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

[Crimson Longinus]

How is seeing "here be dragons" on a map that someone else wrote a player-authored quest?

You don't use maps? The maps do not imply any information that might inspire or constrain the players? "Here be dragons" is hella vague. But if the player expresses desire to search a magic item from such a location, I'd assume they might want a quest containing dragons. Would it be better if the map didn't say that? If the player just said, "I think my character would like to reclaim a lost relic from a dragon hoard." Even then the player didn't come up with dragons, we know they exist in the Monster Manual, and presumably in the setting. What elements of the quest you feel the player needs to decide in order of the quest to count as player-authored? Should they also provide the GM with enemy stablocks and battlemaps for the encounters?

 

[clearstream]

Yeah I guess I just think, when you say things like...



...then you don't seem to be using a "weak" meaning of "predict." You seem to be using a pretty strong one: "How does this theory teach us to construct games?" And the thing is, it doesn't. It doesn't even do so weakly.

"What kind of successes do you think GNS is a tool for predicting?" (and likewise failures) is why I pointed to things like "coining new phrases in English" or "writing good poems" or "cooking good French cuisine." As part of doing these things, you learn theories that are...not really "predictive" in any sense with regard to "success" or "failure." These bodies of theory, which contain both highly formal and highly informal elements, may kind of give us information about "what we will see given the model is true," but...because they've mostly been constructed in response to what is observed, that's a bit like saying that if I kept a daily schedule, that schedule would be "predictive" of my daily activities. Of course it would be--I wrote it so that it would remind me what my activities are supposed to be!

Likewise, I really don't think GNS does very much to tell us "what to do, avoid, or expect in our future games." It's a classification scheme--closer to a cladogram than a manual. At absolute best, it lets us consider in advance that some methods have been counter-productive, and others have been useful, but that's nowhere near the level of "kind[s ] of success...GNS is a tool for predicting." I would not ask a paleontologist to ask me what "success" or "failure" their models predict because "prediction" is not, and has never been, the purpose or intent. Classification, association, and the ways these things can enlighten us are the purposes and intents of these models, even though these are theories from a purely physical science. Likewise, things patterned after Campbell's "monomyth" (but recognizing that his actual project was deeply flawed and probably false at its root) have literally zero interest in predicting what stories will contain or predicting what story-elements will "succeed" or "fail," but rather "what are elements that stories frequently contain? How are these elements used? How prevalent is their use?"

Right. So here you are taking success more literally than I intended. I meant, have whatever qualities are associated with functional or dysfunctional, etc.

The closest you can get to "prediction," in these models, is saying that there are (probabilistic) links between certain structures. E.g., if a particular unclassified dinosaur fossil appears to show feather impressions, then it is probable that you will also find other structures, such as lightened bones or certain types of dentition (or even a beak in some cases). If instead you find certain types of serration on the teeth, then you are probably looking at a carnivore, and will thus find other structures that support a carnivorous diet. Etc.

GNS is not meant, in any way, to provide guidance or instruction on the construction of games any more than a cladogram of known dinosaur fossils is meant to provide guidance or instruction on the construction of dinosaurs. Now, if we had sufficient command of genetics to be able to whip up creatures to our whim, then yes, a cladogram of dinosaurs could be a useful tool in the sense that it would show us structures that tend to go hand in hand (and thus, have tended to succeed in tandem with each other), but it could not really tell you much about whether a novel combination of traits would succeed (as in, survive and thrive in any given environment).

If someone asks you the question, "How should I make a new kind of sandwich?" it would be, formally speaking, an incorrect answer to say, "Well, these are ways other people have made sandwiches."

Are we not more in a situation where someone has said - mixing cheddar with pastrami contributes to a foul-tasting sandwich?

What the person wants with that question is a guide that explains the causal relations between parts, the justification for choosing ingredient X or condiment Y (e.g., very few sandwiches would ever include sauerkraut or thousand island dressing, but reubens do, for particular reasons). GNS is not predictive in the sense of answering, "How should one build a game?" It is of some predictive value if your question is more in the sense of, "What structures can games use?", but only in the pretty limited sense that it was specifically designed to survey what things had been done and ask whether there were any visible gaps (with the rather specific intent of "we already know gap X exists, but we wish to articulate what it is and why it has been overlooked.")

I think we've exchanged thoughts on this upthread. I'm not now following why you dislike where I've landed? Any thoughts on my more recent

No, in the end I agree with you. Not as to prediction, but let's set that aside. GNS has important limitations to bear in mind going forward. There's a high risk of refitting the facts to the theory. Emphasising the parts that seem to fit. We'll find I think that multiple theories will explain what we observe equally well, and we cannot exclude ourselves from our analysis. One person might apply GEN two-tier theory and see the features fall into place, everything becoming less puzzling, and arrive at new and helpful insights. Another preferring or getting more out of GNS. That might be excluded by testing and falsifying, but as we are agreeing that we cannot test and falsify we cannot exclude it. And all the theories are likely to be improvable.

 

[clearstream]

Separate thought, related to OP
Let’s say I have in front of me two books: 1. a modern, very linear adventure path like Descent into Avernus and 2. Stonehell mega dungeon. And now I learn that 5e is a gameist game. What are the consequences of learning that for running either the linear AP or the mega dungeon? Does the fact that dnd is gameist mean that I run both books in basically the same way? Does it mean the players in both campaigns want the same thing out of playing an rpg?

Wonderful questions, and I'd like to add another. Were we to adopt or promote a "gamist" agenda in running the linear AP or mega dungeon, how will that contribute toward functional and delightful play? And is that then answering a question about how to run that content - those objects of play - rather than this system (i.e. 5e)?

 

[clearstream]

I think that taking the bit of advice about player authored quests, considering it only in isolation removed from many other game elements, and then declaring it as not a big deal because it’s something that’s “always been done” seems an almost willful misinterpretation.

There’s nothing quite like it in any other edition, as far as GMing advice goes. It’s entirely contrary to most GM advice offered by earlier editions.

The DMG II for 3.5e goes into player authored quests. I don't know if that term is used word-for-word, but the sense is certainly one of player authorship. I know that doesn't amount to something that's "always been done" but it does surely pre-date 4e. Publication date is 2005.

[EDIT Reading that 3.5e game text now, it's worded in a way that describes a preexisting behaviour, so maybe it really does support "always been done"? Language such as "Players drawn by this incentive are simultaneously easy and difficult to please. They are self-starters who provide material for you to work with and take your game in surprising new directions. To make full use of their contributions, though, requires a flair for improvisation." So there are those players, we know something about their traits, and so on. The text encourages a DM to listen to their players and develop out quests in directions indicated in their backstories, etc. There's a sense of attempting to bridge between play styles, suggesting to me that the author might indeed have felt that this kind of play was not common.]

 

[EzekielRaiden]

The DMG II for 3.5e goes into player authored quests. I don't know if that term is used word-for-word, but the sense is certainly one of player authorship. I know that doesn't amount to something that's "always been done" but it does surely pre-date 4e. Publication date is 2005.

I do think graduating from "an optional thing in a follow-up core book" to "directly present in both the player-facing and DM-facing initial core books" is an important step up. Do you have a page citation? I skimmed through the 3.5e DMG2 and couldn't find anything about this (and it isn't mentioned in the unfortunately very brief index.) As for your requested response...

No, in the end I agree with you. Not as to prediction, but let's set that aside. GNS has important limitations to bear in mind going forward. There's a high risk of refitting the facts to the theory. Emphasising the parts that seem to fit. We'll find I think that multiple theories will explain what we observe equally well, and we cannot exclude ourselves from our analysis. One person might apply GEN two-tier theory and see the features fall into place, everything becoming less puzzling, and arrive at new and helpful insights. Another preferring or getting more out of GNS. That might be excluded by testing and falsifying, but as we are agreeing that we cannot test and falsify we cannot exclude it. And all the theories are likely to be improvable.

I honestly just don't have much to say about this. As stated previously, I think GNS was important for highlighting issues and was heavily shaped by the time in which it grew (where what I have called Score-and-Achievement remained overwhelmingly dominant, but both Simulation and Emulation were growing). I just think that it has some faults, in part because it lumps together things that I think should stay separated. As I said, it to me reads like an attempt to explain how there was a space of playable possibility that had up to that point gone untouched. I suppose you could argue that that was some kind of "prediction," but it felt more like formulating the theory so that the already-known, already-felt absence could have a name and a shape. Without its rise, I think many games played today would still be played as they are, there just would be fewer (and less fully) coherent statements we could make about them and what they're trying to do.

 

[Manbearcat]

It is just incorporating the character background in the game and taking suggestions from the players. Everyone and their grandmother have been doing it for decades in every RPG. Look at the Critical Role. The characters have very elaborate backstories and a huge chunk of the game's content is drawn from those. GMs might rely on this more or they may rely on it less, but almost everybody does it to some extent. This is not revolutionary, it is pretty much the default practice as far as I know.

1) “Incorporating” into what? And “the game” is not what I’m looking for here. I’m pretty sure you mean either “the story” (the preconceived metaplot or setting or both) or something thereabouts.

Look at my post 427; "the nexus of play is player-evinced dramatic need/premise."

Nexus of play and incorporate are not compatible and if your reflexive response to that juxtaposed is “potat-o potat-ah” then we’ve got a lot more work to do to get on the same page.

2) No. “Elaborate backstories” are exactly not what I have in mind. That kind of character conception and either the GM or the player mapping it onto play is poison to Story Now play. That might seem like hyperbole, but I 100 % mean that word as a descriptor for the orientation toward play (for either a player or a GM) that “elaborate backstory” brings with it. It is a level of conception of character/setting that has a negative impact on both (a) curiosity (for player and GM alike) and (b) letting the system have its “say” which harms “play to find out” (and pushes toward realizing a power fantasy/mapping fan-fic onto play).

Would you count Karma-based resolution methods effective (or equally effective) for "procedurally constrained" for this purpose? Can "+ system" in your view by satisfied by a karma system?

I’m assuming you’re talking Tweet’s Everway here? Can you give me a brief play example of what you have in mind here because Karma in Everway is about the player’s orientation to a decision-point. It’s not about system principles/procedures (“system’s say”) which constrain GM’s opposition.

So I need further input from you here to get at what you’re meaning and how it applies to what you’ve quoted. Maybe you’re using karma (little k) in a way I’m not familiar with?

 

[clearstream]

I do think graduating from "an optional thing in a follow-up core book" to "directly present in both the player-facing and DM-facing initial core books" is an important step up. Do you have a page citation? I skimmed through the 3.5e DMG2 and couldn't find anything about this (and it isn't mentioned in the unfortunately very brief index.) As for your requested response...

Pages 14 and 15. The text is dense so it covers a lot of ground. I suppose folk are aware that Tweet and Laws were both involved in 3e/3.5e as designers.

I honestly just don't have much to say about this. As stated previously, I think GNS was important for highlighting issues and was heavily shaped by the time in which it grew (where what I have called Score-and-Achievement remained overwhelmingly dominant, but both Simulation and Emulation were growing). I just think that it has some faults, in part because it lumps together things that I think should stay separated. As I said, it to me reads like an attempt to explain how there was a space of playable possibility that had up to that point gone untouched.

I strongly agree with you on this. With the benefit of hindsight, I feel that whatever harm Edwards passion for story (or psychodrama, perhaps, as Laws might have put it) did to the three-fold overall; that he had that passion and wrote uncompromisingly about it has been of great service to RPG.

I suppose you could argue that that was some kind of "prediction," but it felt more like formulating the theory so that the already-known, already-felt absence could have a name and a shape. Without its rise, I think many games played today would still be played as they are, there just would be fewer (and less fully) coherent statements we could make about them and what they're trying to do.

That's close to what I would argue

 

[clearstream]

I’m assuming you’re talking Tweet’s Everway here? Can you give me a brief play example of what you have in mind here because Karma in Everway is about the player’s orientation to a decision-point. It’s not about system principles/procedures (“system’s say”) which constrain GM’s opposition.


So I need further input from you here to get at what you’re meaning and how it applies to what you’ve quoted. Maybe you’re using karma (little k) in a way I’m not familiar with?

I was thinking of games predating Everway, but that's kind of an aside.

I mean a method where some sort of fixed ranking applies (karmic scale) i.e. no random element. So when one comes to a point that in another system might call for a roll, everyone looks at some applicable parameters and the higher prevails (nuance may be supplied by how much by).

Capital-K as in DFK, as I understand it.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

1) “Incorporating” into what? And “the game” is not what I’m looking for here. I’m pretty sure you mean either “the story” (the preconceived metaplot or setting or both) or something thereabouts.

"Game" as in the process of game being played at the table. Call it what you want.

Look at my post 427; "the nexus of play is player-evinced dramatic need/premise quality."

Nexus of play and incorporate are not compatible and if your reflexive response to that juxtaposed is “potat-o potat-ah” then we’ve got a lot more work to do to get on the same page.

There is some potato. Whether you like it is a main ingredient or as a side dish doesn't alter the existence of the potato.

2) No. “Elaborate backstories” are exactly not what I have in mind. That kind of character conception and either the GM or the player mapping it onto play is poison to Story Now play. That might seem like hyperbole, but I 100 % mean that word as a descriptor for the orientation toward play (for either a player or a GM) that “elaborate backstory” brings with it. It is a level of conception of character/setting that has a negative impact on both (a) curiosity (for player and GM alike) and (b) letting the system have its “say” which harms “play to find out” (and pushes toward realizing a power fantasy/mapping fan-fic onto play).

So character's "dramatic needs" are not related to their backstory? They exist unmoored without fictional elements in which they're anchored to? I seriously doubt this.

Also this hardly has anything to do with the throwaway line about player authored quest in 4e, it doesn't contain any particularly deep commentary of how it is to be handled, and definitely does not contain any principled Story Now imperatives you seem to be projecting into it.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

The DMG II for 3.5e goes into player authored quests. I don't know if that term is used word-for-word, but the sense is certainly one of player authorship. I know that doesn't amount to something that's "always been done" but it does surely pre-date 4e. Publication date is 2005.

[EDIT Reading that 3.5e game text now, it's worded in a way that describes a preexisting behaviour, so maybe it really does support "always been done"? Language such as "Players drawn by this incentive are simultaneously easy and difficult to please. They are self-starters who provide material for you to work with and take your game in surprising new directions. To make full use of their contributions, though, requires a flair for improvisation." So there are those players, we know something about their traits, and so on. The text encourages a DM to listen to their players and develop out quests in directions indicated in their backstories, etc. There's a sense of attempting to bridge between play styles, suggesting to me that the author might indeed have felt that this kind of play was not common.]

Ah, now I know what section you're referring to. Reading through that, it does not (to me) read like embracing player-authored quests. Instead, it reads like someone talking about how there are players hungry to be given plotlines and quests and such. Here's the full text of that section, with some particular emphasis added that I'll explain in a bit:

For these [story-oriented] players, the game is like a movie or a television show, but one in which they're taking part in the story.
Players who have this trait are not content with one incentive: They look to a D&D game for the full gamut of emotions you feel in a compelling narrative, from humor to horror, from suspense to celebration. Story-oriented players want plot threads and continuing characters. They want to take part in exciting events that unfold from simple beginnings, become gradually more involved and compelling, and then develop into exciting climaxes--preferably at the end of an evening, just like a night at the movies.
Players drawn by this incentive are simultaneously easy and difficult to please. They are self-starters who provide material for you to work with and take your game in surprising new directions. To make full use of their contributions, though, requires a flair for improvisation. If such a player makes a sudden decision for his character that takes your campaign story in an unexpected direction (which is not uncommon for players of this sort), this situation can be tough to adjust to, especially if you're more comfortable with carefully prepared adventures than with making the story up as you go along.
Story-oriented players typically supply you with a detailed background for their characters, which includes one or more plot devices for you to pick up on. Go through the back story with a highlighter and single out the passages that could serve as plot springboards. Staple plot devices include missing relatives, readymade conflicts with preexisting enemies, weapons with exotic histories, and deep, dark secrets the character hopes never to see revealed. Each implies a plot development the character wants either to bring about or to prevent.

The various bolded portions are what people mean by these things being "GM-authored" even though players are having input on it. Especially the parts referring to it as "using" their contributions, or "adjusting" to their actions, or "a night at the movies," or "your campaign story." The underlined parts are more ambiguous, as they could be read as referring to either GM-authored or player-authored. However, in the context of the several passages referring to clearly GM-authored things or a GM-as-author perspective, it seems pretty clear to me which of the interpretations is relevant.

To give an example of something very player-authored in my campaign (apart from my previous example): Our party bard. The player told me he wished to play a tiefling. I was hesitant, at first, because tieflings can carry some...baggage, as I'm sure you know, and I wanted to de-emphasize demons and devils early on (to help play up the Arabian Nights setting dress). So I asked him what he was going for, why this was interesting. On the one hand, it's just because it's something he thinks is cool; on the other, after some digging, he said he liked the idea of someone who has some questionable connections that he didn't choose. So I said okay, and then asked, "Which of your parents is or was a tiefling?" He thought about it for a sec and said, "Y'know what...let's say both of them!" And that specific interaction suddenly meant there were so many possible framings I could give so that this player could explore all those questions of lineage and inheritance, of defying others' expectations, of family history and the intertwining of bloodlines and all sorts of other things.

And that's how we got our surprisingly moral, upstanding, non-philandering Bard. The player brought in minority communities of tieflings and their personal struggles against prejudice (mild, as my world is relatively bright, but prejudice nonetheless), and the ways he differs from his siblings, his "reformed" succubus great-grandmother, etc. I have since furnished the player with situations that frame his ancestry, and the mystery surrounding part of it, in all sorts of lights, so that he can decide what these things mean, where they will go. Because of the player's authorship, we have explored genealogy with disturbing implications (his great-to-the-Nth grandparent on his dad's side is either Glasya herself or the pit fiend Baalzephon), twice had the player investigate (and successfully pursue) the possibility of taking the fiendish power away from others so they can live free, and seen him tackle the (OOC and IC) uncomfortable issue of being seen as a religious icon (by some...dubious folks) because of who he's related to Down Below.

I would honestly call the second of those "take the evil power away" moments one of the coolest events in our campaign. I was able to leverage something the player had told me (the assumed name that succubus great-grandma went by, given to her by her husband) into a heartwarming moment.* Events like these--like the time the Druid summoned a devil and very unexpectedly made a pact with him, or the time the Ranger had his world flipped upside-down for a bit because his hated rich-bitch grandfather had begun a genuine change of heart after Ranger rescued his young granddaughter, the Ranger's cousin--are some of the best and most memorable parts of my campaign. I have done a fair amount of work to also provide my own, DM-authored story and plot elements for the players to enjoy. But it's these moments of crisis, of transition, of the player having to choose what their character truly values and where things really could go almost any direction, that are the crowning glory of my game, at least in my eyes. The combats are fun (especially if the players respond positively afterwards), the roleplay is a treat (especially from the relatively shy player), and hearing my players speculate about what I've written (or, more often, sweating bullets as I fear they will feel disappointed at an overly-predictable plot) is always cool. Those moments of...revelation, though? Of players putting a Value before me and seeking out Issues in which it might be tested? That's solid gold.


*In brief: great-grandad's name meant "moon," and (for her sweet singing voice) he called her a name that means "Nightingale." When she tried to give her powers to the party Bard, the ritual failed and she couldn't figure out why...until she realized her true name had changed...specifically to the name her husband gave her. She's a new kind of being now, and might get to join her husband in the afterlife. After giving our Bard all her powers, she somehow kept just one: her beautiful singing voice. She sees this as proof that her contrition was accepted.