D&D General Railroads, Illusionism, and Participationism

[Aldarc]

The more I think about it, it (something like Sprout Lore) might be something I'd be fine trying as a DM.

I'm having trouble feeling positive about when I imagine myself playing in a game that has it as a player though.

(I still vociferously disagree with the part I italicized, but it's abundantly clear at this point we're not going to make progress on that ;-) ).

I would recommend giving Dungeon World or an adjacent PbtA hack (e.g., Stonetop, Monsterhearts, Urban Shadows, etc.) a whirl. It may not be to your liking, and I am not promising you that it will, but you may have a better, firsthand idea of how Spout Lore or other Moves actually work and feel in practice as a player.

A too-blatant take on the dwarf forge example would be if the player declared the PC tried to recall there being a forge right close to where the PCs are standing e.g. just behind yon boulder there. A more common example, baked into the rules in some games it seems, is where the PC "just happens" to have the piece of gear on hand that she needs at that very moment - she wills it into existence just by declaring she's using it.

In games like Fate, the character would have to invoke one of their relevant Aspects to do so - e.g., Batman: "A utility belt filled with useful bat gadgets" - and then spend a Fate point. Generally in the aforementioned case of Batman and Fate, we're not dealing with the same sort of character resource management mini-game in Fate as with D&D nor do we care about how Batman stocks his utility belt everytime he goes out fighting crime, so it's hardly a surprise at all in the comics genre when Batman always seems to pull out the right tool for the job out of his utility belt. That sort of thing is entirely consistent with fiction within the genre. But spending the Fate point and invoking the Aspect requires that the new fiction is consistent and plausible within the existing fiction, and either the GM or other players may veto it on those grounds. A GM may declare that it's unreasonable for Batman to pull out the exact chemical needed to defeat the villain from their utility belt only a minute after learning about it.

 

[Lanefan]

@Crimson Longinus , @FrogReaver , @Lanefan , @EzekielRaiden and @anyone else who believes in the concept of "improvised setting (possibly including NPCs and their dispositions...unclear) content generation as a state of quantum superposition", can you explain why are the following things not in a state of superposition?

* The 20 listed NPCs/Monsters on your Wandering Monster List every time Wandering Monsters are rolled in a dungeon.

* The 20 listed Hex Encounters every time you roll for Random Encounters in Hex 2b (or whatever).

* The NPC/Monster disposition when you roll Reaction or Morale.

* The 20 listed Town Encounters every time you roll for Random Encounters in Town x.

Of these four, I rarely use any except the third. I'll roll to see if an encounter occurs*, sure, but I don't stick to lists or tables unless the in-setting situation is such that doing so makes sense e.g. the PCs are on a demiplane with a very short list of inhabitants and any random encounters have to come off (and deplete) that list.

That said, I'm unclear on what "quantum superposition" is supposed to mean (there's been a few walls of text upthread I kinda glossed over so if it came from one of those, I missed it - sorry) and thus I'm not all that sure what you're asking.

* - though nowhere near as often as the game designers would like me to, again with circumstantial exceptions.

* The nature of (location and backstory and disposition) of the Innkeep, the Member of The Watch, the Travelling Peddler, the Caravan Guard or Merchant whenever play goes off backstory script to a location or person (prodded by players) that wasn't fleshed out prior (whether you make some kind of roll to procedurally generate the content in the moment or you just "GM's Choice" it and frame the place/character in because the player has prodded it).

* The location and nature of every piece of set dressing/color/NPC characterization that is suddenly invoked, poked, prodded, or otherwise required to suddenly materialize from the void of the shared imagined space as the conversation of play dictates.

If you're asking whether I ever improvise any of this then yes, I frequently do; though I also try to be careful to fit in with what's already been established.

How are any of these things not in this verboten state of "unestablished to ass-pull" (whether procedurally generated as required or GM's Choice) that is being claimed as exclusive to Story Now games (and has been since I was little...this is a 30+ year rodeo of this claim) but a player's invoking their PC’s memory is?

I see setting elements and NPCs as being the purview of the DM; who puts them there for the players/PCs to interact with or observe or ignore at their choice.

It's hard enough to remain consistent when just one person is doing this, never mind when the whole table is.

This isn't entertaining the "but this becomes EZMode" argument (because that is a 100 % aside). But I can address that one trivially. Torchbearer has Wises (which Spout Lore is the PBtA analogue of). Torchbearer is many, many, many times more difficult and more brutal and punishing than any D&D you guys have every run/played (despite the concern of these things tilting play toward EZMode). And the lethality of Dungeon World is on par with level 1-2 1e D&D or Moldvay Basic.

If true, this answers a question I've had for a while: one of our crew has been running DW since covid hit and she TPKed them a couple of times in the early going. I was wondering if this was normal for DW or if she was doing something wrong; from this it seems she's got it right.

And the hardship of adventuring in Dungeon World is absolutely much more intensive (in terms of decision-point stress and resource stress and consequence stress) than that of 1e (despite the very scary Spout Lore of Domacles hanging over the competitive integrity of play!).

Wouldn't that be somewhat scalable by the GM, though, via how hard the hard moves really are? Much like throwing too-tough or not-tough-enough opponents at a D&D party?

 

[Lanefan]

Well, you're either ignoring or unaware of my points, which - to repeat it - are these:

(1) Perhaps the metaphysics of objects (a Dwarven forge exists) and the metaphysics of events (an Orc dodged a sword) are different.

But the metaphysics of authoring an object and of authoring an event are identical.

They may be identical in that they are each a thing that has been authored, but they are not identical in that one outright adds to the fictional setting and the other simply interacts with what's already there.

It's the same difference between a player adding a mountain to the setting and another player digging a hole in that mountain. One's an addition, one's an interaction.

Interactions with the setting can change it or, occasionally, subtract from it; but rarely if ever add to it outside of some specific spell effects.

 

[pemerton]

As noted previously, some folks DMing a game with "Spout Lore"* would be much more likely to have the "interesting and relevantly useful" success not necessarily be a forge, while others would also make the success almost certainly be the forge.

The former doesn't particularly feel like a Super Strong Prior/Directed Quantum Collapse spell to me and I can see running a game with an effect like that. The later does feel like the equivalent of a Quantum Collapse spell to me and I would have problems related to what @Lanefan notes in post 1932. I think in this later case (of almost certainly getting the forge on a success), that I would have trouble getting into character the way I like because I would stop trying to think about what my character would be doing or trying to look for and start thinking of it as a Directed Quantum Collapse spell instead.

* I keeping wanting to call it "Sprout Lore"

Have you ever played Classic Traveller? As I posted already upthread, it has exactly the same structure in its Streetwise skill. In 1977. I have read a lot of commentary on Classic Traveller, written over the many decades since it was first published. This "quantum collapse" thing has never been mentioned.

To reiterate: the rules for Streetwise are that if a player seeks to find something using their PC's Streetwise (ipso facto interesting and relevantly useful, otherwise they wouldn't be bothering), the GM's job is to set a difficulty and the throw is then made.

Why Dungeon World should be so wildly different because the range of interesting and relevantly useful things might include Dwarven forges is utterly beyond me. Why you would stop thinking abut what your character would be doing or trying to look for I don't know either: the whole reason anyone is even talking about Dwarven forges is because, in actual play, two players (@darkbard and @Nephis) thought that their PCs might look for such things!

 

[pemerton]

Or - The character attempts to hit the orc by outguessing their dodge/getting through their armor. The orc's dodge/armor is represented by a single number in this system (other systems would have the DM roll giving a variable level of dodge/soak). If the player rolls higher than the orc's dodge/armor score, then the character was skillful/strong enough to out do the dodge/soak (whether it was the player rolling, a contested roll, or a fixed attack with defender rolling - the rolls are at the player/DM level, not character action level).

I don't know what you mean by the rolls are at the player/DM level, not the character action level. Do you mean the roll tells us whether or not the Orc dodged the sword? How is that any different form a roll telling us whether or not a character recalls a Dwarven forge - that roll, too, is being made by the player, not the character.

 

[pemerton]

Swinging a sword at orc might cause an orc being hit. (This is not certain, so we roll the dice, but that really isn't important here.)

Swinging a sword at an Orc can't unilaterally cause an Orc not to successfully dodge. Some of the relevant causation comes from elsewhere. That is why, in RuneQuest, a separate roll is made to model that bit of the causal process.

We could imagine a RPG in which two rolls are made: one to see if a Dwarven forge exists (similar to the rolls found in Gygax's DMG's Appendix C) and one to see if the PC recalls it. In DW those two rolls are bundled together.

 

[pemerton]

Yes, but I wouldn’t be able to guess in what way the adventure would be different. If I could, you would be absolutely right about heroes being interchangeable and the plot dwarfing characterization.

One way it could go however, leaning in on the fairy tales I know, would be to go “Jack the Giant-Killer”. More outsmarting the giants (many of whom are canonically dumb) rather than another approach.

I also suspect that a rogue approach may involve avoiding a bunch of combats by sneaking rather than straight-on battle.

What you describe here seems to have nothing to do with the actual thematic content you referred to which I then responded to in my post, namely, feudalism and the death of a feudal leader. (That being why I nominated two PCs with - it would seem - contrasting thematic relations to that, namely a Folk Hero Rogue vs a Noble Crown Oath Paladin.)

The differences you're pointing to seem to be basically tactical, and not thematic at all. Which does seem consistent with @Ovinomancer's points upthread.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Swinging a sword at an Orc can't unilaterally cause an Orc not to successfully dodge. Some of the relevant causation comes from elsewhere. That is why, in RuneQuest, a separate roll is made to model that bit of the causal process.

We could imagine a RPG in which two rolls are made: one to see if a Dwarven forge exists (similar to the rolls found in Gygax's DMG's Appendix C) and one to see if the PC recalls it. In DW those two rolls are bundled together.

We could, and it wouldn't change anything. Who rolls and how many times has absolutely nothing to do with any of this. What is relevant is how the roll is triggered and what sort of causal process it represents.

 

[pemerton]

This isn't entertaining the "but this becomes EZMode" argument (because that is a 100 % aside). But I can address that one trivially.

The EZMode thing seems to be coming mostly from @Lanefan. @Cadence also perhaps agrees.

To me it's absolutely bizarre. Why the game would be any easier because the players are engaging (via their PCs) with something that is interesting and relevantly useful, rather than boring and perhaps useless, is beyond me.

The only time I ever see anyone making a virtue of the fact that RPG play might involve uninteresting stuff is in order to argue that moves like Spout Lore, or Wises in BW, etc, would undermine their RPGing. Otherwise I see everyone talking about how their sandboxes, and even their APs, are full of stuff that is interesting and relevant and thus permit meaningful player action declarations!

 

[pemerton]

* A character trying to see what's down the hallway and checking to see if it was a particular type of monster the player wanted, and it being so if they rolled a success

This is how Hunting is resolved in Classic Traveller (Supplement 4, 1979): it increases the chance of the character encountering the desired creature.