D&D General Railroads, Illusionism, and Participationism

[bert1001 fka bert1000]

Badwrongfunning? Where did I once imply that people who play D&D in a certain way are somehow playing the game badly? I said that skillful play in 5e utilizes the mechanics to achieve a desired outcome. Not using these mechanics to achieve an outcome isn't "badwrong," it just isn't skillful. When I play 5e, I play unskillfully because number crunching isn't my jam. I could play more skillfully by multiclassing and (prior to Tasha's change) picking an optimal race to suit a particular class, but I have little interest in doing so.

We could call the other side to skillful play as "casual play" so as not to saddle unskilled play with conotations that unskilled players are imbeciles (although Lyxen seems to be the only one doing this).

Anyway, there might be some interesting nuggets in here about the relationship between skilled play needed vs. character based resolution but I don't think I have the patience to dig between the definitional and preference back and forth.

 

[Lanefan]

It's interesting that, right up front, you are disregarding what the books tell you, it's just plainly admitting that you want to bend the game to suit your tastes rather than following how the game is actually written.

Edit - removed mention of wrong poster - oops!

Bending the game to suit one's tastes rather than following RAW is a time-honoured tradition that goes back to the very start of D&D.

Criticizing someone for doing so probably ain't gonna fly very far in a D&D forum.

 

[Lanefan]

A player can perfectly play a fantastic game without reading the most part of the rules, without reading ANY rule actually.

Hard disagree.

A player can do so only if someone does a lot of mechanical hand-holding e.g. constant instruction on what dice to roll when, constant reminding on how spells work, etc. How is this the least bit fair to the one doing the hand-holding, never mind everyone else at the table?

There's learning curve for new players, sure. My expectation - and I don't think it's unreasonable - is that those new players will eventually get past that and have learned how play in [system in use at that table] actually works.

 

[Lanefan]

Everyone here understands each group should customize games to fit the needs of the play experience they are after. That's basic stuff. We cannot have a meaningful discussion about play techniques by obscuring the process and the aims. There's no meaningful way to tease out commonalities and differences.

Imagine you are looking for a new game to play in. You talk to a GM and ask what you can expect from play? "Fun".

This happens three times with three different GMs. How do you choose which game to play in?

Simple: if time allows I play in all three!

 

[pemerton]

As for recognition, I mean, if that's important to you then I'd check with your fellow players and ask them if they could acknowledge that for you.

<snip>

Wait, do you think skilled play is about getting kudos?

I think it can be. Obviously not from the weird ideas committee (as you noted!) but fellow game participants.

The flipside can also be gentle/friendly chiding, either from oneself or other - "bad Magic player" is a phrase I may have introduced to my current group of players having picked it up from others I played with who were also pretty serious M:tG players. Eg I'm playing 4e (as GM) and my dragon's breath weapon has recharged but I forget to use it on my turn and instead do a less effectual claw attack which allows the players (playing their PCs) to get away with something they shouldn't have - and then, after the action is resolve, I notice my misplay: "I'm a bad Magic player!" Or a player misses a combo or vulnerability on their turn - "You're a bad Magic player!"

This sort of back-and-forth has less application in mechanically lite systems.

And it has its flipside - the people I play with are pleased with themselves when they think up clever plays, be that mechanical (an important part of 4e) or in the fiction (like some of their warband tactics in Prince Valiant, or the time in 4e when they were victorious by using Parthian ranged cavalry tactics which is about fiction rather than clever power combos.)

None of this is really to disagree, just point out that, in a game, clever or bad play can be a focus of social response. It's probably not for everyone, but I'd be surprised if mine is the only table where it happens.

 

[pemerton]

Then maybe you are not playing the right edition for your tastes ?

You seem to want to do a lot of policing of other people's play. I don't really get it.

 

[pemerton]

The point of 4e Skill Challenges is that it is a non-arbitrary, multiple action resolution system.

I don't think it limits creativity in "action" much. The 4e skill system outside of combat is very broad and can accomodate all kinds of creative actions.

The resolution is limited by design as the impact of the action will be most likely resolved with a skill check (although there is advice in incorpoating powers, rituals, and auto successes for certain actions) and by design that action can't reach the goal unless it's the last success needed as the fiction will change to explain why there is some other obstacle in the way.

It's true that this is perhaps "narrower" than free form resolution where the DM just declares success at whatever point they feel warrants it. But IMO, with a group that is all on board you trade a slight decrease in creative freedom for a quantifiable challenge to the characters.

I liked your post but am not sure I agree about "narrowness" - it's true the GM has less creative/authorial freedom, but the flipside can be that the players have more, because not hostage to the GM's unconstrained opinion as to when the fiction crystallises into failure or victory.

Is there such a thing ? It cannot accomodate most of the powers of the characters (which are mostly combat orientated anyway), rituals are nice but take much too long (and resources to use). So creativity is very much limited to (mostly mundane) skill use.

Well, in my play of 4e the players used lots of powers in skill challenges. And plenty of rituals. And the rulebooks (PHB and both DMGs) all note that this is a possibility, so it's hardly as if we were off on some wild frolic of our own.

I also don't understand your remark about rituals taking too long. At the table they only take as long as it takes to declare the use and change the component tally on a PC sheet. In the fiction they normally take 10s of minutes; and in the fiction a skill challenge might be resolved within seconds or within days or anything in between.

 

[pemerton]

Roleplaying is a skill, but there is nothing within the rules of D&D that requires roleplaying. The game doesn't require roleplaying in the way it requires tracking spell slots and hit points. The game requires building a competent character who can defeat his enemies in combat to gain experience to level up to get better combat abilities to defeat his enemies in combat to level up. That's the core of the game. That people use D&D for other avenues of gameplay is immaterial to the game itself.

I think that's the trouble herein: the game of D&D and the play of D&D. It so happens that playing D&D involves us talking with funny accents to NPCs who respond with funny accents, yet that is introduced entirely outside of the game of D&D. We might as well have our chess pieces talk to each other. "Off with 'is 'ead!" shouts the white queen as she moves to take the black knight, and then the black bishop replies, "Your majesty has run afoul of the gods!" as he removes her from the game board.

The play of D&D is far more enjoyable than the game of D&D for many players (myself included) because of those elements we bring to the table, and I would hardly suggest excising them from the game, yet they're peripheral to the game's mechanics.

For me, this post raised the following question: to what extent is depiction/expression of character, in D&D, mere colour? By "colour" I mean something similar to "flavour text" in a CCG - ie although it doesn't affect the resolution, it makes the game more fun (I have a couple of LotR CCGs I enjoy playing, and I wouldn't play them if all the flavour text was stripped off and it was just "My Prowess 7 card attacks your Prowess 6 card and uses its +1 Prowess enhancer to get an augment").

In combat, I think the answer is often. The two RPGs I've played where the expression of character in combat most often actually mattered to resolution, and hence departed from being mere colour, are 4e D&D (sometimes it didn't, but sometimes it did because eg the expression of character could fold into some improvised action or not-fully-standard deployment of a power; and just as importantly, the variety of powers and how they interacted permitted players to channel their expression of PC character through those power uses in a way that chess, or AD&D, typically doesn't permit) and Prince Valiant (because bonus or penalty dice for morale-and-emotional-type factors are standard in this system).

Out of combat it's more varied, I think.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

@pemerton @Helpful NPC Thom

These things are colour/not-required in the same way than music having sound is just colour. You could just read the notes and lyrics.
But you'd basically be missing the whole bloody point of the thing.

 

[pemerton]

@pemerton @Helpful NPC Thom

These things are colour/not-required in the same way than music having sound is just colour. You could just read the notes and lyrics.
But you'd basically be missing the whole bloody point of the thing.

I'm reminded of a story I've read about Wagner - for one of his birthdays, Cosima arranged for a small orchestra to come to their house to play the Siegfried Idyll. I haven't looked up the book, but in my memory at least this was the first time Wagner had heard it played.

I think it can be easy to forget what that would be like, in a world with ready access to mechanical or electronic recordings.

I don't think that changes the question about RPGing, though: is the characterisation mere colour, or not? For instance, in 5e D&D whether or not a barbarian can enter a rage doesn't depend on whether or not the player is able to portray the character as angry, nor on whether or not it makes sense in the fiction that the barbarian should enter a rage here and now. That's mere colour.

Whereas the portrayal of a NPC as friendly, or angry, affects their starting attituded and hence the DC for subsequent CHA checks to influence them. That's not mere colour: it matters to resolution.

My own view is that the more that a RPG makes the fiction important beyond being mere colour, the more satisfying it is (everything else being held more-or-less equal). There are many different ways of doing this, of course. The example of NPC attitudes is one.

Another is illustrated by one of my favourite 4e powers, Valiant Strike: the paladin gets a bonus to hit based on the number of adjacent foes, meaning that being valiant isn't mere assertion or epiphenomenal portrayal or the sort of "technically wrong" decision that was mentioned upthread. Rather, the player's incentive aligns with the character's valiant spirit, to hurl the character into the midst of the fray.

I also love the 4e Deathlock Wight. It's not just that its visage is horrific: when it turns its gaze on you, you recoil in horror! (A push attack vs Will that also inflicts psychic damage.)

There's lot of other possibilities too, both in combat and non-combat resolution.

Flipping it around: I like Marvel Heroic RP/Cortex+ Heroic a system, and have played it a fair bit. But one frustration with it is that fiction often doesn't matter to resolution - ie remains mere colour - unless it is "mechanised" as a Distinction or Trait of some sort. So a character can't just, for instance, get a benefit to sneaking or sniping by lurking in the shadows: they have to succeed at an action to create a Lurking in the Shadows asset. This aspect of the mechanics works very smoothly in the process of play, but it can mean that the "scenery" sometimes feels a bit flat. As a GM there are steps I take to try and remedy this, following the implicit advice of some examples in the various scenarios and supplements; but there's a clear contrast with (say) Prince Valiant or Burning Wheel or AD&D or Rolemaster, where the fictional positioning just factors into resolution without needing to be "mechanised".

I believe that Fate may have a similar issue, though I don't have the play experience to be sure.