D&D General Supposing D&D is gamist, what does that mean?

[Malmuria]

Just a second. Let's back up a second.

You say there are no pre-written stories in your campaign. So, you have not created a single dungeon, adventure, or anything other than a setting before the campaign begins. That, without the players, there would be absolutely no adventure to be had in anything you've written? There's no Baron Von Evilton over in Thatland doing dastardly things? There's not Cult of Ickyness threatening the town that the players start in? Hell, there's no town for the players to start in before the entire group as a group activity creates it?

Because if you have any of those things, you're not playing Story Now. You're either doing Sim or Gam play. That's not a judgement at all, simply a label to help understand what's going on at the table.

Blades in the Dark has all of those things, though, and is a story now game (as far as I understand). It's just that all those setting elements can only be 'activated' by playing, and players can/should direct the story toward this or that location or faction.

Then also what counts as a "story" is variable, so that the "story" contained in an event-driven adventure path and the story implicit in a megadungeon are rather different relative to each other.

 

[pemerton]

Then also what counts as a "story" is variable, so that the "story" contained in an event-driven adventure path and the story implicit in a megadungeon are rather different relative to each other.

Does anyone have an actual example of "story now" play in a megadungeon?

If so, let's hear it - it sounds interesting!

If not, how does it bear upon @Hussar's remark about the demands of "story now" setting design?

 

[EzekielRaiden]

We don't agree on this (ie on the heavily flawed bit). I don't think Edwards's model is perfect - Vincent Baker's work on fictional positioning and "clouds and boxes" gives more insight into techniques than anything I know of from Edwards - but I do think the model is pretty powerful.

I mostly just think it's a major mistake to:
(1) put "genre" Sim (what I have called Conceit-and-Emulation) into a single bucket with "process" Sim (what I have called Groundedness-and-Simulation), as while they have similarities they also have differences and those differences seem just as strong as those between (say) "process" Sim and Gamism (both care about rules and information and choice, but have radically different goals for those things and will choose rules and structures that do not resemble each other as a consequence),
(2) assert that any game which can, or does, serve multiple goals is necessarily "incoherent," a pretty loaded term,
(3) use terms in very idiosyncratic ways without, IMNSHO, putting much effort into helping others understand that (frex) "Story" doesn't mean what it sounds like and "Simulation" diverges heavily from what is often expected etc., and perhaps worst of all,
(4) have ever, even once, used the term "brain damage" regarding literally anything whatsoever in a space like this, because far from just loaded, that's outright inflammatory and counterproductive.

I consider each of these at least noteworthy. Collectively, I would say they represent serious flaws. That doesn't mean the theory is worthless. But in both content and presentation, I consider it to have Issues I would rather not be present. Hence my earlier stab at an alternative that attempts to use different terms and recognizes that a game may validly combine motives (or even that motives may exist in spaces or modes that in some sense lie "on top of" the fundamental rules, e.g. Eberron as a setting examines a Conceit and pursues Emulation in a way 3e generally does not do.)

 

[overgeeked]

Considering I'm one of the "few people" you mention, I just have to comment on this.

My comment?

WOW

"throw-away line?"

This is one of the most subversive, indie-game-derived elements of 4e (along with Fail Forward, Success With Complications, Closed Scene Resolution for Noncombat Conflict, 4e's version of "cut to the action" and "drive play toward conflict" in "skip the gate guards and get to the fun" and all the other elements that we've talked into the floor)! This is full-on Forge-derived Story Now player-authored kicker that could have been ripped directly from Dogs in the Vineyard initiation/background conflict or Sorcerer.

If Player-Authored-Kickers, which puts players in charge directly of the course of the upcoming conflict-scape (and therefore wresting the trajectory of play from the traditional authority structure of D&D; the GM's), is "throw-away" rather than subversive and a huge deal...? What exactly would be subversive? What isn't throw-away?

Well, because it doesn’t do that. The DM is still the final authority. Which is why this is buried in a paragraph in the DMG, not the PHB. It’s an optional thing the DM can do, if they want. So, yeah. People blow it way out of proportion. Is it a big deal that there’s advice to let players author quests? Sure, I guess. But who hasn’t been doing that since AD&D?

No player before 4E said to the DM that they wanted to do something the DM hadn’t already planned for? Come on.

Just a second. Let's back up a second.

You say there are no pre-written stories in your campaign.

Mostly correct. The history of the setting is a story, after a fashion.

So, you have not created a single dungeon, adventure, or anything other than a setting before the campaign begins.

A dungeon isn’t a story. An adventure isn’t a story. A town isn’t a story. They’re situations that can lead to stories or locations where stories can happen. They are setups…without punchlines. Beginnings…with neither middle nor end. It’s not a story until the PCs engage with it somehow.

There’s an evil princess over there threatening a dragon…

That isn’t a story. That’s a situation.

There’s an evil princess over there threatening a dragon…so the heroes went over there, faced many hardships, and eventually stopped her.

That’s a story.

The history of the setting, if it has one, is a story.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

There’s an evil princess over there threatening a dragon…

That isn’t a story. That’s a situation.

There’s an evil princess over there threatening a dragon…so the heroes went over there, faced many hardships, and eventually stopped her.

That’s a story.

... that's a story authored by the DM. Which was the point.

You created the setup. You defined the conflict ("...an evil princess threatening...") You, presumably, created and applied the rising action ("...faced many hardships...") And you chose what event would qualify as a conclusion to the tale ("...eventually stopped her.")

How is that even remotely player-authored? The players took the situation you handed to them and acted out their parts. It would be hardly different from saying that a modern English retelling of Romeo and Juliet was "actor-authored" solely because the actors were told to ad-lib when it suited them!

By comparison, my Druid player has recently been authoring things. He has taken it upon himself to become, if not properly "ordained" as a Safiqi priest (aka cleric), then at least given a solid baseline of theological training. I had no part in deciding this would happen (and frankly it caught me a little off guard). He chose specifically to do this by seeking out a faithful person he knows and trusts to teach him, and I responded by presenting to him a classroom of theology students. He has asked questions, presented his positions, and worked to become more knowledgeable, purely because it's a story he felt was worth telling. I have done the scene framing, as I believe @pemerton has put it, but the reason the scene needs framing in the first place is because the Druid (jokingly, out of character) said "I need JEEEESUS!"

 

[Malmuria]

Does anyone have an actual example of "story now" play in a megadungeon?

If so, let's hear it - it sounds interesting!

If not, how does it bear upon @Hussar's remark about the demands of "story now" setting design?

No, I didn't mean that a mega dungeon was or could be story now. I meant the way they were using the term to describe dnd play could refer to quite different kinds of things, eg. an AP on the one hand with prescripted events, and a megadungeon or hexmap on the other.

Edit: basically, I meant what @overgeeked describes above (megadungeon as situation)

 

[Malmuria]

No player before 4E said to the DM that they wanted to do something the DM hadn’t already planned for? Come on.

Players wanting to quest after a magic item. Or seeing "here be dragons" on a map and deciding to go there. Downtime activities that result in individual mini adventures. I'm not sure these things are so popular in 5e (but who knows), but I would have assumed they were very common in AD&D?

 

[overgeeked]

Players wanting to quest after a magic item. Or seeing "here be dragons" on a map and deciding to go there. Downtime activities that result in individual mini adventures. I'm not sure these things are so popular in 5e (but who knows), but I would have assumed they were very common in AD&D?

Quite common throughout all D&D in my experience.

 

[Campbell]

It was pretty obvious to me from word jump that asking players to define quests wasn't about searching for treasure or scrounging up new work opportunities but rather giving players a chance to define something personal to their characters they wanted play to center around. Especially when coupled with 4e's low resolution setting.

 

[Hussar]

Does this mean Torchbearer completely lacks simulation or narrative elements? No; the game—like many modern boardgames with their thematic art and fluff text—would be dead boring to most players if the veneer were stripped. But its priorities are clear.

This is the main point that I think needs to be really hammered home. No game will ever be 100% one thing or another. Well, no RPG anyway. You can certainly have games that are 100% gamist, but, I doubt anyone calls for Chess or Monopoly to be included in the umbrella of RPG's. Same with Sim games. No one is calling for Flight Simulators to be considered RPG's. Not even sure what a pure Nar game would even look like. Probably something akin to improv theater I suppose. Again, not really what people mean by RPG's.

So, pointing to how this or that game has elements of other parts of GNS doesn't prove or disprove anything. Of COURSE they do. But, the question is always about intent and priorities, not about saying, "Well, this game is 25% Gamist, 70% Sim and 5% Nar. That's a pointless exercise.

Well, because it doesn’t do that. The DM is still the final authority. Which is why this is buried in a paragraph in the DMG, not the PHB. It’s an optional thing the DM can do, if they want. So, yeah. People blow it way out of proportion. Is it a big deal that there’s advice to let players author quests? Sure, I guess. But who hasn’t been doing that since AD&D?

No player before 4E said to the DM that they wanted to do something the DM hadn’t already planned for? Come on.

It was never really a big part of the game though and absolutely something that was 100% condemned by lots and lots of people. The idea that the Player could not only ask for something, but also EXPECT that that request would be honored is more than enough to send various people into fits. The whole "entitled player" schtick of the past twenty years is based entirely around the idea that players must never expect that their requests be accepted. They might be, they might not be, but, it's 100% up to the DM.

Heck, look at the absolute freak out you see when someone has the temerity to suggest that DM's allow various races into their setting, just because a player wants to play one.

Mostly correct. The history of the setting is a story, after a fashion.

A dungeon isn’t a story. An adventure isn’t a story. A town isn’t a story. They’re situations that can lead to stories or locations where stories can happen. They are setups…without punchlines. Beginnings…with neither middle nor end. It’s not a story until the PCs engage with it somehow.

There’s an evil princess over there threatening a dragon…

That isn’t a story. That’s a situation.

And that's the definition of pedantic. You have a setting, you have a plot and you have characters. THAT'S a story. Granted, you don't know how the story will end until you play through it, but, you absolutely have everything you need to tell a story. At absolutely no point do any of the players have any input into the plot or the setting. They barely have input into the characters.

It's absolutely not Story Now.

There’s an evil princess over there threatening a dragon…so the heroes went over there, faced many hardships, and eventually stopped her.

That’s a story.

The history of the setting, if it has one, is a story.

You are insisting on a definition of story that is not the one being used in this thread or even in common usage. A story does not need to be completed to be a story. But, in the interests of clarity, story simply means Plot, Character and Setting. If you have all of these being preconceived by the DM, then you are either playing a gamist or a simulationist game. At no point is that anywhere near Narativist.