D&D General Railroads, Illusionism, and Participationism

[Ovinomancer]

So now you recognise that these are two different processes!

Um, no. Of course there are. And you can like one where the GM tells you things or one where you get some input. That wasn't the disagreement we were having was about -- that was about your insistence that Spout Lore was the player authoring things into the fiction, not whether we're dealing with a game where the GM is the source of things or not. Because, if you might recall, the player can ask the same question about the forge in a game where the GM is the primary source and the GM can give the same answers -- the difference isn't where you put it as the player authoring things into the fiction, but rather if the GM is constrained by the system in how they can generate the fiction.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Um, no. Of course there are. And you can like one where the GM tells you things or one where you get some input. That wasn't the disagreement we were having was about -- that was about your insistence that Spout Lore was the player authoring things into the fiction, not whether we're dealing with a game where the GM is the source of things or not. Because, if you might recall, the player can ask the same question about the forge in a game where the GM is the primary source and the GM can give the same answers -- the difference isn't where you put it as the player authoring things into the fiction, but rather if the GM is constrained by the system in how they can generate the fiction.

This systemic constraint is due the player action declaration. It is effectively player authoring the content.

 

[Ovinomancer]

This systemic constraint is due the player action declaration. It is effectively player authoring the content.

Just like an attack in 5e, yes?

 

[Lanefan]

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.

Gotcha. Problem is, one person's "quality" is another person's "garbage", which often renders such discussions doomed before they start.

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.

There's numerous novel series out these days that, if you squint even just a little, are clearly based on a D&D campaign either DMed or played by the author.

There's been parts embedded in a few of our campaigns that turned out to be coherent and enthralling enough that it wouldn't take much work to translate them into a narrative coherent enough to make into a novel. That said, none of us are novelists in any form* so don't hold yer breath waiting on this...

* - which I kinda regret in my case, as there's some historical stuff in my current setting I probably could turn into books if I had the talent and-or patience.

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.

That pre-setting can provide a useful common framework and, if-when done well, help keep things coherent both in the here-and-now and in hindsight even if there's no significant rails in use.

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.

I agree it's to some degree a spectrum, with branches. For example in one ongoing game I was in, at one point a player wrote an entire adventure with the specific intent of two other players' PCs (one of them mine) getting caught up in it. The DM allowed this; it was a pretty small-scale thing without any massive setting implications, and ran us through it when it made in-game sense to do so, while the author watched with glee.

Another aspect of the spectrum within the "trad" side is whether ot not - or to what extent - the DM will allow the players/PCs to do their own thing within the setting and maybe in the process make a lot of prep redundant. If the DM is flexible enough to allow this without restraint then in some ways the players can be said to be driving the story, at least for a while, even though it's a trad-style game and system.

 

[FrozenNorth]

Heck, even PF2e is a borderline case for me; I'm mostly the kind of person who plays/runs things like Savage Worlds, Fragged Empire and Mythras. I have more tolerance for the D&D sphere than I did for a couple decades, but its still far from my ideal except when I'm in just the right mood.

I’m a big fan of Savage Worlds, particularly in a less combat-heavy game.

 

[Cadence]

Just like an attack in 5e, yes?

I think I understand how it is supposed to be different in how a player embracing the system would use and visualize it, but how is it different mechanically from every player character having something like the following power?

Really Strong Bayesian Prior (aka Collapse Major Quantum Uncertainty):
The user may focus on any portion of the world that hasn't been explored in play or their background (the size of a shop or smaller), and by visualizing what they want/know/expect/remember/imagine to be there, attempt to cause it to come into being. As long as it doesn't contradict anything they or another party member has direct experience of or has in their background, it is successful on a roll of 10+. On a roll of 7-9 they are partially successful.

 

[Lanefan]

This systemic constraint is due the player action declaration. It is effectively player authoring the content.

Just like an attack in 5e, yes?

Not quite.

With the forge or secret door examples, the player is specifically trying to bring new content into the setting/situation.

With the orc the player is not trying to bring new content into the setting/situation* but is instead either proacting or reacting to content that's already in place (the orc) and is trying to change that content before that content makes any unpleasant changes to the PC!

* - unless, as per someone's suggestion upthread, a declaration of attacking an orc can cause an orc to appear; a suggestion ridiculous enough that I'm assuming it was made in jest.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

They do as I mean it.


It's this.

Does Dungeon World allow a player, or obligate them, to 'author content outside their character'? I don't think it does. Possibly the handling of session 0 is an exception, as the initial establishing process that ends with the PCs being framed into 'Scene 0' includes things like establishing backstory, and clearly nobody is in character yet. Beyond that, Dungeon World 100% absolutely demands that fiction come first, and fiction come last, and that the fiction be addressed by and to the PCs, not the players. That is, if you play as intended, once the session begins everything the player says and does is in character. Even the selection of moves is in character, as the specific move being invoked is decided by the GM based on the fictional description narrated by the player, which SHOULD be delivered in character (though its pretty common for it to include some 3rd person language at times).

So, for example, if the party is tromping through the forest and the question of what is to the west comes up, the GM might say "Throndor, what lies to the west of the forest?" and the player, AS THRONDOR, answers with whatever knowledge Throndor possesses. Now, it is true that the player might have INVENTED some or all of that knowledge on the spot, but they are still IN CHARACTER and all they 'author' is Throndor's response to a question (and the GM could and should hopefully pose it through the medium of another character, though that isn't literally stated as a necessity).

Thus, AFAIK, you are never mandated, nor asked, to be out of character at any point in DW play. AT MOST a player might reference some mechanics, "I use my +1 hold from Discern Realities on this check." I'd also note here that SKILLED PLAY EXISTS in DW in terms of both acquiring and deploying these bonuses, but it always supports RP directly.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

@pemerton Seems as though in 5e one could accomplish something like those quests by awarding XP for doing things to advance the characters' goals. Story-based leveling seems to be intending to do a similar thing, I think, at least if the DM levels the PCs based on their pursuit of their own story-goals. (I level the PCs when I think they've done enough things, and I try to be quicker if they're pursuing the goals they've set for themselves.)

It also seems as though one could do Quests in 5e without using Inspiration, which honestly makes me happy.

5e Inspiration is indeed mostly worthless IMHO, but that's a bit off the topic (we can have a thread on it if anyone wants, I can contrast it with the HoML version, which could also be used in 5e).

The KEY element of 4e quests is that they establish a flow of narrative authority/input from the players into the narrative itself. If the Dwarf establishes for him the quest of finding the ancient burial vaults of his clan, then guess what is going to appear in the game!!!! I mean, the quest might never be fulfilled I guess, but you can be sure that the player has established that said vaults really exist and stated flat out he wants his character to go there (and there's probably some deeper underlying reason for the trip, though even if not it still says SOMETHING about his character).

So, yes, they should be fairly trivial to add to 5e.

 

[Lanefan]

Does Dungeon World allow a player, or obligate them, to 'author content outside their character'? I don't think it does. Possibly the handling of session 0 is an exception, as the initial establishing process that ends with the PCs being framed into 'Scene 0' includes things like establishing backstory, and clearly nobody is in character yet. Beyond that, Dungeon World 100% absolutely demands that fiction come first, and fiction come last, and that the fiction be addressed by and to the PCs, not the players. That is, if you play as intended, once the session begins everything the player says and does is in character. Even the selection of moves is in character, as the specific move being invoked is decided by the GM based on the fictional description narrated by the player, which SHOULD be delivered in character (though its pretty common for it to include some 3rd person language at times).

So, for example, if the party is tromping through the forest and the question of what is to the west comes up, the GM might say "Throndor, what lies to the west of the forest?" and the player, AS THRONDOR, answers with whatever knowledge Throndor possesses. Now, it is true that the player might have INVENTED some or all of that knowledge on the spot, but they are still IN CHARACTER and all they 'author' is Throndor's response to a question (and the GM could and should hopefully pose it through the medium of another character, though that isn't literally stated as a necessity).

GM: "Throndor, what lies to the west of this forest?"
Throndor: "A river, beyond which is the Elvish realm of Lothwithien."
Player of Elf PC local to the area scratches head and wonders how and why she's never heard of this place before now...

An extreme example perhaps, but done to prove a point: if something's authored to be there now it means that thing has always been there, and as soon as prior knowledge of its presence might have changed past events in the fiction (here, the Elf might have invited the PCs to go up the other side of the river [also previously unknown-of!] and visit Lothwithien instead of going through the forest they're in, had she known about it) then IMO things have become degenerate.

Put this all on a player-visible map ahead of time and stuff like this just can't* happen.

* - not without a lot of work and some DM errors, anyway.