D&D 5E Roleplaying in D&D 5E: It’s How You Play the Game

[AbdulAlhazred]

Heresy! We can say we don't care about the fluff (but everyone cares about the fluff.)

But in an RPG the 'fluff' supplies REASONS for things to happen. Even in D&D, where they are the product of a single mind, the GM's, the players still make decisions based on this color, which then trigger more rules. I'm not saying I don't care about the color, I'm saying it is relevant to the play of the game. I'm saying I DO CARE about it, I want it to factor into the GAME part of my play, in a fairly direct way.

Yes, of course. The sole concession I am seeking is that even simple games can yield a narrative.

Sure, but the narrative of a checkers game is a mere recounting of moves, even if you embellish it. Nothing beyond the fact that a certain move was made by a player matters in checkers. The narrative is utterly separable from the game and the two do not interact. You cannot even narrate anything without making moves first, which never reference any narrative.

This is a wonderful example! I gather DW is often not run that way. I've read StackExchange and Reddit discussions of how DW operates that suggest the same material is used in many different ways. My sessions have felt less different from my usual D&D because I have always built the story around the characters... except currently in ToA (in the Tomb itself), which I am not really enjoying.

I'm not a guru of how people DO run Dungeon World or other PbtAs. Since I didn't write the game I will refrain from judging who is playing 'right' or 'wrong', the authors can judge that... In fact I have not spent much time at all, beyond reading some comments from @Manbearcat and @Ovinomancer (maybe a couple others, not sure) about how it runs. Beyond that, I've run it, seemed like what I was doing was 'by the book' pretty much. I'd be amused to learn what these people you refer to think the game is supposed to be if not dramatically driven, and how they would square that with the game text though! The GM's job in DW is to make moves which increase the tension on the PCs, that is literally canonical. His job does not include telling a story or presenting a pre-written script. While genre and such present fictional position constraints (what you call ludic) they only present as modest constraints. Since there is no established fiction beyond what has been in the story (Story Now) there's very little 'logic' to be followed.

Literally we can analyze my off the cuff 'move' text. The PC needs gold in order to fulfill a dramatic need. Gold here being some sort of fiction which can only come true if risk is taken. The Spider King is presumably a villain or opponent of some kind whom it is fictionally appropriate to assign the role of 'stealing the gold'. This is clearly intended to accomplish the GM's function of putting pressure on the PC! This is an utterly classic 'soft move' in DW parlance. It would probably be delivered concretely in terms of maybe someone bringing news to the character that said theft has occurred. This would be something like a 'Reveal an Unwelcome Truth' though really it doesn't need any formalization. In classic fashion it would be followed by the PCs learning some additional information. Maybe the Spider King offers to give back the gold if the PC kills one of his friends (we can invent some in-game 'ludic' reason for this as-needed). The GM offers another option, track down the bad guy and confront him, but can it be done in time, only 3 days remain to obtain the gold! See, again, the whole structure is generated by and for putting pressure on the PC(s). I mean, this could be elaborated on all day, but everything that is going to go into that is 'drama logic', it builds story using dramatic elements. This is the very essence of DW, IMHO, though certainly not an exhaustive list of techniques.

 

[Ovinomancer]

Heresy! We can say we don't care about the fluff (but everyone cares about the fluff.)


Yes, of course. The sole concession I am seeking is that even simple games can yield a narrative.


This is a wonderful example! I gather DW is often not run that way. I've read StackExchange and Reddit discussions of how DW operates that suggest the same material is used in many different ways. My sessions have felt less different from my usual D&D because I have always built the story around the characters... except currently in ToA (in the Tomb itself), which I am not really enjoying.

If you, as the GM, are doing any kind of building of story in DW, you are not using that game as it is presented. It's been fairly well covered that you could drift the game into a trad approach like this, although it will not perform well and give you issues, but this is not how it is presented. If you stop and honestly forget how you think an RPG is suppose to run and then re-read the game, hopefully you'll realize that the game is not intended for the GM to be curating story in any way like how 5e trad play expects it. At best, you might have some loose prep that can be adapted to the variances of play, like a few NPCs or monsters and lairs ready to drop in if such is called for by the process of play.

I will admit I have no idea what reddit or stackexchange in general or in whatever particulars you've encounters suggests DW plays. I get my approach from what the rules say, how PbtA games generally work, and from the designers of the game.

I have played Dogs and run DW. I read the review of BB as I plan to run it with my family. I am not defending it or promoting it, other than to put it forward as another perspective. That said I watched Jason Cordova streaming play and I'm not seeing what the reviewer did so heretically wrongly in their written-up play. What did you spot in particular?

Watching a stream of (I assume) Brindlewood Bay will not show how the game is functioning very well -- or rather, if you expect that the GM is guiding the story and has prepped it, then it will appear that way to you. If you understand how it's suppose to work, you can see that as well. The intended manner of play doesn't present to casual view as terribly different, but it is, indeed, quite different under the hood. Most steams are not going to stop and explain why a choice or move was made here or what the players are thinking. Sometimes you do get to see the metachannel being open and the game discussed, but if you're still thinking in Trad terms, even this won't really appear to be different from the occasional lenient GM's allowance of player suggestion. The difference is that it's not really suggestion, here, but a negotiation between equals.

 

[clearstream]

If you, as the GM, are doing any kind of building of story in DW, you are not using that game as it is presented.

I draw maps and leave blanks. I have an agenda. I name the folk of the realm and guide players to a world that contains elves and bards, and word demons. I sketch out fronts, dangers, enemies and dooms.

That seems like building a story to me. We then let play tell us more. We found an ominous stone in a stream last session: I'm not sure what it's connected with but I am looking forward to finding out.

[The Druid felt something was up and went looking. Sure enough, she found something. I have a hunch that it will foreshadow an enemy or danger, but we are not sure yet.]

 

[clearstream]

Sure, but the narrative of a checkers game is a mere recounting of moves, even if you embellish it. Nothing beyond the fact that a certain move was made by a player matters in checkers. The narrative is utterly separable from the game and the two do not interact. You cannot even narrate anything without making moves first, which never reference any narrative.

Chess defines the moves that can be made, and its goals guide the moves that are made. Machines play it well, so we cannot say it is a human-only domain.

This is where the analogy of phase-spaces come in (using the term to label the volume containing all states of a system on each degree of freedom). Or let's just call it the list of all possible games (which may be infinitely vast, even while containing only games with the features a given game implies.)

When I read a book, if I reread it I know what is going to happen. The dramatic-narrative is the same because books are linear and non-dynamic. Chess is non-dramatic, but it implies all its narratives. Thinking about its "phase-space" is just a way of noting that we don't need to play all those different games to know that they are implied.

That's interesting and compelling to me. RPG stories that I have observed, for example the game's designer running a session of BB, are not as great a story as say Hamlet (or whatever literature you count great.) Even when successful and fun. What is compelling is something else.

When we look at dramatic-story-focused games, are we trying to force something that is great in another medium, into a medium that has different strengths? When I read Law's narrative beats, I wonder if this dramatic-programming is the right analysis.

Are we at the end of history for RPGs, and they will be judged on how well they can compare with dramatic-stories in linear media? Or is there more to find out?

 

[pemerton]

I want to acknowledge an adjustment to my position. In saying the cues represent the fiction, I am not saying they are the fiction. Rather I say they can (should) have a strong valency such that manipulating one, manipulates the other. [You could say "crucially informs" or "drives discoveries about" here, in place of "manipulates".]

That appears to be a central point of contention. I say that arrangements of symbols and rules for manipulating them has consequences for our fiction: is productive!

And where it is not productive I sincerely question the point of having them. @pemerton might say they help us remember, and I say they help us remember and (via thinking by analogy) systematically produce a progressive fiction.

Manipulating cues need not mean manipulating the fiction in any straightforward way. Think about Elven Accuracy in 4e D&D, or the Luck feat in 5e - a player rolls a die, doesn't like it, and so rerolls. That is a cue triggering a player decision, but it is not a manipulation of the fiction.

Changing hit point tallies notoriously do not involve any direct manipulation of the fiction.

The cues should feed into the rules in some fashion. The rules should feed into the fiction, and take input from it, if we are talking about a RPG. But the connection need not be as isomorphic or representational as you seem to be asserting.

 

[Lanefan]

Changing hit point tallies notoriously do not involve any direct manipulation of the fiction.

Obviously, as it's the other way around: the change in hit point tallies is a table-level reaction to (or tracking of) events in the fiction that have already occurred, rather than a cause of those events or of any yet to come. Something in the fiction makes your PC lose (or gain) hit points, the player reacts by writing the new number down*, and this act of record-keeping has no effect on the ongoing fiction.

One could put note-taking or game-log recording in the same category: as a simple record of events in the fiction that have already occurred, where such record in and of itself doesn't and can't have any effect upon said fiction now or later.

Meta-cues such as your Luck or Elven Accuracy examples, however, can and do affect what happens in the fiction in that they sometimes take a bad result and turn it into a good one: the fiction in those instances becomes different than it would have been had that mechanic not been invoked.

* - or recording it in whatever manner desired if not on paper.

 

[clearstream]

Manipulating cues need not mean manipulating the fiction in any straightforward way. Think about Elven Accuracy in 4e D&D, or the Luck feat in 5e - a player rolls a die, doesn't like it, and so rerolls. That is a cue triggering a player decision, but it is not a manipulation of the fiction.

Changing hit point tallies notoriously do not involve any direct manipulation of the fiction.

The cues should feed into the rules in some fashion. The rules should feed into the fiction, and take input from it, if we are talking about a RPG. But the connection need not be as isomorphic or representational as you seem to be asserting.

I had an inkling (maybe) about the nub of my concerns. The Lumpley Principle defines system as "the means by which the group agrees to imagined events during play." And this is not wrong: it leads to useful outcomes and can be taken to match the cloud-players-cues diagram.

As a designer, I see it as giving system too passive a voice. We might rank systems for degree of success in leading to agreement, but we can't tell why [how successfully] BB is murder mavens versus Lovecraft or Dogs were Mormon gunslingers. We can't judge systems using it for success in their creative purpose (I'm not saying the LP is intended to do that and fails, I'm saying it does not do that.)

The critique I linked is interesting to me because it asks something like Goethe's three questions. What was the game designer trying to do? How well have they done it? Was it worth doing? The critic argues that in judging a game it is right to ask - does the system have the consequences for play (drives the agreements) that the themes demand? What I find important about the critique is not so much what it says about BB, but what the critic argues ought to be considered in game criticism.

My desired complementary principle would say something about that. Perhaps defining system as - "the means by which the group is driven to choose and go on choosing acts that match the distinctive and worthwhile themes of this game, over all other games."*

That's a horrible first-draft but hopefully - hopefully - communicates something of the idea. I'm not sure if it needs to be tied to the intent of the designer, or if there isn't some established way in art criticism to speak about this work and this experience, rather than all possible works and experiences?

[*Or maybe just insert "intended", "desired", "designed" or "distinctive" between "to" and "imagined"? I quite like "designed", taken in its broader sense.]

 

[clearstream]

Obviously, as it's the other way around: the change in hit point tallies is a table-level reaction to (or tracking of) events in the fiction that have already occurred, rather than a cause of those events or of any yet to come. Something in the fiction makes your PC lose (or gain) hit points, the player reacts by writing the new number down*, and this act of record-keeping has no effect on the ongoing fiction.

Do you mean solely the physical act of writing down, and exclude the ongoing consequences of the new hit point total?

 

[pemerton]

I guess it is part of life, you realize you're one of the clods of earth, not one of the eagles!

I worked this out about myself a long time ago . . . I'm in a profession (academia) that is pretty ruthless in letting you know where you stand vis-a-vis genius!

 

[pemerton]

I think its intended though to mean "all the possible stories" that could be derived from a given set of rules, but there is no such closed set. Thus the analogy fails immediately in a serious way.

I argued the same thing as you're saying here.