D&D General Railroads, Illusionism, and Participationism

[Maxperson]

'Yes I no longer have any money, a house, or my two front teeth but that game of poker sure was a blast! Let's call it a draw'

And now you're conflating traditional games with RPGs.

Anyway, let's explore this conflation a bit. So you lost the hand of poker. It had an actual lose condition and you hit it. You lost at poker. Now to the rest. You no longer have money, a house or two teeth. That's not poker. That's the game of life. The loss of the house, money and teeth are not a lose condition for the game of life. Life continues on and you can get more money, another house and replace the teeth with implants, hopefully wiser than before and aren't play any more poker.

 

[soviet]

Are you saying that the word has a different definition when applied to RPGs?

 

[Helpful NPC Thom]

This feels like trying to keep your assertion that skilled play in 5e is char-op and combat tactics (because that's where the majority of the rules are) and can't exist in the rest because it's GM decides, while giving a nod to avoid argument. I'm not interested in arguments that are made, and when challenged are just given a YMMV tag to dismiss the challenge. You have dismissed skilled play in 5e with some rather strong statements. I am challenging that, not at a preference level, but with specific counterarguments that detail approaches that are expected even in the printed adventures, and clearly expected in many claims of play approach within 5e (most sandbox play involves a healthy dose of skilled play as I've presented it).

Heck, even in B/X skilled play was about half managing the mechanics and resources of the game and half engaging with and smartly using the fiction established. 5e is not really different, except it's moved a lot of the mechanical management from hard coded to soft coded on the GM. Leveraging the fiction provided is still skilled play.

I can provide moments in the 5e game I play in where I attempted skilled play and it failed due to GM fiat, so that's definitely a thing. But that doesn't removed skilled play, nor does it prevent a principled approach to enable in as a GM from existing (and this describes a number of my games as GM in 5e).

I'm not interested in "arguing" anything, but I'm even less interested in arguing something that is entirely subjective and determined by the GM's whimsy. Manipulating a rest schedule to maximize resources before a battle uses the game's system. Doing a funny bit, making the GM laugh, and getting an Inspiration for your troubles is external to the system, and I'd be hard-pressed to include it under the umbrella under "skillful play," but it falls under the same gameplay style of GM manipulation to generate a desirable outcome.

 

[Ovinomancer]

I'm not interested in "arguing" anything, but I'm even less interested in arguing something that is entirely subjective and determined by the GM's whimsy. Manipulating a rest schedule to maximize resources before a battle uses the game's system. Doing a funny bit, making the GM laugh, and getting an Inspiration for your troubles is external to the system, and I'd be hard-pressed to include it under the umbrella under "skillful play," but it falls under the same gameplay style of GM manipulation to generate a desirable outcome.

You're making an argument right now. This is a discussion, where we advance arguments and make counter arguments. I'm using the formal use of argument here to represent an idea or concept that is being advanced and tested in discussion.

How do you manipulate the rest schedule without engaging the GM? Further, the example of getting Inspiration is actually part and parcel of the Inspiration rules and not external to the game. It's also not falling under the definition of skilled play unless gaining Inspiration is a goal of play.

 

[Helpful NPC Thom]

@Ovinomancer, the rest schedule is a matter of mechanical definition: we are resting for 60 minutes to gain the benefits of a short rest. It doesn't rely on gaming the GM in the way that verbalizing an idea so that the GM perceives it favorably. Likewise, my point with the Inspiration example is that the procedures for awarding Inspiration are so ill-defined as to render objectivity impossible (even though spending Inspiration intelligently is a part of skillful 5e play). In Fate, gaining and spending Fate points has procedures that allow for skillful players to accumulate Fate points and expend them to accomplish their goals--there is a reduced element of "GM-playing" as part of that.

 

[Ovinomancer]

@Ovinomancer, the rest schedule is a matter of mechanical definition: we are resting for 60 minutes to gain the benefits of a short rest. It doesn't rely on gaming the GM in the way that verbalizing an idea so that the GM perceives it favorably. Likewise, my point with the Inspiration example is that the procedures for awarding Inspiration are so ill-defined as to render objectivity impossible (even though spending Inspiration intelligently is a part of skillful 5e play). In Fate, gaining and spending Fate points has procedures that allow for skillful players to accumulate Fate points and expend them to accomplish their goals--there is a reduced element of "GM-playing" as part of that.

Oh, I violently disagree about rests not being exactly as reliant on the GM allowing is as Inspiration. The GM can block a rest any way they want, or allow one even if it makes little sense if that's what they want. The argument that you actually have mechanical control over rests because there's more definition to it seems very badly made to me. Both are at the whim of the GM. Both can be easily codified in table-facing principled play to not be subject to that whim.

 

[pemerton]

I definitely agree that losing can still be fun though!

So much this! When I play games - be they board games, or card games, or the extremely infrequent athletic contest (eg backyard cricket) - I often lose. Yet I mostly enjoy myself and have fun. (That's why I keep doing it!)

 

[pemerton]

Players can win or lose a combat or succeed or fail at the end of a scenario but I don't see how the game as a whole can be won. Maybe having a distinct end to a campaign? But in all my years playing RPGs, I've never heard players sit back and say, "Yay, we beat the game" like we do with Pandemic or Marvel Champions.

You can certainly lose the game, by having your characters killed. I agree you can't really win the game in the definitive way that you put it, like beating a computer game, with the exception of finishing a particular adventure or campaign. But you can certainly be in a state of winning- levelling up, succeeding at your goals, receiving treasure - that doesn't necessarily ever end.

I've never heard a player sit back and say, "Yay, we beat backgammon!" or "Yay, we beat five hundred!" The notion of "beating the game" is closer, at least in this way, to solving a crossword or a maze.

In five hundred one can win a trick, a hand, or a game/round (the latter only if scores are being kept), but not the game as such. And there is no limit on play - ie how many hands can be dealt and played - other than physical exhaustion or the university campus centre shutting down for the night!

In the case of RPGs it's clearly not customary to talk of winning or losing, but I think RPGs often (not always) establish implicit success conditions - ie goals that everyone at the table is orienting play around, like eg recovering the stolen weapons from White Plume Mountain. While it's not typical to refer to those goals as win conditions, I don't see that anything is lost by doing so, and to some extent I think it can help clarify things. Eg if a group of players cheerfully talk about those being their win conditions, while the GM of the group is insisting that when they GM there is neither winning nor losing, I would suspect that there are going to be culture clashes at that table!

 

[pemerton]

Let's go back to his example, "if my character kills the Dark Lord through luck and clever tactics, and as a result rescues their loved ones, saves the kingdom, gains three levels, and finds a vorpal sword +3... that is called winning the game. The game is literally rewarding me for my efforts and successes."

What exactly was Soviet rewarded with? It wasn't a vorpal sword. He can't go out into his back yard and cut a tree down with it snicker snack. He didn't get any levels, nor saved any loved ones or a kingdom. Those are all imaginary things that don't exist outside in the real world. In the real world all he personally received was enjoyment(Presumably. It could have been a boring, unsatisfying fight) from his imaginary PCs getting some imaginary things.

This makes no sense.

If @soviet wins a game of chess against me, what do they get? Nothing but the pleasure of having bested a bad chess player.

If @soviet has the high score on the campus Pac-Man machine, what does soviet get? Nothing but the kudos of having the high score.

If @soviet succeeds in a D&D game, and their PC gains a vorpal sword, what does soviet get? Nothing but the pleasure of having been good (or lucky) in their D&D play, together with whatever kudos might accompany that.

 

[Lanefan]

You are the one who seems to be bringing the rigidity! A dangerous precedent? Some of us call it playing the game.

@Lyxen is right, however, in one thing: your ruling of "teleporting while grappled brings the grappler along with you" very much sets a precedent.

The players now have a right to expect that teleportation in that campaign is going to work that way every time.

Failing that, at the very least they have the right to be able to try to learn the in-fiction logic behind why it works that way sometimes but not others. (e.g. if the teleporter is bearing the entire weight of the grappler then both go [the grappler counts as a "carried item"], if the grappler is bearing his own weight then no, and a grappler can use this knowledge [once learned] to try to leap onto someone's back if imminent teleportation is suspected)

And once that logic is learned, the ruling needs to go into the spell's permanent write-up. (and yes, this means that over the long run a DM might end up augmenting the write-ups of - or completely rewriting - half the spells in the book; so be it)