D&D General Railroads, Illusionism, and Participationism

[Crimson Longinus]

All this would be solved were we to see video of play - on all sides.

I doubt mine would be super illuminating to most people here, as mastery of Finnish language is not terribly widespread.

 

[FrogReaver]

Yes, the Lucky option is a meta mechanic - luck is not controlled by the character.

Now, i sees you would not enjoy it. Do you accept that some games, like 5e with it's Lucky feat or Diviner feature, can have meta mechanics and still be valid RPGs that some enjoy?

Basically, I'm trying to determine if this is a personal preference, or if you think everyone who plays D&D with meta mechanics are doing something wrong.

I tend to be okay with using meta mechanics for something like 'luck' because being lucky is viewed as a trait of the character and because there's not a feasibly good non-meta method of modeling luck (at least not one i've ever seen). This also ties into part of why battlemaster maneuvers don't bother me despite being meta.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

I tend to be okay with using meta mechanics for something like 'luck' because being lucky is viewed as a trait of the character and because there's not a feasibly good non-meta method of modeling luck (at least not one i've ever seen). This also ties into part of why battlemaster maneuvers don't bother me despite being meta.

I think Halfling 'lucky' trait is actually a decent way to model, well, being lucky, without being meta. It autoprocs on ones, so the player doesn't need to make a decision to use it.

 

[FrozenNorth]

What I’m asking is of you think how to deal with the situation in Vallaki is a meaningful difference? Yes, one group might outright slay the baron. Another group may lay low and avoid dealing with the baron and his men as much as possible. A third group might ally with the baron by helping him deal with the threat of Fiona Wachter.

To me, and I would think that to the great majority of people who play RPGs, those are meaningful differences. Another team might trick the baron and Wachter into taking each other out. Or take the side of the Baron’s young son against the other factions. Or, just skip Vallaki altogether.

And that is just one aspect of the AP. Multiply that by any amount of encounters and you get a constellation of different choices, actions and outcomes based on what the party did.

That the obstacle can be dealt with in a number of ways is, to me, less significant than the fact that this obstacle will exist for all who play the adventure. So will Baba Lysaga and the Abbot and the werewolves and the ghosts of Arghenvoldsthold (however the hell you spell that place’s name).

The adventure will revolve around collection of certain items/people/information and then a confrontation with Strahd. The order in which these things are gathered, the locations of them (or the identity in the case of the ally), matter far less than that they are gathered.

That’s what I mean by meaningful.

The implication of this is that in any adventure with fixed encounters, the characters are interchangeable and their decisions are meaningless.

Obviously, I disagree. I think most RPG players would also disagree with this interpretation. It goes without saying that “meaningless” and “interchangeable” are subjective terms.

 

[FrozenNorth]

No, I'm not, you're missing my point repeatedly by looking at these choices as if they even address my point. I absolutely agree that players have agency in how to deal with the challenges in the AP, and the details of play will differ, I'm just pointing out that the differences are going to be constrained by elements the players do not control -- the wickets the AP requires to move through -- and that none of the challenges are at all based on which character is there. Which character addresses them may have a difference in how they're overcome, but the challenge is the same for all of them.

I disagree that I’m missing the point. The point is that you have expressed that you believe that the characters in AP are all interchangeable and that their decisions are meaningless.

Like I said “interchangeable” and “ meaningless” are subjective terms. You are free to believe that a playthrough that ends with one of the party betrays the rest to Strahd is interchangeable with one in which the party allies with the Dark Powers to overthrow him.

At the end of the day, I have expressed ehy I don’t believe that is the case. I will go further. In my opinion, a definition that consigns all AP play to “meaningless” choices is just not very useful.

 

[Campbell]

To me, and I would think that to the great majority of people who play RPGs, those are meaningful differences. Another team might trick the baron and Wachter into taking each other out. Or take the side of the Baron’s young son against the other factions. Or, just skip Vallaki altogether.

And that is just one aspect of the AP. Multiply that by any amount of encounters and you get a constellation of different choices, actions and outcomes based on what the party did.


The implication of this is that in any adventure with fixed encounters, the characters are interchangeable and their decisions are meaningless.

Obviously, I disagree. I think most RPG players would also disagree with this interpretation. It goes without saying that “meaningless” and “interchangeable” are subjective terms.

This is all relative. In my experience even at the extreme ends who your character is (and especially their place in the setting) matters far less in AP play than it does in other sorts of games. Is there a way to discuss that relative difference without having to step through a rhetorical landmine?

This is not a trap by the way or an indictment of AP play. It has strengths that more character centric forms of play do not. It just feels like people don't want to give other types of play any credit. You want credit for the strengths of your form, but don't want to extend that privilege to other forms of play. I respect GM Storytelling and have had hours of fun playing in games where it featured prominently. I just want the same respect granted to other forms of play.

 

[Ovinomancer]

I disagree that I’m missing the point. The point is that you have expressed that you believe that the characters in AP are all interchangeable and that their decisions are meaningless.

No, that is not at all what I said. I've, repeated at this point, acknowledged that the decisions in play will create different situations in play. I've also pointed out that this will still be constrained within the story structure that is independent of the characters. But I've repeated noted that there will be a different, if similar, story of play between parties at the end of play. This bit of being noticeable at the end of play has received some discussion, as I've been pointing out that the interchangeability is at the beginning -- the structure of the AP is the same regardless of what characters are brought to play.

Like I said “interchangeable” and “ meaningless” are subjective terms. You are free to believe that a playthrough that ends with one of the party betrays the rest to Strahd is interchangeable with one in which the party allies with the Dark Powers to overthrow him.

At the end of the day, I have expressed ehy I don’t believe that is the case. I will go further. In my opinion, a definition that consigns all AP play to “meaningless” choices is just not very useful.

I agree. It's why I haven't made that argument.

Let me ask a slightly different way -- would you agree that all of the information in the AP is entirely independent of the PCs? That the locations, NPCs, and challenges presented in the AP don't ask what characters are present when you read through the AP? That any difference that happens in play only comes after this information is deployed and the players are making choices about what to do about it?

This is what I mean by interchangeable characters; the AP's information -- the challenges, NPCs, locations -- do not change regardless of what characters show up to play. After the players are turned loose within this, of course the will make different choices from other characters, and the RNG will definitely drift play around.

 

[hawkeyefan]

To me, and I would think that to the great majority of people who play RPGs, those are meaningful differences. Another team might trick the baron and Wachter into taking each other out. Or take the side of the Baron’s young son against the other factions. Or, just skip Vallaki altogether.

And that is just one aspect of the AP. Multiply that by any amount of encounters and you get a constellation of different choices, actions and outcomes based on what the party did.


The implication of this is that in any adventure with fixed encounters, the characters are interchangeable and their decisions are meaningless.

Obviously, I disagree. I think most RPG players would also disagree with this interpretation. It goes without saying that “meaningless” and “interchangeable” are subjective terms.

Okay, let me rephrase and come from another direction.

Group A is playing Curse of Strahd. Group B is playing Curse of Strahd. Group C is playing Wild Beyond the Witchlight.

Of Groups B and C, whose game will be more meaningfully different?

 

[pemerton]

I'd be interested to see the reaction to a similar scene with the following modifications. 'Backstory is that PC and Orc are about to engage in combat' 'PC says I want to Spout Lore (or equivalent) about orc physiology so that I may determine orcs weak points so I can more easily defeat him'.

1. Would that be a valid move?
2. What would the DM author on a success?

Those who GM AW and DW can comment in more detail on that system - the default I would envisage for success in this case would be taking +1 forward.

In my BW game, a PC who was fighting zombies, and wasn't really skilled or strong enough to just hack through them, performed Assess actions to spot weak spots and thereby get an advantage to attack them (I can't remember now if it was +1D to attack, or +1 on the damage scale). This is an expected part of the game.

 

[pemerton]

This goes back to a point another poster raised. At some point, a player accepts the premise of the game. Just like in Blades of the Dark, I don’t choose to play a law-abiding cabbage farmer.

OK, but that does seem to sit in a degree of tension with your post upthread:

Lots of potential resonance for a character built around the ideal of feudalism. Earlier in the AP, the idea of the ordning is introduced. What does the paladin think of this as a concept? Is he OK with the lower orders having no opportunity to rise at all? When they meet the lower order giants in chapter 4, maybe have one of the hill giants rail about how unfair the whole system is (while still being villainous). How does the paladin feel about that? In a later chapter, the adventurers face off against stone giants. Although their leader is evil, the stone giants believe that she has received the voice of their god and they are bound to follow their leader. Seems like a paladin could relate with that reasoning. They may view a particular stone giant as an Honourable Foe.

The "resonance" seems to be confined to portrayal of character in response to fore-ordained events.

I mean, it's not as if a peasant revolt is outside the scope of D&D's play. Gygax discusses them in his DMG. The 5e rules gives us Folk Heroes as a core archetype.

I think this notion of "accepting the premise of the game", where that premise includes pre-established events and challenges, is basically a reiteration of @Ovinomancer's point about APs.

The implication of this is that in any adventure with fixed encounters, the characters are interchangeable and their decisions are meaningless.

Obviously, I disagree. I think most RPG players would also disagree with this interpretation. It goes without saying that “meaningless” and “interchangeable” are subjective terms.

I don't think @hawkeyefan asserted that the decisions are meaningless. He asserted that the differences they produce are not meaningful in the sense he intended.

The point is not merely semantic. Here is an (imperfect) analogy: the decisions made in completing a crossword are meaningful, in that they affect the process of solving the puzzle. But they don't in the end produce any meaningful differences in the solution: the crossword is the same whoever solves it and however exactly they do so.

The contrast with (say) any dramatic storytelling seems tolerably clear to me at least: the events that a dramatic protagonists goes through reflect something distinctive about that character, not just in characterisation or means deployed, but in the whole nature, stakes and consequences of any particular obstacle they confront.

"Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, she walks into mine."

Of all the sorcerers in all their towers in all the world, I find my mother's letters in this one, Evard's.

Of all the spellbooks penned by all the wizards in all the worlds, the wild-eyed man who sold the peddler a cursed angel feather is carrying one written by my Balrog-possessed brother.

I think this is the sort of thing that @hawkeyefan and @Ovinomancer are talking about.