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

[EzekielRaiden]

To get back to measures of evaluation and growth, you just helped me with another insight. I've always bristled at classes, xp, and levels, but I really enjoy games with playbooks, which superficially look a lot like classes. Classes, though, tend to be much heavier, and in defining what a character can do, usually in a more Gamist frame and in contrast with many other specific features, implicitly define to me what a character cannot do. They prompt in me a more literal reading that way. Playbooks, perhaps because their sparseness, don't prompt the same reaction and I find myself being much more imaginative and free in my role-playing. Not perhaps on topic, but the discussion yielded that, so thanks!

My pleasure, though I have to admit that I find this a bit baffling. Does this mean that if you were given, say, a 4e class, but at each level you had exactly and only 2 options (let's say two highly-rated ones from an optimization guide, so the two are both very good just in different ways), you would actually feel less limited, rather than more limited, purely by having been shown fewer options to choose from?

 

[niklinna]

My pleasure, though I have to admit that I find this a bit baffling. Does this mean that if you were given, say, a 4e class, but at each level you had exactly and only 2 options (let's say two highly-rated ones from an optimization guide, so the two are both very good just in different ways), you would actually feel less limited, rather than more limited, purely by having been shown fewer options to choose from?

That specific example, no, it wouldn't work. I'd know about the other options, and I'd know about other classes' options too (I'm that kind of player, I try to learn all the rules). Because such games make an effort of delineating the things that are allowed, and frame things in terms of skills and class features and such, I tend to infer that anything not so delinated is not allowed. Which is not necessarily true, I know!

I recall 4e not being this way (could be wrong, it's been a while), but other class-based games also often offer level-locked choices of features. You can have A or B at level 4, then at level 6, you have C or D, and you cannot pick the one you didn't take at level 4. To me that's super irritating.

Games featuring playbooks generally frame actions (or "moves") and special abilities in a different way, and definitely not in a way I interpret as delineating what's permitted. For example, I can think of many times in Blades in the Dark that players described what they wanted to do, and then the GM would declare or ask which action rating that entailed, depending on how they were going about attaining their goal.

Also, playbook games tend not to silo things outside of the starting special abilities (and sometimes not even then). When you gain an advance, you can often take it from another playbook if you like! The only restriction I've seen on that is if somebody else is playing that playbook, they can say no. And there are no level-locked choices—well there are no levels! So that doesn't even come up.

 

[Ovinomancer]

My pleasure, though I have to admit that I find this a bit baffling. Does this mean that if you were given, say, a 4e class, but at each level you had exactly and only 2 options (let's say two highly-rated ones from an optimization guide, so the two are both very good just in different ways), you would actually feel less limited, rather than more limited, purely by having been shown fewer options to choose from?

To offer an opinion, if I'm offered two meaningful choices on one hand, and 10 mostly meaningless choices on the other, the number of choices really doesn't enter into it. This is extreme, but it kinda goes along, here. If you offer me 10 choices, but only 2 are really options because the rest are drek, I don't see it as having more freedom to be given the 10 that if you just offered the two that are the only real options that are going to be selected. I'm not sure I'd see it as more freedom, though, but I'd prefer not having to wade through and evaluate the drek.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

That specific example, no, it wouldn't work. I'd know about the other options, and I'd know about other classes' options too (I'm that kind of player, I try to learn all the rules). Because such games make an effort of delineating the things that are allowed, and frame things in terms of skills and class features and such, I tend to infer that anything not so delinated is not allowed. Which is not necessarily true, I know!

I also try to learn most/all the rules. That may be part of why I like 4e. When I realized how balanced it was, some part of that urge to know ALL the rules mellowed out, because I knew I didn't need to know all the rules to be confident I was doing at least "pretty good" even if I might not be doing the absolute best possible.

I do find that certain mental turn very interesting. It seems to me that a lot of people are very sensitive to the possibility that they are being told not "what they can do," but rather "what they are allowed to do." That is, "can" is "you definitely have this option, which others may or may not be able to mimic or replicate," which says nothing about what cannot be done, whereas "allowed" is "in theory anyone could do this, but you have been given permission to, and anyone without permission cannot do it, even if they might really want to." The latter enables by removing presumed denial. The former simply enables, without any implication of further capacity or denial. I find there are a lot of folks who (IMO unfairly or even irrationally) leap to seeing that "allowed, and thus others are disallowed" framework, in ways that rather limit their potential gaming options. Had I some magic bullet for such feels I would use it.

I recall 4e not being this way (could be wrong, it's been a while), but other class-based games also often offer level-locked choices of features. You can have A or B at level 4, then at level 6, you have C or D, and you cannot pick the one you didn't take at level 4. To me that's super irritating.

Yeah, 4e allows you to take any power of the same type (that is, encounter, daily, or utility) of equal or lower level if you want. There are even some times (e.g. the Adroit Explorer PP, IIRC) where you can take a power you already have a second time, e.g. getting two uses of an encounter power you really like if it suits your fancy.

Games featuring playbooks generally frame actions (or "moves") and special abilities in a different way, and definitely not in a way I interpret as delineating what's permitted. For example, I can think of many times in Blades in the Dark that players described what they wanted to do, and then the GM would declare or ask which action rating that entailed, depending on how they were going about attaining their goal.

Also, playbook games tend not to silo things outside of the starting special abilities (and sometimes not even then). When you gain an advance, you can often take it from another playbook if you like! The only restriction I've seen on that is if somebody else is playing that playbook, they can say no. And there are no level-locked choices—well there are no levels! So that doesn't even come up.

Perhaps these things can be ported back into more stereotypical class-and-level systems? Trying to build toward something that still gives the feel fans of that structure appreciate, but without the "everything not permitted is forbidden" feel that you and others derive from it. Because like I said this seems to be a serious issue for a lot of folks and it would be really really nice to find ways to ameliorate or even eliminate it.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I agree, so I can acknowlege that you made a salient point about "fairness" here. However, one would hopefully imagine that these challenges can be overcome in some capacity or another by the party. Otherwise it's just the GM playing rope-a-dope with the other players.


There tends to be more openness to this among Neo-Traditional Play. However, such games support this to differing degrees. Fate, for example, is honestly fairly High Concept Simulationist / Neo-Trad even though it gets labeled as a "story game" or "gamist" by its detractors.* But it has mechanical support for players to introduce backstory or for the GM to invite the players to do so as a natural part of play.

* I suspect that the source has to do a lot with how some people have differing expectations of what "simulationism" entails particularly in regards to immersion. Some people with simulationist preferences who advocate "Hardline Actor Stance," for example, regard anything that risks taking them out of their character immersion or dispelling the illusion as "(meta-)gamist" and "not roleplaying." So when they see things like fate points, invokes/compels, etc. in Fate that they claim break their personal sense of immersion, then Fate fails the purity test for what "simulationism" is supposed to be (for them).

In all fairness, I really do dislike fate points, invokes/compels, and similar mechanics, and feel they risk taking me out of my personal sense of immersion, and don't represent what I want out of simulation. I also prefer hardline actor stance.

I do not, however, consider any of those things as "not roleplaying", just not roleplaying i prefer. I don't want genre simulation as a mechanically invoked goal*; I want process simulation.

*most of the time anyway. I'm cool with trying other stuff every now and then.

 

[pemerton]

@niklinna, @EzekielRaiden

On classes vs playbooks:

* In D&D, classes often open up the space for actions that are otherwise off-limits (casting spells and turning undead being some classics). To an extent, part of the function of a class is to give you action declarations that are superior to the generic ones available to everyone.

* My sense of AW, at least, is that this sort of thing is not a generic feature of playbooks. Even when they give new moves, this is often (not always) a way to do an existing move differently - eg using a different stat, or a brainer using telepathy to "go aggro". The basic moves don't generally get superseded by playbook moves.

Also, because AW doesn't have a fiddly action economy like modern D&D does, you don't get class abilities like Cunning Action or Action Surge or Flurry of Blows or Extra Attack that are all about playing with the action economy.

I don't know if this way of looking at it makes sense to anyone else.

 

[cbwjm]

It's 43 pages, have people figured out what gamist means?

 

[pemerton]

if, by design, "what (type and amount) resources the GM can bring to bear" is gated behind skillful player surveillance, then the GM needs to skillfully handle BOTH the gating AND the reveal and honor that reveal with above-board procedural fidelity (the players need to understand it and see it).

<snip>

If the site of Skilled Play is overwhelmingly (though not wholly) at the scene/conflict level (see D&D 4e), then the requirement of a pre-prepped play-space is reduced dramatically. If we're running a 4e combat, the GM should telegraph encounter budget info such that threat can be inferred and should render the shared imagined space of the battlefield array so that players understand the constituent parts (including goals and any NPCs they have under their control) of the conflict.

When I was GMing a lot of 4e, my play group generally took the view that I would always have something extra up my sleeve, to reveal as the encounter unfolded. That wasn't always the case, but it often was. So part of their play was being ready for that.

Interestingly, it never caused a phenomenon of regretfully unused encounter powers.

 

[Aldarc]

In all fairness, I really do dislike fate points, invokes/compels, and similar mechanics, and feel they risk taking me out of my personal sense of immersion, and don't represent what I want out of simulation. I also prefer hardline actor stance.

I do not, however, consider any of those things as "not roleplaying", just not roleplaying i prefer. I don't want genre simulation as a mechanically invoked goal*; I want process simulation.

*most of the time anyway. I'm cool with trying other stuff every now and then.

You will be relieved to know that I have no intention of putting anyone on trial for disliking Fate or its mechanics.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

It's 43 pages, have people figured out what gamist means?

Some have.

I say it means Score-and-Achievement. Score, aka Step-On-Up, is about comparing. You can "play better," getting a higher Score. It may not be numbers. It might be complex. Maybe there are several valuable attributes, but you can't just have unlimited amounts of them all. Regardless, it still compares player success against something. It's where theoretical smarts and planned choice matter.

Achievement, aka Challenge, is rising to the occasion. Can you best the problem? Can you save the handsome dragon from the wicked princess? Are you a bad enough dude(tte) to save the President? It's where the action is. It's where practical smarts and dynamic choice matter.

Without Score, Achievement can't really happen, because the Challenge isn't overcome.* A fan of this style might mock it as having been "wished away," or as being a fake challenge with no failure condition. Score is the teeth, the bite that allows failure to have a sting, the thing that separates the wheat from the chaff. That means Score has to be "fair" in some sense, otherwise it's arbitrary and the challenge becomes a mere roulette.

Without Achievement, Score is pointless. Mere number jockeying without goal. This shows up more in video games. If the victories don't feel worthy, don't feel like they matter, then there is no growth, just change. Watching things change just to change gets boring quickly. Score alone becomes "spreadsheets" without meaning or merit.

There is a very intentional symmetry here between my four categories. The first term in each pair (Groundedness, Conceit, Score, Values) sets the stage. It allows things to happen. It doesn't DO things on its own. It may require actions in order to be present, but those actions are like putting out your paints and setting up your easel. They are not "painting" itself, but vital prep so you can paint. The second term in each pair is where the act of play occurs, and where those preparatory steps become useful. Just as one cannot paint if one has no paints to use, and setting up your paints and then not doing anything with them is pretty pointless, each term in the pair is...ineffectual without its partner. Prep and Action. The "Marine Creed" comes to mind.

Note that at no point did any of this require competition. That doesn't mean competition will be absent. Competition is a perfectly valid form of Achievement, and some games emphasize it. I, personally, don't care for it much. I value collab and co-op. I find competition for prizes within the group (e.g. jockeying to always get the best magic items) distasteful. But it remains valid. Outright conflict against fellow players is likewise a valid approach, I just don't personally find much enjoyment from it.

*This is probably why when I tell people that characters aren't subject to permanent, irrevocable, random death in my game, they think it must be "boring" or that the players "always win." They're so used to death being the ultimate metric of Score—how long did you survive?—that talk of doing anything else immediately makes them question how it is possible to still have any Achievement in the game.