At the Intersection of Skilled Play, System Intricacy, Prep, and Story Now

[AbdulAlhazred]

You've shifted goalposts, but we can address this anyway. For analysis to occur you have to have a deeper base of examples to compare against or a theory to evaluate against. Both require more that a single example and are, in fact, testing a general theory against a specific example. Exploration of capacity requires some understanding of the prevalence of the capacity, else this argument suggests it's prefecture fine to, say, create a 7 finger glove company because the only man you met had 7 fingers. The reality here is that while humans have the capacity to have 7 fingers, it is an extremely rare mutation and one that has no regular expression when it happens. Blind extrapolation from specific examples to general assumption is not valuable.

I would suggest a perusal of the history of science, my friend. Extrapolation is very seldom 'blind', it is almost entirely a matter of taking an observation and interpreting it in an existing context. This is basically how most of science has always worked. Newton say an apple fall, and then IN LIGHT OF ALL HIS OTHER EXPERIENCE, some of which was quite different from falling apples, was able to conceive of a general law covering ALL motion, both terrestrial and celestial. Obviously this wasn't instantly apparent to everyone who heard the idea, but if you read Principia Mathematica its pretty hard to fail to appreciate that it really works!

My point is, in light of the present discussion, it seems perfectly OK to take an example, and given our collective understanding of RPGs and etc. to draw some conclusions. We may well want to test them further, they are hypotheses, not settled law. But at some point we either have to play out entire campaigns and debate each point again and again in light of 1000 examples of play, or else draw some conclusions with the understanding that there may be further exceptions, detail, etc. inherent in the whole corpus of play.

 

[Ovinomancer]

My answer of course is that it is definitely Story Now (I mean, provisionally given the outline of system and my assumptions of play process). Certainly a fixed outcome does not negate Story Now. The apocalypse happens to the WORLD, not the character. It is not, as you say, something you are in conflict with, it is just fiction which informs the tone and genre of the milieu. Story Now does NOT require Zero/Low Myth, and it doesn't require Zero/Low 'meta-plot', it just requires that the players are in control of thematic choices. Certainly if we look to the essay linked in the OP we find THEME and PREMISE as very central factors.

Anyway, a lot of people do like/prefer Low Myth and a lot of payer autonomy, and perhaps a good bit of 'open endedness' in the fiction, but really things can be pretty nailed down and still be Story Now, as long as the player can say "my character is like this, and it affects his actions like so, and changes him like this" (and then maybe that doesn't happen as stated because of fortune, and now we have 'Play to Find Out What Happens'). I think there's always a need for some of Play to Find Out in any Story Now, and that too is clear to RE.

D&D's total PC autonomy passes this test!

 

[Ovinomancer]

I would suggest a perusal of the history of science, my friend. Extrapolation is very seldom 'blind', it is almost entirely a matter of taking an observation and interpreting it in an existing context. This is basically how most of science has always worked. Newton say an apple fall, and then IN LIGHT OF ALL HIS OTHER EXPERIENCE, some of which was quite different from falling apples, was able to conceive of a general law covering ALL motion, both terrestrial and celestial. Obviously this wasn't instantly apparent to everyone who heard the idea, but if you read Principia Mathematica its pretty hard to fail to appreciate that it really works!

My point is, in light of the present discussion, it seems perfectly OK to take an example, and given our collective understanding of RPGs and etc. to draw some conclusions. We may well want to test them further, they are hypotheses, not settled law. But at some point we either have to play out entire campaigns and debate each point again and again in light of 1000 examples of play, or else draw some conclusions with the understanding that there may be further exceptions, detail, etc. inherent in the whole corpus of play.

This again? No one in science takes a single observation and extrapolated anything but a theory to test against future observations. Only after suffice testing shows usefulness in prediction is the theory useful.

 

[pemerton]

There are very extensive, important, sometimes profound, theoretical debates about what caused the First World War. None of them is tested by predicting when future wars will take place.

Is Edwards' view that The Dying Earth is a RPG best-suited to "story now" play a prediction about how people will play it? How people will have the most fun playing it? Or is it an interpretation, based on making sense of many features of the game including how it is presented, how its mechanics appear to work, the advice to GMs on framing and consequence-narration, and the role of "taglines" in PC improvement? I think the latter.

And for what it's worth I think his interpretation is correct, even though the game doesn't fit his formal definition of "story now" play: The Dying Earth RPG isn't aimed at resolving the sort of premise described in the official definition of "narrativism", but is aimed at producing cynical humour in the course of play, which is reinforced by the players' participation (via their PCs) either as perpetrators of the joke, or victims of it. (Or both.)

 

[Ovinomancer]

There are very extensive, important, sometimes profound, theoretical debates about what caused the First World War. None of them is tested by predicting when future wars will take place.

Is Edwards' view that The Dying Earth is a RPG best-suited to "story now" play a prediction about how people will play it? How people will have the most fun playing it? Or is it an interpretation, based on making sense of many features of the game including how it is presented, how its mechanics appear to work, the advice to GMs on framing and consequence-narration, and the role of "taglines" in PC improvement? I think the latter.

And for what it's worth I think his interpretation is correct, even though the game doesn't fit his formal definition of "story now" play: The Dying Earth RPG isn't aimed at resolving the sort of premise described in the official definition of "narrativism", but is aimed at producing cynical humour in the course of play, which is reinforced by the players' participation (via their PCs) either as perpetrators of the joke, or victims of it. (Or both.)

None of this is in isolation. We don't look at a single piece of the potential puzzle for WWI in isolation without other theories based on other observations. We have a general idea of how politics works that offers predictive power and we fit observations about WWI into that pattern and make assumptions. We then look to see if there are any other contemporary sources that can corroborate.

This idiotic argument started with the assertion that without attached anecdotes you cannot discuss play. I reject that, and I reject the continued argument that true to erect goal pays in a different place to defend it.

Further, it would be rather polite if you would actually address your posts to the person you are responding to rather than continue this pattern of sub-posting. I would appreciate the courtesy.

 

[Ovinomancer]

There are very extensive, important, sometimes profound, theoretical debates about what caused the First World War. None of them is tested by predicting when future wars will take place.

Is Edwards' view that The Dying Earth is a RPG best-suited to "story now" play a prediction about how people will play it? How people will have the most fun playing it? Or is it an interpretation, based on making sense of many features of the game including how it is presented, how its mechanics appear to work, the advice to GMs on framing and consequence-narration, and the role of "taglines" in PC improvement? I think the latter.

And for what it's worth I think his interpretation is correct, even though the game doesn't fit his formal definition of "story now" play: The Dying Earth RPG isn't aimed at resolving the sort of premise described in the official definition of "narrativism", but is aimed at producing cynical humour in the course of play, which is reinforced by the players' participation (via their PCs) either as perpetrators of the joke, or victims of it. (Or both.)

I have no idea what The Dying Earth is, and cannot respond to those points.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

The last paragraph is telling to me, in that it is acknowledging that the structures of play in MLwM push against Story Now in that it includes incentives to play it differently. And, to tie into my previous post, this is because the system forcing pacing and endpoint requirements of play incentives play to address those elements of play directly. And that pushed against Story Now. The best, then, that can be said here is that the players constrained themselves into avoiding those elements and limited their play to advocating for character. But that doesn't address the system issues here.

MLwM is a seminal game, without doubt. I'm not prepared to lionize it as the epitome of Story Now because of that, however.

I don't get what incentives you are speaking of. All @pemerton stated was that he felt it was likely that some people had attempted to play the game while holding a different agenda, in this case a Gamist one in GNS-speak. While I'm not super up on MLWM, Pemerton's description jibes with what I remember. Its basically a story arc, you play a certain sort of character (minion to an evil master) and do genre-appropriate things. Each player kind of just decides for themselves what sort of story they would like to get out of the play of their minion, that is what epilogue they wish. I guess you might also aspire to save your love and kill master perhaps as independent personal goals, though these things have definite impact on your attributes, and thus ultimate fate too (I don't recall all the details of the various effects and whatnot). In the end Master dies, and maybe you get the ending you wanted, or maybe not, depending on luck and how the various players wangle their calls for certain scenes. Really there isn't any strong reason for the PCs not to work together and plot out how to all save themselves, which seems like one of the more likely sorts of directions things can go, but as a Minion, you also have to contend with what Master wants, and how that plays out! So, things can go topside down, etc. Overall my impression of the game is you're all creating the story of the downfall of a great villain, from the perspective of the little guys, and acting it out in the process.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

D&D's total PC autonomy passes this test!

D&D's problem fundamentally is weak guarantees towards the player's ability to really contribute meaningfully. Its process typically makes the fiction all belong to the GM by default, though in practice there can be a fairly wide range of divisions.

 

[Yora]

Players can have as much freedom and agency as the GM gives them.
The issue is that for the last 30+ years, published D&D material is teaching GMs to give them little to none.

 

[Manbearcat]

Players can have as much freedom and agency as the GM gives them.
The issue is that for the last 30+ years, published D&D material is teaching GMs to give them little to none.

I want to say a few things on this:

1) I very much agree that a significant cross-section of D&D materials from the last 35 years inform a culture of play whereby GMs have felt purposed with wresting control of the trajectory of play from the players to ensure either story prerogatives (GM's own story or the metaplot of the module/AP) or story imperatives (power fantasy and setting tourism for players primarily).

2) However, I don't believe that freedom (lack of premise constraint for instance) and agency are inextricably linked. For instance, map-and-key D&D dungeon crawling can have maximal agency within the premise of the play...while simultaneously constraining the play space and the decision-space for the players (impinging on certain notions of "freedom").


This actually gets into a fair chunk of varying conversations/positions taken in this thread whether it be Story Now design and play or Skilled Play design and play.

In the lead post, I'm thinking aloud about the 5 different defendable statements. Lets take a look at one of them:

There is a IIEE + OODA relationship that foregrounds and orients content that impedes Story Now play.

Let me throw out an example of this that intersects with agency:

* GM frames a situation/obstacle which opposes player goals.

* Player processes this information, navigates their decision-point, declares an action, and attempts to use the system's resolution mechanics to resolve the obstacle, thus furthering their goal.

* The subsequent gamestate and/or fiction that results from this loop makes no sense to the player. Maybe the consequences/stakes didn't follow from either/any/all of the the player's orienting themselves to the GM's framing or the player's understanding of their resources potential to impact the situation or the player's understanding of how the resolution mechanics should be employed to resolve this situation.

* Now let us say, for certain, that the problem is neither system nor player. The GM screwed up their end of the bargain. They didn't communicate well/appropriately the dynamics of the situation or they didn't apply system correctly.


So this becomes an agency problem which impedes Story Now play precisely because Story Now play is utterly contingent upon players consistently having maximal agency to control the gamestate (here that means that the IIEE + OODA relationship is correctly applied + the resolution mechanics are correctly deployed + the situation and its resolution foregrounds and orients content in a way that engages with the premise of play) and propel play trajectory...but this is all within the confines of the system/game we're engaged with.

That last bit is the "freedom" piece. If we're playing Dogs in the Vineyard, its an axiom of play that The King of Life and sorcery/demons are real things at the metagame level. So while you might play a gun-toting paladin who is having a crisis of faith (and we get to find out how that crisis resolves...perhaps it resolves with a complete loss of faith and this paladin either abandons his service or carries on his duty but with a heavy burden of loss of belief), you don't get to play a paladin that fundamentally disproves the existence of The King of Life or that every exorcism ever performed on the frontier was just hocus pocus and snake oil. The game is not about this. There are boundaries and constraints upon the premise of play.

Hopefully that all makes sense?