D&D General Railroads, Illusionism, and Participationism

[Crimson Longinus]

It's probably because you mistook the constraint on the GM on how they authored things for a statement that the player does. Spout Lore means the player gets to ask a question about something -- and they can ask nearly anything -- and a hit binds the GM to tell the player something useful -- useful to the character, mind -- about that thing. This gets to the player having control because they can ask about something not yet mentioned -- a forge, say -- and on a hit the GM has to give useful information about that question to the player. "There is no such Forge" is not useful information, that's blocking the question. So, without authoring the information, Spout Lore let's the player both insist the GM author information AND provides constraints how that information is to be authored and what content it can contain.

This is an entirely alien idea to Trad play, and it's hard to get your head wrapped around it because it first requires understanding the low/no myth approach to play.

It seems I understand it just fine. In this instance the player asking about the forge causes the forge to be written into existence. This is the thing @pemerton insisted is not happening.

 

[FrozenNorth]

I don't have numbers to hand, but it seems clear that 5e exists primarily to allow WotC to sell hardcover adventures, in roughly the same way that Pathfinder exists to allow Paizo to sell Adventure Paths.

I don’t think this is the case. It seems to me that the 5e big sellers are the Player Options books, like PHB and Xanathar’s, not Curse of Strahd or Wild by Witchlight.

The main reason Paizo can get away with mainly making money from APs is that they have a subscription model for their adventures (unlike 5e). Paizo also puts all of character options online for free (unlike 5e). If the point for Hasbro was to sell Hardcover adventures, why wouldn’t they do the same?

 

[pemerton]

It honestly didn't occur to me that a GM wouldn't. I mean, if the players have set goals for their characters (which is what those Quest mechanics seem to be about) they've explicitly told the GM what they want, what they're interested in, what they'll engage with. Ignoring that just seems like bad GMing to me.

Well, I don't know if it's bad GMing. Obviously it's different from my own approach; but I've read plenty of posts on these boards where GMs have said that they wouldn't necessarily make player-established goals for their PCs a focus of play, nor ensure that the fiction makes it possible for such goals to be achieved.

 

[Ovinomancer]

When @Campbell talks about RPGing that is not adventuring, he's talking about RPGing which focuses on the everyday lives of the protagonists in their homes, interacting with the friends and family and neighbours and rivals. He's not talking about free roleplay in between the action. The non-adventuring stuff is the action.

The fact that it's not adventuring doesn't necessarily mean that it's not exciting.

There can also be play that does not involve the PCs in their homes, but is not adventuring. In my jointly GMed BW game, our PCs didn't adventure. Our PCs tried (and largely failed) to establish a basic footing for themselves in Hardby.

I think he means play that's associated with the "adventure," ie, going out into the wilds to find a ruin or dungeon and doing that thing, or going on an adventure to get the macguffin, or the like. Play that's focused on social interactions, manipulation, gang war, doing crime, etc, is all not like "adventures" but also not focused on home life. It's the "I'm a character doing my thing in this world, whatever that happens be." It could be hunting human cattle as a vampire, or dealing with the curse of being a werewolf, or being a thug collecting for the mob, or any number of things that don't qualify as "adventures" because you aren't going there for a purpose.

 

[FrozenNorth]

What about the lattermost category - of having the GM build encounters, setting etc to enable a player to pursue his/her PC's goal?

That has always been doable in both traditional D&D and in APs.

“Hey, my character has a burning desire to avenge his father” or “My character want to recover his family’s ancestral sword”.

The DM makes a quest for the player to do that.

I don’t see the difference between 4e and 5e in this respect?

 

[Crimson Longinus]

I have often hard time following @Campbell as they use certain words in far more limited and specific manner than I would understand them. I think that is the case with 'adventuring'.

 

[pemerton]

That's not how I recall it happening in those examples. Unfortunately I am probably unable to find them in again in this giant thread.

Here is @Manbearcat's post about the Forge:

For instance, the Wizard might say "I believe there is an ancient dwarven forge nearby that we can use to repair the Paladin's ruined armor."

2) When you do it, you do it and AW games so we roll Spout Lore because the trigger is up. Here are some possible results per principally guided DW GMing.

10+ (Interesting and Useful) - "The legend says the forge is in a dugout notched under the glacier near Camp 2. It is ever-burning so where there is meltwater, you will find the forge."

7-9 (Interesting) - "The legend says the forge is in a dugout notched under the glacier near Camp 2."

6- (Its there but here is some further suckitude to frame a decision-point as well) - "The legend says the forge is in a dugout notched under the glacier near Camp 2. The fires of the forge were quenched long, long ago...as were the lives of the dwarves who worked it. Whatever did the quenching likely still lurks within."

This is exactly parallel to the 4e rulebooks comments about player-authored quests: the GM is using their authority to introduce content that speaks to the player-authored PC goal. But unlike a 4e player-authored quest, it is not just "say yes". Rather, the GM makes it a good "yes" or a complicate "yes" or a bad "yes" depending on how the check goes.

It seems I understand it just fine. In this instance the player asking about the forge causes the forge to be written into existence. This is the thing @pemerton insisted is not happening.

Huh? The player makes a suggestion; the GM uses their authority. That is not a "narrative level" mechanic. It's not a mechanic at all!

As I've said, it's no different (in basic process) from 4e's player-authored quests.

 

[Ovinomancer]

It seems I understand it just fine. In this instance the player asking about the forge causes the forge to be written into existence. This is the thing @pemerton insisted is not happening.

The question was about who has authority to author the fiction. The player does not have the authority to do this. You can see this because on a miss the GM can very easily say that there was no forge, or the forge exists elsewhere in a distant, but similar, location, or that the forge was there but is destroyed (which was in the example) or any number of things. The player, in asking the question, does not cause the forge to be in existence. Rather, the move is about how constrained the GM is in answering this question. On a hit (10+), very constrained, in that they cannot block the question by denying it. Nor can they deny it on a 7-9. They can deny it on a 6-. If the GM can deny the Forge, then the player does not have this authority.

On a hit, because the GM is constrained from blocking, it appears that the player forces the Forge into existence, but this is, again, a take based on an understanding of the game fiction that's very Trad -- things that aren't detailed by the GM do not exist. The thing is that in these games it's trivial if the GM does decide to add things -- like in a D&D game if the GM offers a Forge there's no issues at all! So, then, it's not the creation of the Forge, but why it's created that's the issue. We've already solved the problem of Forges being created from whole cloth because the fabric of the fiction is infinitely weaveable prior to introduction to play. Rather, you're having an issue of constraining the GM in the weaving of that fabric, but not that Forges can be made to suddenly exist.

 

[Ovinomancer]

I have often hard time following @Campbell as they use certain words in far more limited and specific manner than I would understand them. I think that is the case with 'adventuring'.

Okay, what do you imagine when you think of going on an adventure? I think that @Campbell is quite correctly using this word naturally -- ie, as natural language -- and not in the game specific manner of D&D that play is about the adventure, so any play is an adventure by proxy. That's the use of the word in the more specific manner.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Here is @Manbearcat's post about the Forge:

This is exactly parallel to the 4e rulebooks comments about player-authored quests: the GM is using their authority to introduce content that speaks to the player-authored PC goal. But unlike a 4e player-authored quest, it is not just "say yes". Rather, the GM makes it a good "yes" or a complicate "yes" or a bad "yes" depending on how the check goes.

Huh? The player makes a suggestion; the GM uses their authority. That is not a "narrative level" mechanic. It's not a mechanic at all!

As I've said, it's no different (in basic process) from 4e's player-authored quests.

If the GM cannot refuse, it is not just a suggestion!