemesis. So this was the question -- is the nemesis findable in Sigil at the moment?

I started by framing the situation that the initial source was located at a forgeworks with the situation being that the nemesis is a scary person and people do not like to talk about them at all. So the first situation was "how do we get this forgeworker to spill beans?" Since this is a skill challenge, and so has a framework (I was using 6 successes before 3 failures), the overall question cannot be answered at this point, but progress towards it can be. The players engaged the forgeworker with empathy and diplomacy, so I called for a CHA check and the players opted to use Persuasion. They succeeded, so the forgeworker advised them that he had heard that the nemesis was staying in a particular part of town, but couldn't narrow it down. The PCs left, and we cut to the next scene, which was them telling me that they wanted to ask around the locals to see if they could narrow down where the nemesis was staying. This one was a roaring success because one PC, who was a pit fighter of some reknown in Sigil, leveraged his fame with the people to find out that there was a local labor boss, the Butcher (he was an actual butcher), who knew everything in the 'hood and could be found in a local pub. So 3 successes (the leveraging of fame was an additional success in this scene -- it was well done), no failures, off to a great start! The PCs entered the pub, and discovered the Butcher was a massive demon, wearing a butcher's apron stained with blood, and carrying a massive cleaver at his side, currently sitting across three stools at the bar. The PCs approached, and tried to extract information using persuasion again. This check failed. The Butcher rebuffed their attempts at conversation and told them to shove off. Not wanting to take no for an answer, the pit fighter PC tried to intimidate the Butcher, and failed AGAIN! Uh-oh, 2 failures, and now the entire thing is at risk. This time, the Butcher didn't move or react, but the entire bar stood up and squared off at the pit fighter PC, who immediately backed down (he didn't want to have to possibly kill innocents). The other PC tried to figure out if there was something that could be used to defuse the situation and open conversation, and succeeded at an Insight check to notice that, behind the bar, there were numerous plaques all thanking the Butcher for it's service to the community and were clearly in a place of pride. Using this information, the PC attempted to appear to the Butcher's sense of community, and made an argument that the nemesis was bad for everyone and they just wanted to try and remove him as a threat. This worked, and we were 5/2 on the challenge. The Butcher opened up and said that the nemesis had indeed been operating in the area, and that the Butcher himself had to deliver multiple large orders that completely disrupted normal trade, costing him coin and hurting customers, but that he was too afraid to refuse (again, massive demon). This led to a final check to get the exact location, but this check failed, causing an overall failure. The overall question was "could we find the nemesis in Sigil?" That answer was now no. The Butcher sighed and said that the nemesis pulled up stakes and left the city the day prior, but he would provide the location the nemesis was operating out of. The PCs got some information, and had a followup location (failing forward) that might provide additional stuff, but they failed to get what they really wanted -- to find and confront the nemesis.

All of this was framed and followed in play. I had none of it prepped. The only backstory element that went into it was my determination, from the details of the PC's backstory (this nemesis destroyed his clan), that the threat level of the nemesis was high, hence the reluctance to talk about him and the Butcher's being afraid of him. There was also some setting details (the forge was one of the faction bases, I can't remember off the top of my head which) and the neighborhood names.

 

[FrogReaver]

Some of this seems contradictory.

You say that the players put things in front of themselves. You also say that the GM uses machinery to create the world. I'm not sure how both these things can be true.

I've gave the same explanation about 5 times now. Shall we go for a 6th?

And some of it just seems false. Mightn't it affect the play experience quite a bit if I as a player decide that my PC has a murdered brother whom I hope to avenge or if the GM decides that my PC has a murdered brother?

And even if I just focus on GM-authored fiction: if the GM decides the outcomes of action declarations based on what they think makes sense, won't that change the play experience compared to leaning heavily into stat/skill checks?

And if the GM decides outcomes based on working from their notes, won't that change the play experience compared to them departing from their notes and making things up in order to manage pacing and avoid stalling and dullness. (This is something @Crimson Longinus advocated upthread. The reason for the advocacy appeared to be the effect it would have on the play experience.)

All these questions seem to be honing in that when the fiction changes that the play experience changes and that's absolutely true.

But I think we've got to be careful in conflating potential changes in fiction impacting the play experience with the method that fiction was generated impacting the play experience.

But even then method of fiction generation impacting play experience doesn't yield itself to being revealed via play excerpts
1) If one method can generate fiction the other cannot then method impacts play experience
2) If one method generates fictional outputs in a different distribution than another then that would impact play experience.

Such insights would never be able to arise from examining a few post play excerpts because they don't depend on what happened but rather what could have happened.

Now what I've just described is how I have GMed living world sandboxes, and how I've always understood others to do so too. The only thing that makes me hesitate is that it is so obviously different from what I've described in my BW play, and yet upthread you asserted that BW play and living sandbox play were very similar.

So my window into BW play is your excerpts and descriptions of it. That your excerpts produced something that seemed very similar to living sandbox play implies 2 things to me, 1) play excerpts don't do that games play experience justice and 2) those short play excerpts share alot of similarities with living sandbox play (at least based solely on the excerpts provided).

 

[Ovinomancer]

I can see how it can be extraordinarily useful...if you buy into the framework. It's especially useful if you want to run a "story-now" game, because it does a lot of work to zero-in on that particular playstyle. But it does strike me as a closed system that does not admit overlap between its categories (at least in the way that I've seen articulated) and that becomes self-referential. I mentioned upthread one thing I liked about that "six cultures of play" article was that it was open: it admitted overlap between the styles, showed how they influenced each other (positively and negatively) and left itself open to there being a 7th or 8th culture of play. As someone else phrased it, descriptive rather than prescriptive.

I'm sorry, but you seem to have a large mistake in your assumptions. There's nothing in my "framework" that precludes other things from adding additional distinctions, and I happen to really like the Cultures of Gaming article -- it provides distinct and clear difference in the objectives and means of play for the categories. There's not a single thing I've said or advanced that precludes this, or precludes other distinctions. The topic of the thread is authorities in play, and that's a primary point of distinction between Story Now and many other cultures of play form that article. In fact, of all of them, it's really just Story Now and Nordic LARP that deviate from the authority over backstory and framing that's common to the others. So, in this thread, on this topic, I, and others, have been discussing from that point of view. I have repeated offered discussion on the other types of play and how they stack up and differ from each other. But one thing common to Classic, Trad, Neotrad, and OSR play is the framing by backstory-first principles. And, if you look at how games developed, this makes quite a lot of sense.

So, yeah, it seems you're arguing the one point about how backstory-first differs from situation-first play and expanding that further than anyone advocating it has pushed it.

What I have already said? Taking aspects of one game and letting it influence another. Thinking about "failing forward," or "thinking offscreen," and adapting it to a 5e context. Or, let's say you adapted the mechanics around "load" from BitD to 5e. That seems doable (and in fact I think some classes have features where they can create certain kinds of items). Would it serve the same function in a typical 5e game? No, but it would change one facet of the game in ways that seem meaningfully different that default 5e play (in which you write down your equipment beforehand).

Failing forward is something that's been around for a long time, and has previously featured in D&D before DW was even a thing (ie, 4e, although it goes back a bit into some discussions around 3e as well). Thinking offscreen is the primary mode of GM play in D&D, so I don't see how that's being borrowed from DW. Heck, we're told all the time about GM solo play being used to bring the setting to life in living world sandboxes. This didn't come from DW, as I saw (and did) that back in the late 80's, and certainly all through the 90's and aughts with 1e, 2e, and 3e play.

No, you haven't actually put forth a single example of pulling something unique to DW play into 5e. I think it's because you don't know what DW play actually looks like, so all you can do is grasp at terms that you imagine to be a way and suggest that this is DW leaking into 5e. It's not.

When I first made the shift over to thinking how you have to to play/run Blades in the Dark (my first Story Now game), I loved it and thought, "self, you could totally pull this naughty word into 5e and make it better!" So, I tried. I am not a slouch or an idiot, but I rapidly found I couldn't make it work without just fiating all kinds of things. 5e lacked the necessary framework to make sense of the core play of Blades. Or any PbtA game, as I went on to learn. It doesn't really work, at all, because system matters and these are different systems. That's not just a mechanics thing, although that's part of it, but 5e and Blades have different goals of play. They're not even really pointed in the same direction, much less work the same ways! So, I quickly abandoned these attempts. Instead, I play 5e for 5e, for what that system does and how it does it. If I want a different thing, I look for a system that supports it. I love 5e, but I have no need to try to make it do anything and everything, nor is my identity so wrapped up as a 5e supporter that I can't admit it's not the perfect vehicle for anything, if just for want of the right house rules.

So, the arguments you're making really smell like a need to defend 5e from a perceived attack -- to ensure that 5e comes out on top and wins the war and it the thing. Okay, I don't know why that's important, but it's definitely hampering the ability to actually analyze what's going on in play because there's a need for 5e to not show any lack. Personally, my 5e has gotten much better now that I lean into the system for what it is and know where the potholes are so I can steer around them. My Blades has gotten better for the same reasons -- knowing the potholes of a system, and where the road maintenance ends, is super duper helpful. But, if you're investing in 5e as a matter of identity, this will be a hard thing to do.

 

[FrogReaver]

OK. Having said this, now reconsider the contrast between "backstory first" and "situation first"!

Why would me stating my preferences have anything to do with contrasting backstory first and situation first?