D&D General Railroads, Illusionism, and Participationism

[Ovinomancer]

I'm not playing this game with you Ovinomancer. You're clearly interested in denying you've done this in the past, and if you consider it an ad hominem then you're too oblivious to your behavior in this area to be usefully engaged on that. If you want to get outraged about it, get outraged; by all means feel free to report me.

Right, you could have just clipped the last part and saved some time -- I'm just a bad person. I do like the new vague accusation of "you've done this in the past!" where the charge is both nebulous and the evidence non-existent. It's a nice touch in the "you're a bad person" argument.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Right, you could have just clipped the last part and saved some time -- I'm just a bad person. I do like the new vague accusation of "you've done this in the past!" where the charge is both nebulous and the evidence non-existent. It's a nice touch in the "you're a bad person" argument.

I don't think you're probably bad person for that, just oblivious. But right now I think you're being thoroughly disingenuous, and I'm done with you.

 

[Ovinomancer]

I don't think you're probably bad person for that, just oblivious. But right now I think you're being thoroughly disingenuous, and I'm done with you.

Bad person, very clear. It's impossible that I'm an honest interlocutor and curious explorer of the game, because, well, I say things you disagree with or I don't show enough deference to the biggest, most successful game on the market and pitch all ideas in ways that are safe and coddling to the fanbase. That I can both be a fan of the game and critical of it. No, it must be that I'm a bad person and disingenuous.

Sigh. I mean, I expect this kind of response, it's normal and natural to other people that challenge the in-group even a little, but it's still disheartening.

 

[Thomas Shey]

And the fact you seem to think I'm part of the D&D in-group (a game I've indicated any number of times that I have zero interest in) is a pretty good indicator why I think you're either being oblivious or disingenuous.

 

[Cadence]

Posted this to @Ovinomancer above. Throwing it out to @pemerton too.

I had asked.

Is this correct?

That particular area had no forge related narration. The character recalls a forge is in the area. On a good enough roll the players memory is correct and a forge is there. On a mediocre roll the DM gives a mediocre result like there was a forge but not now or it's somewhere else or it's a silversmith, and on a failure the PC was confused?

Reading the posts since it sounds like the DM does not need to put a forge in the area on a good enough roll, but needs to give something relevant to the memory that's helpful? So the DM could decline to put a forge in, say if the area was one a forge wouldn't be in because it had been established as having been uninhabited already? Are there other reasons they could decline to put a forge in besides previously established fact?

There was a previous thread for a game that I think was the player searching for a secret door instead of remembering a forge that used a similar mechanic. Does that sound familiar?

 

[Thomas Shey]

Posted this to @Ovinomancer above. Throwing it out to @pemerton too.

I had asked.


Reading the posts since it sounds like the DM does not need to put a forge in the area on a good enough roll, but needs to give something relevant to the memory that's helpful? So the DM could decline to put a forge in, say if the area was one a forge wouldn't be in because it had been established as having been uninhabited already? Are there other reasons they could decline to put a forge in besides previously established fact?

There was a previous thread for a game that I think was the player searching for a secret door instead of remembering a forge that used a similar mechanic. Does that sound familiar?

I think, if I understand how the mechanic in PbtA works in this regard is the sticking point is that the GM is required to do some sort of answer that is "useful" (which given the general dynamic, probably means that it actually moves the story in some fashion rather than leaving its state fundamentally the same as before the question was asked). So the question turns on "is there an answer that is useful that does not, in practice, create a forge in the area?" I suspect there's a variety of responses that could be made to that, but often the easiest one is just to put in a damned forge somewhere.

So, over and above the not-entirely-relevant die roll issue, it turns on whether that is or isn't (in practice) the player forcing the GM to either put a forge in or come up with some forge-related answer that's still useful, as "there's no forge" isn't likely to be so. The answer to that question is apparently in the eye of the beholder.

 

[Ovinomancer]

Posted this to @Ovinomancer above. Throwing it out to @pemerton too.

I had asked.


Reading the posts since it sounds like the DM does not need to put a forge in the area on a good enough roll, but needs to give something relevant to the memory that's helpful? So the DM could decline to put a forge in, say if the area was one a forge wouldn't be in because it had been established as having been uninhabited already? Are there other reasons they could decline to put a forge in besides previously established fact?

There was a previous thread for a game that I think was the player searching for a secret door instead of remembering a forge that used a similar mechanic. Does that sound familiar?

Those seem like weak denials, and I'd suggest that the principles of play would dissuade their use. The question is about recalling information about a forge. On a hit, this information must be useful to the character. Recalling that there is no such forge is not very useful to them. Now, sidebar, if there is already established fiction that would bar the fiction of a forge, then that needs to be honored, but this would then no trigger the move -- the answer is already answered. This can't be secret -- the GM can't have decided this themselves and not introduced it into play yet -- but has to rely on what the play has already established. It's quite possible for the player to ask a question like this that has been answered, and the proper response here is to point that out and let the player reframe their action.

Continuing down your line of questions, there could be an answer that the GM could offer that is both answering the question and useful to the PC that might not include a forge. This question is fairly narrow, though, so I'm not really seeing an easy example that would make it so in this case. I don't deny one could exist. It seems that the GM has to answer the question which is about the forge and that the answer must be useful to the PC. Aside from something like "not a Forge, but a Smithy" really jumps at me here.

And yes, this is somewhat similar to the secret door example, but the specific implementation in a specific game will alter how it works. In general, the idea that the player would try to recall if a secret door was here very much should trigger a Spout Lore (looking for one would be Discern Realities) move in DW, and the GM will have to answer that question.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

And it seems some pay more attention to the final score while others are more interested in how it gets there.

The former are probably supporters of one of the teams involved, while the latter are simply hockey fans with no real vested interest in the outcome of this particular game - they just want to see good hockey.

It's the same with a D&D adventure. Which matters more - the end-result outcome or the intricacies of play involved in getting there?

And the answer may well depend on which side of the screen you're on: the DM is naturally going to pay more attention to the end-result outcome (as this can/will affect the ongoing campaign) while the players are more likely to pay attention to the run of play at the time and let the ongoing campaign take care of itself.

Not to get into a debate, but equating Story Now to "only caring about the result" is, um, nonsensical. I read the thread, I understand how the discussion arrived at this point, but that just makes me think that it would be better to back up and realize that the debate somehow took a bad turn into a swamp. Everyone is PLAYING, we are all concerned with play at the table! It is the QUALITY of that play which is up for discussion, or at least questions about the analytical frameworks we are using to discuss it.

I want to play a game where the trajectory of the 'story', the narrative of play, is open-ended and focuses on things that are directly engaging to me at the moment. I describe that as Story Now play. Ironically I could easily cast the contrasting form of play as the one which is fixated on ultimate outcomes! Clearly this is not a very useful way to view things . Honestly, I don't think that RPG play is very much focused on ultimate ends and large scale adventure/story structure. I don't know of any game or campaign that IME ever turned out to produce some sort of narrative that had much coherency. I mean, maybe RPGs can aspire to the level of an average comic book, where there's sort of an ongoing 'story logic' to what scenes come next, but ultimate ends? No. I don't think that varies between Story Now and Story First games, except that in the case of Story First the sequence of scenes is pre-set to a degree.

The difference seems more like what material will be engaged as the story is unfolded and generated. In a Story Now game it will definitely focus on things that players signal, in some way, that they're engaging or evoking, though the exact nature and degree of that can vary highly between games (and some Story Now games are HIGHLY constrained niche games where only a few kinds of things can normally happen without breaking the game). In Story First things rely on a prearrangement of that focus which should take place before any play is initiated. Nor do we need to debate that this is not a binary valued trait of games. You can surely run a 5e game, for example, that uses modules but where the GM consistently plans only a little bit and mostly introduces stuff because someone asked for it. That might not follow a process similar to what DW or some such game would use, but it can perhaps scratch a pretty similar itch.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Apropos of nothing else, this is a really cool variant on what is otherwise a pretty bland ability in D&D. I like it!

It could definitely be stolen and incorporated into something like 5e. Its a bit atypical of modern WotC-era D&D stuff, but TSR-D&D definitely dabbled in these sorts of things.

 

[Ovinomancer]

I think, if I understand how the mechanic in PbtA works in this regard is the sticking point is that the GM is required to do some sort of answer that is "useful" (which given the general dynamic, probably means that it actually moves the story in some fashion rather than leaving its state fundamentally the same as before the question was asked). So the question turns on "is there an answer that is useful that does not, in practice, create a forge in the area?" I suspect there's a variety of responses that could be made to that, but often the easiest one is just to put in a damned forge somewhere.

So, over and above the not-entirely-relevant die roll issue, it turns on whether that is or isn't (in practice) the player forcing the GM to either put a forge in or come up with some forge-related answer that's still useful, as "there's no forge" isn't likely to be so. The answer to that question is apparently in the eye of the beholder.

Okay, let's compare to something in 5e -- an attack declaration. The player declares an attempt to hit an orc with their sword. Is the player authoring into the fiction that the orc was struck by their sword if they get a success on the attack roll? Compare to Spout Lore.