D&D General Railroads, Illusionism, and Participationism

[pemerton]

So thinking some more - what is the difference between authorship and just roleplaying your character?

'I try to hit the orc' - authorship or roleplaying the character?
'I try to recall if there's a forge nearby' - authorship or roleplaying the character?
'I try to climb the tree' - authorship or roleplaying the character?

I personally tend to view these statements as 'roleplaying the character'.

Agreed. I would call them action declarations.

Some examples of 'non-roleplaying the character' authorship:

'The Town has the following buildings'
'These NPCs have these characteristics'
'There's a secret door here'

Right. None of these is an action declaration, or any other sort of portrayal of one's PC.

Here's another example: the Orc is scratched. And another: a bee stung me.

Then we get into a more complex situation - where mechanical intervention ties a 'roleplaying the character' action to a 'non-roleplaying the character' authorship. A simple example of this style of mechanic might be: ' try to recall if there's a forge nearby' - normally a roleplaying action but mechanics can morph this into actually 'authoring a forge nearby' by making it true that there is one nearby anytime the player rolls a mechanical success (not saying any particular game does it this way). The point is that actions taken by just playing the character can turn into authorship actions depending on the mechanical backdrop and how the mechanics tie those roleplaying actions to the creation of fiction.

The complexity here seems to me to be all in your mind.

If I succeed on my action to attack the Orc with my sword, then it follows (inter alia) that the Orc is scratched (one of the alia: the Orc didn't dodge). Pretty simple.

If I succeed on my action to recall any Dwarven forges nearby, then it follows (inter alia) that I (as my PC) recall a nearby Dwarven forge (one of the alia: the forge exists). Pretty simple too.

If I succeed on my action to climb the tree. then it follows (inter alia) that I (as my PC) successfully climb the tree (one of the alia: I wasn't stung by a bee at a crucial moment in my climb). Also pretty simple.

If we add in an additional stipulation, like only the GM is allowed to decide whether or not the setting contains Dwarven forges and that the GM is to be under no constraints when doing so then one of our action resolution processes described above will have to change. But that's the causal direction: because of a view about authority over setting, a certain resolution process isn't viable. You can't go the other way, and argue for the necessity of the authority rule because of some inherent difficulty with the resolution process. Because the resolution process itself is a completely straightforward one.

 

[Aldarc]

I think the easy mode comments are regarding the changed decision space that the reality editing brings (Pemerton, don't argue semantics, I don't care.) I'm not sure it necessarily makes things easier, but it definitely changes how problems are approached. If the problem is how the characters get across the river, the decision space becomes rather different if intentionally 'remembering' that there is a bridge nearby is an available option, rather than having to solve the issue solely with the actual capabilities the PCs might posses.

This is a something of a "feature not a bug" issue with the various games involved, as not every game is equally interested in how these sort of problems are solved. This IMHO is one thing that makes learning and playing different games fun because different games are interested in different sorts of problems and decision spaces.

As such, I'm not sure if I would call it "easy mode," however, in the case of Dungeon World (or PbtA, in general) because the nature of the dice. Committing yourself to pick up the dice or triggering a roll in the fiction also brings the risk of complications, i.e., soft and hard moves made by the GM. On the whole, Powered by the Apocalypse engine is more interested in the new fiction produced by dramatic complications than the tactical problem-solving and resource management of D&D.

What's a problem for one game is not necessarily a problem for another. I can understand that not everyone is interested in such roleplay or find it conducive for their preferred roleplaying aesthetic, but it's important to understand that not every roleplaying game approaches "problem-solving" in the fiction the way that D&D often does. In the sort of "system matters" thinking, it's a matter of understanding what sort of a game (e.g., problems, decision spaces, etc.) I'm getting myself into if I pick up one set of rules versus another.

 

[pemerton]

Does "Force" not mean "GM making things happen a specific way"? Because that's what I'd understood it to mean.

Well, that's not how I use it, how @Manbearcat uses it, how @Ovinomancer uses it, or how Ron Edwards uses it.

If Force just meant the GM deciding something then it would not be a very useful analytical tool, because nearly every moment of RPGing involves the GM deciding something (eg if a player has their PC approach a NPC to talk to them, the GM has to decide what the NPC says; that is not, per se, Force as any of those I just mentioned use the term).

Going with something like "the woman you worked for was secretly one of them!" could also have worked, I just didn't consider it at the time.

I still don't know how you would reconcile this with your stated preference for backstory-based mysteries. I mean, if you decide this at a particular moment of play, it was not something written in your notes that the players might have learned, by provoking you to reveal it via their action declarations, at some earlier moment of play.

Both the recently-returned Druid player and the Bard player (the one player who has stuck through the whole way, not a late-joiner nor taken a hiatus) have explicitly said that one of the great joys of playing in this game, besides their genuine feeling of being able to act as they like rather than being on rails, is that the world feels living, vibrant, and self-consistent. Things fit together naturally, explanations click, and several times they have uncovered a fact or made a connection only to realize that the pieces really were there all along, they just didn't see the pattern before.

I don't see how this is to be reconciled with what you said just above, about going with something like such-and-such a NPC was secretly one of them.

I don't like the thought that a player or DM narration retroactively fixes a specific event that was the direct cause of other things.

I don't see how you can avoid this.

Suppose a player declares that their PC goes to the market to buy an X. I don't particularly care what X is, other than that (i) it's a thing that is obviously conceivable as being for sale at the market, and (ii) it's not a thing that you, the GM, have made any notes about. Let's say that it's a swede or some other generic and undocument-by-the-GM foodstuff.

If you as GM narrate that the PC does indeed find a swede-vendor at the market, you have now retroactively fixed a specific event that was the direct cause of other things - that someone gave birth to this swede-vendor, that someone grew the swede, that someone harvested it, and brought it to the market, etc. RPGing is rife with this sort of thing.

But in the Christie-type-caper example, getting a good roll on some move or other might let a player simply declare that the Countess is, and thus always was, the murderer

I'm still curious as to what RPG you have in mind here.

That just shows it can be done better or worse. All serial fiction depends on this sort of retconning. Frankly if my RPG campaigns could be half as compelling as the Star Wars trilogy I'd be pretty happy!

That's...honestly very disheartening if true. I've always appreciated it when fiction seems to have had a clear plan for where things are going, and where they "did their homework" so that events that happen in book 3 are clearly traceable to their origins in book 1 when the early foreshadowing happened.

Well, I make quite a good living as a scholar, but am only an amateur author of fictions. If I could write fictions as compelling as the Star Wars trilogy I don't think I'd be earning my living writing articles that will probably have fewer readers over my lifetime than the number of attendees at a Star Wars opening night!

 

[Crimson Longinus]

This is a something of a "feature not a bug" issue with the various games involved, as not every game is equally interested in how these sort of problems are solved. This IMHO is one thing that makes learning and playing different games fun because different games are interested in different sorts of problems and decision spaces.

As such, I'm not sure if I would call it "easy mode," however, in the case of Dungeon World (or PbtA, in general) because the nature of the dice. Committing yourself to pick up the dice or triggering a roll in the fiction also brings the risk of complications, i.e., soft and hard moves made by the GM. On the whole, Powered by the Apocalypse engine is more interested in the new fiction produced by dramatic complications than the tactical problem-solving and resource management of D&D.

What's a problem for one game is not necessarily a problem for another. I can understand that not everyone is interested in such roleplay or find it conducive for their preferred roleplaying aesthetic, but it's important to understand that not every roleplaying game approaches "problem-solving" in the fiction the way that D&D often does. In the sort of "system matters" thinking, it's a matter of understanding what sort of a game (e.g., problems, decision spaces, etc.) I'm getting myself into if I pick up one set of rules versus another.

Sure. It is just different and whether one likes it or not is a matter of preference. I was just trying to outline what the difference is.

 

[FrogReaver]

There are two things I don't understand.

One is how to reconcile these two posts, which appear to have been made by the same person within the space of 12 minutes.

I assure you they aren't inconsistent but without knowing what you think is inconsistent about them I'd just be providing a guess of an answer which I don't think will do either of us any good.

The second is what you think the illusion is. I mean, it's very gratifying that you are worried that I am being deceived when I play Burning Wheel, but you don't need to worry. I know that it's all imaginary, and being authored. And I know that the authorship is heavily shaped by the priorities that I, as a player, bring to the table. That's why I play the game. If you were to read the rulebook - and the relevant bits can be downloaded for free - you would find that it makes that point on the first page.

The illusion I referred to is thinking you are only taking a roleplaying action when that roleplaying action actually has some extra baggage attached to it.

So when, playing Aramina, I conjecture "Don't I recall that Evard's tower is around here?" and then call for a Great Masters-wise check, I know that if the check succeeds then the existence of Evard's tower around about here will be established as part of the fiction, that being a necessary corollary of the conjectured memory being a true one. Obviously the responsibility is a weighty one - I mean, what if Aramina really doesn't want to explore the towers of the Great Masters of whom she's heard as a Neophyte Sorcerer! But I think I'm up to it!

Why do you suddenly change what game/moves the examples are being derived from in the middle of discussion? Is it so you have a leg up on someone like me that hasn't played that game or immediately recognize that move? Some other reason?

EDIT: The post to which I'm replying is utterly bizarre to me. It's basically saying that a RPG in which a player's action declarations matter is deceptive - because all roleplaying should actually be is colour that doesn't affect anything about the underlying fiction.

Bizarre!

That's not what it's saying at all.

 

[FrogReaver]

I'm curious how you feel your position (as a big time 4e advocate...like myself) on Spout Lore and Story Now content generation squares with your 4e love (which is riddled with Story Now generation and stance drift).

It would seem to me that someone cognitively captured or preoccupied (pick whichever word you feel describes your disposition) by this particular strain (as it pertains to TTRPGs) of internal causality modeling you're espousing would fall on a particular side of the edition war fault line (eg not the side you appear to be on!) of Martial Dailies and Come and Get It and Streetwise and Damage on a Miss and Fail Forward Consequence Generation and Warlords Shouting Back HPs (to use the edition warrior's trope that attempts to hang 4e D&D by the damage : HP internal causality petard) after a vicious combat with any capable D&D foe (take your pick)!

How do you feel your position on Spout Lore and Story Now content generation in Dungeon World squares with your love of 4e (particularly these things above)?

I played 4e and didn't ever see any of the Story Now elements while playing (I didn't DM at the time). Maybe I just played the game differently than you. Maybe what you are calling story now elements are mostly elements I view as being D&D elements.

 

[Manbearcat]

I played 4e and didn't ever see any of the Story Now elements while playing (I didn't DM at the time). Maybe I just played the game differently than you. Maybe what you are calling story now elements are mostly elements I view as being D&D elements.

Im sure you and your GM didn’t see them and you played the game differently than I ran it.

That is a a “you biography”, not a “4e biography.”

Ive covered all the Story Now tech and principles and GMing advice dozens of times so I’m not going to recap it here (along with all the inspiration Story Now game designers have credited to 4e in subsequent games.)

 

[Ovinomancer]

Again, it's not what you did but how you did it that would be different; and it's the "how" piece that matters in the run of play.

But not to the AP. Again, you're coming from a completed play point and insisting that this play report depends on these characters for its details. I'm pointing out that it doesn't matter who the characters are at the start because the absurd is the same. I mean, the RNG is a major contributor to the details of play, but no one's extolling the RNG.

 

[Cadence]

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.

I want to say that the way D&D is played in practice might have this to an extent. A player saying "crap, doesn't anyone in the party have an extra wick for a lantern?" might result in the DM going "I'm sure at least someone in the party does." in a game where the resource management wasn't too strict.

I'm trying to think about

• Toon's Back Pockets (access to hammerspace where just about anything could be pulled out up to the size of an anvil; akin to Mary Poppins' carpet bag that might have something of arbitrary height as long as the length and width fit the opening)
• Leo's magical toolbelt in Percy Jackson (a pouch on it grants access to anything that might reasonably be found in a toolshop and be of a size someone might put it on a toolbelt - screw driver, sledge hammer, breath mints, safety goggles, wire of a needed size, etc... lots of simple things have no recharge, something mechanically complex would)
• Batman's toolbelt as you describe it above
• DM flexibility in the party having to record every reasonable small item are all related.

Are players' thought processes about their character and how they fit in the world encouraged by the genre, restrictions on what can be pulled, reliability of what can be pulled, and the mechanical game cost of doing so?

I'm imagining an experiment where we get a bunch of RPGers to play Batman where the way the utility belt is run is randomly assigned from those four choices. It feels like in the back pockets implementation that some of the players would start focusing more on the optimal pull than following their imagination and reaching down and pulling something genre appropriate and reasonable. Would the tool belt one lead to some cases where the player tried to pull out a few hundred batarangs? (Certainly some players would have the self control or genre immersion to not have it be a problem). Would the a bit of DM flexibility one lead to the player to rely on it less and use the belt less than would be expected for the genre?

 

[Cadence]

I agree that her thoughts were interesting!

But I can help dispel your notion that this game (this particular Story Now game) bears much resemblance to a D&D 5e Adventure Path game or an RC Hexcrawl or a Moldvay Dungeon Crawl (to name a few varieties of D&D) in the actual playing and the generation of content:

* Every_single_thing in this game was generated on the fly. Every bit of it. Outside of our initial map and the thematic contents of their PC creation (Playbook, Bonds, Alignment) and the general premise of the game, there wasn't a single bit of prep. Every moment of my framing, every consequence I rendered was made up on the spot!

* Some good (temporally relevant to the Forge) examples of this would be:

- The Journey moves prior to the encounters at Camp 2 created a shrine and cache with 2 young sisters in need on a desperate pilgrimage for deliverance from their woes

- A soft move (for framing during their Make Camp move) generated some douchey rich elites from the nearest (very wealthy...established through our play) city who were crappy to their porters and to the PCs and their new charges (the young girls were taken on by the PCs...all of this was a challenge to Bond/Alignment/Playbook stuff from the Paladin...this triggered a social conflict during Make Camp and created subsequent framing downstream (show signs of an approaching threat) a few days later when their Undertake a Perilous Journey move came back online.

- Social moves at the archeological dig site of camp 2 (these were laborers and a lead scientist and a team of engineers from Maraqli's academy) created an enormously adversarial orientation of the lead scientist toward the Paladin PC which Maraqli had to intervene in (to date, this was the inverse of their typical social conflict M.O. they had to date where the impulsive Wizard would quickly escalate things...the absolute inverse happened here!).

None of this is even getting into the climb of the mountain, the Wyvern and her partner + brood (and the social conflict there), the animated bone dragon and the carnage it wrought, the repair of the camp and triaging of the wounded/dead...and then the Spout Lore move that triggered an absolute deluge of conflict and backstory!

This stuff all was 0 prep + the standard structured freeform play of PBtA games which creates snowballing thematic content and conflict where you have very little time to come up for air.

This resembles my 4e games very much.

It in no way resembles my Moldvay Basic games.

It in no way resembles my RC Hexcrawls.

It in no way resembled the massive AD&D and then 3.x Setting Tourism and BIG Metaplot FR + Sigil Sandbox I ran for 8 (rotating...I only GMed for 4 at a time) huge FR fans from 1997 to 2004.

It in no way resembled the 5e Hexcrawl I intermittently ran for a flakey GM from 2015-2017.

It resembles some parts of my Torchbearer games but in other ways they're extremely different.

I think if the Spout Lore conversation has proven anything (as a mere microcosm), it has proven how various means of structure (conversation broadly and the play loop specifically), system architecture (agenda/premise + principles + rules + build + reward cycles), and cognitive orientation of the participants create a profound differentiation between various forms of D&D!

I think most of my games, going back to B/X have had some/many zero prep zones. When the party gets to the hexes that have the keep on the borderlands and caves of chaos then there are certainly a lot of things fixed in there. But I'll often have not much of anything set for the hexes between the last mapped dungeon or the next and come up with everything on the fly.

In a D&D game for my son's group, when one player had their character storm away from the party to go find a ring of invisibility (because another character wouldn't give them theirs) I had to come up on the fly with a set of rumors about such a thing and the history and characteristics of a guy who had one and might be a reasonable target for pilfering it from, the part of town he was in, the inn he stayed in, the personality of the inn keeper and what the hoard of guests would react like when certain failed attempts to get the cloak occurred, etc... (Since they were near a major metropolis it seemed reasonable that there would be rings/cloaks of invisibility around, and that one might be owned by someone who blabbed about it but have it be reasonably possible to get it away from). At another point I had set up rumors of a vampire and had some connections set with the other bad guys they'd run into. When the same player said they wanted to know if they could use the vampire to become immortal I came up with a priestess of Hecate and her temple and personality and motivations and how that might even work on the fly.

But there were other places where I had a mental if not drawn out map prepared.

I think I would want a lot more zero-prep practice to be comfortable having nothing set out in advance at all all the time!