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

[Manbearcat]

I suspect that, by "system", @Manbearcat means much the same as what Edwards does: the means by which in-game events are determined to occur. Every RPG has a system, in so far as every RPG involves (among other things) establishing that events have occurred in the shared fiction.

To say that some are stinkers, and some are not, is to move from analysis to preference.

To say that some are not well-suited to certain play goals is to stick to analysis. Think about how social interaction is often resolved in D&D and similar play: the players say what their PCs say, the GM says what the NPC says, and this goes back and forth until someone says something that brings the situation to a conclusion. We might add that the player may be bound (informally, at least) by an expectation that they will play their character consistently (alignment and personality descriptors can play a role in establishing or reinforcing those expectations); and the GM may be bound by an expectation to stick to some descriptors that they have written down in their notes, or made up in their head, about how this NPC will behave.

This is a system for resolving social interaction. It is relatively well-suited for some high concept sim play: it will give you exploration of character, and perhaps exploration of situation, or even of setting if the NPC is really just a vehicle whereby the setting expresses itself (like a knight of Cormyr or a cleric of a particular god or a reeve of a village). It is not especially ideal for purist-for-system play, as this sort of thing doesn't really let us explore, in loving detail and immersion, the process whereby things unfold in the fiction. It may work for gamist play, if the GM is giving clues through their play of the NPC and the players are essentially solving a puzzle. It is pretty hopeless, I think, for most "story now" play, because it does not allow for open-ended resolution driven by players' thematic/evaluative priorities: there is never a point at which the situation is forced to resolve one way or the other in relation to whatever it is that is at stake.

Yup. 100 % That is what I mean and I agree with the above.

Red Light Green Light and Simon Says are games that feature very minimal system architecture and a totality of “MC Decides.” But they don’t cease to be possessed of “system” because of this. They don’t render much in the way of an imagined space nor shared fiction because their utility is that of effectively governing a real space. But, despite being profoundly minimalist and featuring 0 authority distribution, they achieve their sought design goal as a system and they do so extremely well.

Similarly, you can reduce AW down to the three features that I introduced in that thread and, like the two games above, it would be possessed of system sufficient to determining the way in-game events occur and govern an imagined space. Now, depending upon the goal of the design, It might suck as a game (and be far far worse as designs than Red Light Green Light and Simon Says); it would be horrendous as any of a Gamist, Process Sim, or Narrativist design. If it’s goal, however, is “GM-Directed, High Concept Simulationism with Minimalist Design” (so that players can be overwhelmingly or totally passive in their orientation, experiencing genre emulation and touring the imaginings of a GM while mostly contributing color-rich cosplaying of a character conception; a low investment, low risk, low responsibility environment for casual consumption), it might be “just what the doctor ordered(!)”; an excellent design.

 

[pemerton]

I'm going to call this game "(Not) Apocalypse World."

<snip>

keep the following:

• Make (Not) Apocalypse World seem real.

• Always say what the rules demand (we've got one rule - see below).

• Apocalypse World divvies the conversation up in a strict and pretty traditional way. The players’ job is to say what their characters say and
undertake to do, first and exclusively; to say what their characters think, feel and remember, also exclusively; and to answer your questions
about their characters’ lives and surroundings. Your job as MC is to say everything else.

That's it.

Those are your "rules." This is your "system." We've taken Apocalypse World and we've stripped out everything that makes it Apocalypse World.

1) It is a necessary precondition for functional Gamism that players a priori know for certain that their tactical and strategic moves made will be honored. That they will interact with and affect the gamestate in an encoded way (at best) or a hugely reliable extrapolatable way (at worst) and each of these gamestate interactions will distill Skilled Play as will the collective throughline of them.

2) The system I proposed above does not inherently entail honoring the tactical and strategic moves of the players.

3) The system I proposed above does not possess encoded interactions with the gamestate.

4) The system I proposed above does not inherently entail a hugely reliable extrapolation in which players can infer how their interactions with the gamestate will affect it.

Conclusion?

As is, this system cannot produce functional Gamism.

In terms of techniques, the most striking thing about your Not-AW system is that it relies exclusively on Drama (in Tweet's sense) for resolution. Even moreso than classic D&D does, because there are not even combat rolls or detection rolls.

What's the minimum we would need to add to get gamism out of it? We need something that will support (2) and (4) of your four desiderata for gamism.

I suggest that that requires an addition to your rule. In particular, it needs some sort of principle that constrains or directs what it is that the MC says when the MC "says everything else".

I'm not going to try and write down what that principle would be; I think it's already been attempted. I'm thinking of Moldvay's advice in his Basic rulebook; and Mike Carr's advice in (I think) module B1 (I don't own a copy, so I'm going here on memory of what others have said). That advice also involves the use of fortune rather than drama resolution, so it's not perfect for Not-AW. But I think it's definitely in the right neighbourhood.

 

[pemerton]

What leads us to follow game rules at all? The answer is not that the rulebook tells us to.

Here are some typical sorts of reasons to follow the rules in a rulebook. They aren't mutually exclusive, but each is sufficient on its own:

(1) I've heard of this thing called doing a crossword, and I want to find out what doing crosswords is like, so I look up a description of what doing a crossword consists in (the most important rules being that each box can have only one letter even when the words cross, and that each word must be spelled out with all of its letters one per box). I now have a reason to follow those rules in virtue of them being what the rulebook told me.

(2) I know that the rules of a game solve a particular coordination problem, and I want to participate in the coordinated activity. I now have a reason to do what the rulebook for the game tells me to do, in virtue of that being what the rulebook tells me.

(3) Someone whose judgement I trust tells me that playing this particular game will be fun; and then gives me a copy of the rulebook. I now have a reason to to what the rulebook tells me to do, in virtue of that being what the rulebook tells me.

There's nothing surprising about cases (1), (2) or (3). They're fairly typical examples used to illustrate how rules can take on content-independent force.

If we have an interest in that purpose, then it is in our interest to put rules in force for ourselves that constitute or regulate it in a way we enjoy. Our gamist GM therefore, will have little interest in suspending those rules.

So with say TB2, I might get excited about playing an Elven Ranger and facing the crushing toils of the grind. I gladly put those rules in force for myself - even those that palapably disfavour my character's ongoing health, wealth or survival - for the distinct satisfactions gained from experiencing the various tensions or conflicts TB2 puts in play.

It's unsurprising that over time, as I become more expert, some rule might seem less worthwhile to me. GM or not, I might propose a change to that rule to our group, and we might all accept that change.

You use the verbs suspend, put into force and change. All those verbs implicate time: there is a time at which the suspension is put into place, and that suspension has a duration; there is a time at which a rule is put into force, and the rule is in force for some or other duration; there is a time at which a change is made, and that change is temporary or permanent.

@Manbearcat, in discussing the desiderata for successful gamist RPGing, also implicates time:

The players must know, a priori and for certain, that their tactical and strategic moves made will be honoured, which is to say that those moves will interact with and affect the gamestate in an knowable way (either encoded, or reliably extrapolatable), and that each of these gamestate interactions will distill Skilled Play as will the collective throughline of them.​

I've bolded the most important temporal components of Manbearcat's requirements.

A suspension, enforcement or change that does not upset the temporal demands of gamism (eg one that is made before the beginning of a "throughline" and that is known to the players before they begin) will not upset gamist play (assuming the actual content of the change still satisfies the requirements of distilling skill play in a knowable way). One that is made during the throughline will be far more suspect, because there is a very real risk that it will disrupt the way moves interact with the gamestate and hence will result in those moves not being honoured. Doubly so if the suspension, enforcement or change is not one that is known to the players.

There is a colloquial phrase to describe this sort of suspect suspension, enforcement or change: moving the goalposts. When we reflect on that, we can see that sometimes producing good gamist play might require moving the goalposts. Suppose, for instance, that we're playing football in a playground, having marked our goals with backpacks and caps, and then we discover that we mismeasured, and one of the goals is wider than the other. I can see at least two possible solutions: we change ends, so that the other side now gets the benefit of the wider goal; or we move the goalposts, to remove the unfair advantage. Moving the goalposts isn't obviously worse as a solution here, especially if no one has scored yet, and even moreso if no one has even taken a shot at goal yet.

This sort of thing has been discussed in the context of non-gameplay too: Lon Fuller and those who follow him on the rule of law in general don't like retrospective laws, but allow that sometimes they might be necessary to serve the interests of the rule of law, if there are other features of the legal system that have produced some sort of departure from rule of law demands and only retrospective law can rectify those departures.

In the context of legislation, there are normally authorised lawmakers who promulgate the change. In the case of playground football, the group as a whole will have to reach some agreement. If they can't, the game breaks up; in extreme cases, the group might break up.

When it comes to RPGing, who decides what game we are going to play? The group. Who decides what rules to use? The group. Who decides whether or not a suspension of, enforcement of, or change to some rule is needed during a throughline? The group. The GM has no special function here. So reflections on when we adopt and change rules has no particular bearing upon @Manbearcat's not-AW, which is a RPG which specifies a particular function for the GM, and in virtue of that is not very good for gamist play.

 

[pemerton]

agreement to an encoded rule is not located in that rule.

This claim is contentious (perhaps depending on how one understands the metaphor of "being located"). For example, John Gardner has a well-known paper "Can there be a written constitution" which argues that, at least in a certain sense, there can't be. Not everyone agrees with Gardner's argument.

On the other hand, there is an interpretation of the claim in virtue of which it is trivially true: the mere fact that someone writes down a sentence in the imperative mood; or writes down a description of an activity and then appends: Now do what I've described; doesn't suffice to ensure that anyone actually follows the commands, or performs the described activity.

But that does not tell us anything very interesting about RPGs. We already knew that they are a leisure activity in which most participants are participating voluntarily.

 

[Thomas Shey]

When it comes to RPGing, who decides what game we are going to play? The group. Who decides what rules to use? The group. Who decides whether or not a suspension of, enforcement of, or change to some rule is needed during a throughline? The group. The GM has no special function here. So reflections on when we adopt and change rules has no particular bearing upon @Manbearcat's not-AW, which is a RPG which specifies a particular function for the GM, and in virtue of that is not very good for gamist play.

I suspect that I've probably lost part of the context of this particular discussion or the word "decides" is doing some pretty heavy lifting here with many groups.

 

[pemerton]

That again seems to be such a weird way of presenting it. If it is a rule, it is to be followed where it indicates; if we are not following it, it isn't a rule. You are, essentially, saying that absolutely all rules ever, literally 100% of rules, are actually mere suggestions, which either are followed or aren't. That devalues the word "rule" so that it no longer means anything particular, it's a perfect synonym for "suggestion."

<snip>

If the rules do not bind, then there is no need to interpret them at all--because a suggestion that doesn't make sense can be safely ignored. It is only when the rules do bind, and thus we must do something in response to them, that it becomes important for us to understand what they bind for and why.

Consider the matter of cheating. A rule does not cease to be a rule just because a cheater disapplies it.

<snip>

in the case of games, that puts the cart before the horse. We follow the rules because of the consequences we enjoy in following them. Not because they must be followed.

<snip>

I kind of agree with your point that the rules are most of interest when they bind, but please remember I was responding to a claim that a DM would be unbridled in their application of the rules of a DM-curated RPG such as 5e. My argument is oriented to the point that we put rules in force for us (or if you like, accept that they are in force for us) just because of the worth they have (the play they are constitutive of, or regulate in ways we enjoy.) You make the point this is a practice with normative force, which I also agree with.

EDIT The meaning of the rule is at issue in considering what it binds us to do. If as I say we must choose to put rules in force for ourselves, then the meaning we grasp them to have is as important as choosing to uphold them. It shows that the upholding alone incompletely explains what is going on.

In the case of a voluntary activity like a game, there is some doubt that it is possible for everyone to be cheating all of the time: if no one ever actually conforms to the rule and affirms that doing so is what the rule requires, it must be in doubt that the rule exists. I think this is probably enough to get EzekielRaiden's distinction between a rule and a mere suggestion off the ground.

(There are similar issues in the case of mandatory rules, like duty-imposing laws, but they are more complicated because of the institutional structures involved in establishing the mandate, which can also separate the existence of the rule from its being exhibited via behaviour.)

As far as the relationship between rules and "fun", I would strongly suggest considering Rawls's famous paper "Two concepts of rules".

The point of promising, roughly, is to secure among human beings the benefits of cooperation grounded in reliability. Promising, as a practice, secures that benefit by allowing someone, here-and-now, to oblige themselves to do something for another person in the future.

Once someone has made a promise, they are bound to keep it. The obligation can be defeated, but it is not relevant to the existence or the defeat of the obligation that breaking the promise might better secure the benefits of cooperation grounded in reliability. That is to say, the purpose of the institution does not figure within the permissible moves of the institution.

The same things applies in ball sports: the referee can't confer an extra goal on one side just because they think that will make the match more even, or more exciting, and hence better at achieving the goal of ball sports as a practice.

And the same thing applies at least to gamist RPGing as @Manbearcat has described it. We are engaged in "stepping on up". We do that for fun; but no one can appeal to "fun" as a basis for changing the nature of the "arena' here and now in the middle of the challenge. If I'm playing Moldvay Basic, and I have to roll a save vs poison for my PC, I'll probably have more fun if I make the save than if I fail it: having a character die is disappointing, and rolling up a new one is a chore. That doesn't give anyone a reason to fudge or ignore the die roll!

 

[Manbearcat]

And the same thing applies at least to gamist RPGing as @Manbearcat has described it. We are engaged in "stepping on up". We do that for fun; but no one can appeal to "fun" as a basis for changing the nature of the "arena' here and now in the middle of the challenge. If I'm playing Moldvay Basic, and I have to roll a save vs poison for my PC, I'll probably have more fun if I make the save than if I fail it: having a character die is disappointing, and rolling up a new one is a chore. That doesn't give anyone a reason to fudge or ignore the die roll!

Fantastic series of posts.

The only thing I'll add to the above paragraph is the following:

You know what is more disappointing than having your character die in a Gamist agenda game like Moldvay Basic? Having the GM not let your success rise and fall on the merit of your own Skilled Play by intervening "on your behalf" when your interactions with the gamestate/rules engine should authentically yield "you die (YOU GET NOTHING, YOU LOSE, GOOD DAY SIR)" as the gamestate!

 

[pemerton]

So a rule as you grasp and uphold it can be constitutive of the game that you expect or desire AW to be. AW is capable of remaining a game under many other variations. Is it the same game? that hair has been split a great many times in the wider discourse! The strictest possible view is to say that every instance of play of AW must be grasped a-priori to be a different game, because we cannot be sure of identical-in-every-respect grasping of and upholding of every rule.

The strictest possible view is, in my view, not a plausible view.

I sketched my view in the post you replied to: some rules are constitutive, some are not, there may be borderline cases. In AW, "If you do it, you do it" is I think constitutive. That is what drives play and gives the game its distinctive character. It is the absence of that from @Manbearcat's Not-AW that, most fundamentally, makes it Not-AW.

The terrific advance made in the last decade or so has been the realisation that it is possible and powerful to spell out principles in the game text.

Gygax and Moldvay spelled out principles in RPG texts in the 1970s and early 1980s. Marc Miller came pretty close in 1977 too.

So I don't see it as a new development.

What I think changed in the 1980s was that different principles from Gygax's and Moldvay's were promulgated (To players: stick to your characterisation, which should be consistent with your stats; to GMs: make sure the story occurs) but the techniques and systems in widespread use weren't suitable to serve those principles, and so meta-principles like the so-called rule zero or Golden Rule became widely adopted and advocated. It's very common, today, to encounter people who assert that those sorts of conferrals of power on the GM are part-and-parcel of RPGing. And what is distinctive to me about a game like Burning Wheel or Apocalypse World or MHRP, in spelling out its principles, is that one thing the principles do is to state that "rule zero" or the "Golden Rule" is not part of the game.

So that works hard to try and prevent players going off-piste. In the past, I have been accused of playing AW incorrectly. For that to be possible, it must be true that those principles weren't powerful enough to prevent other factors leading me to grasp and uphold the rules in the wrong way. The possibility of incorrect play, serves as a reminder that correct play is not guaranteed.

I don't understand what the force of this point is supposed to be.

Every day people all over the world cop parking fines not because they deliberately set out to park illegally, but because they failed to notice the signs, or they misread them. People make errors in filling in forms, and reporting earnings or expenses, and the like, not because they are tax cheats or insurance cheats but because they get confused or forget something or the rule isn't clear to them.

So it's no surprise that some people - especially if they have strongly internalised the idea of "rule zero"/"the Golden Rule" - might play AW in a way that doesn't conform to its principles. Even if they've read the principles and a sincerely trying to implement them! That doesn't show anything about a lack of power in the principles; it just shows the fallibility of human cognition and intention.

 

[Campbell]

Since there's been some confusion, I thought I would share this diagram (from John Harper's blog) that shows the basic structure of Story Now play. What is important here is that each scene or situation flows directly from previous one. Each scene basically is composed of threat or opportunity => player response => fallout.

This video explaining some of the basics of Blades in the Dark might also be instructive.

 

[pemerton]

In the spirit of @Campbell's post, here are some recreations of process charts from Edwards's setting dissection essay, plus some of my own.

He gives sorcerer as an example of a character-driven story now (I'm departing a bit from his way of numbering the steps, for clarity):

1. Establish introductory colour (environment, look and feel - I've never played Sorcerer, but as I understand it the game needs the group to make some decisions about the context, what sorcery and demons are in their setting, etc);

2. Make characters, which includes a kicker - ie a player-authored situation that is a moment of disruption or crisis for their PC that propels the PC into action;

3. Make the demons - this is setting up both context and content for the crises that will come during play.

4. Prepare, which includes both "diagramming" ie organising the preceding stuff in a systematic way (on a chart a tiny bit like a traditional alignment chart) that reveals, visually (ie via its place on the chart) both to the player and the GM its thematic "heft"; and then the GM doing their prep work (I'm not across the details of Sorcerer prep, but I know it's a thing from how Edwards talks about it - and I do know the prep has to have regard to the diagrams);

5. Begin play - which includes the GM drawing on their prep to frame scenes that (because they've been conceived of with the diagram in mind) will propel the players towards conflict (at a modest level of abstraction, this is similar to a Burning Wheel GM framing scenes that put pressure on the PCs' player-authored Beliefs);

6. Resolve conflicts;

7. As a result, witness and experience character transformations, which constitute the emergent story. The character changes, as I understand it, will among other things produce changes in the diagrams, which in turn therefore feed into future prep. This is one example of @Campbell's idea of scenes/situations having "fallout" which feeds into subsequent scenes.​

Here's my attempt to do the same for Burning Wheel:

1. Establish the overall situation and context, building on the GM's pitch of a "big picture";

2. Make characters - in BW this is a lifepath process, and iterates with step 1 because lifepaths implicate setting and context, and vice versa;

3. Establish relationships, affiliations, reputations, etc - this is part of the PC build process, but is worth calling out because (i) at a certain level of abstraction it has a bit of resemblance to the "demons" stage of Sorcerer (ie it is part of the process of creating the NPCs and relationships that will underpin future conflicts and crises) and (ii) it is a further way in which the PC build phase of the game iterates back into step 1, of establishing situation, context and "big picture";

4. Establish Beliefs for the PCs - this is also part of the PC build process, but is worth calling out because at a certain level of abstraction it resembles diagramming in Sorcerer: it is the canonical way in which players signal their thematic concerns to the GM, and interweave the PCs, their relationships, their affiliations, etc (there is no mandate to make Beliefs be about a character's relationships or affiliations, or about other PCs, but it is discussed and strongly encouraged as a good way to support visceral pay with compelling situations);

5. Begin play, which will include the GM framing an initial scene: the GM's job here is to frame so as to put pressure on Beliefs and thus propel the players into action declarations for their PCs; as I've discussed upthread, the players also have tools (eg Wises, Circles) to try and establish scene elements or whole scenes that will speak to their concerns, if they want to add to, or depart from, what the GM is offering;

6. Resolve conflicts (as per the principle: say 'yes' or roll the dice - so if the players' declared actions don't immediately lean into conflict the GM just keeps saying yes and building up the framing until a conflict occurs - this is why relationships, affiliations etc matter because these give the GM the material, NPCs etc to use in their framing);

7. As a result, witness and experiences changes in characters - either internal changes (Beliefs change) or external changes (relationships change, new ones are created, allies become enemies or vice versa, etc); external changes are apt to produce internal changes too.​

Here's how Edwards sets out generic setting-based "story now" (again, I'm playing a bit with his numbering to hopefully make it clearer and to roughly map to the preceding):

1. Introduce the setting, including a particular situation-rich location where the action will start;

2. Make the PCs in that spot;

3. As part of PC build, establish the relationships, obligations etc the PCs participate in and are under, drawing on the setting material (Edward says "it is helpful for one, preferably more of them to be small walking soap operas");

4. Prep: identify the political, economic, religious, cultural etc conflicts that the PCs are implicated in, in virtue of where they are, who they are, and who they are related to; this may also involve identifying character goals that fits within that context;

5. Begin play with a trigger event, something that destabilises the status quo - power, economics, status, religion, or whatever - in the starting location, which either the PCs, or the NPCs they're related to, can't ignore;

6. Resolve the conflicts that emerge - Edwards's advice here is to "embrace the fullest and most extreme rules-driven consequences of every single resolved conflict, no matter what they are" and to "Show those consequences and treat them as the material of the moment in the very next scenes, every time";

7. As a result, the setting will be transformed and this constitutes the emergent story.​

And here is how I would suggest doing this for 4e D&D:

1. Introduce the setting - fallen Nerath, and perhaps work out if there's any particular aspect or element people want to focus on;

2. Make the PCs, choosing build options that locate them (geographically, historically, thematically) within fallen Nerath - at this stage I think Halfling rangers who worship Melora or Avandra risk being energy sinks, but Dwarven Paladins of Moradin ready to crusade against the giants, or Eladrin envoys from the Feywild concerned about incursions of Goblins and Formorians are good stuff;

3. This is probably the weakest part of 4e D&D in the present context - it doesn't have clear processes for making the PCs into "walking soap operas" - what I did was tell each player they had to establish one loyalty for their PC, and this led to relationships to places, peoples, gods etc which was enough to start with (4e themes and backgrounds, on their own, are good for step 2 but I don't think have quite enough heft to cover step 3 on their own)

4. Prep: the players can work out if/how their PCs are connected, but more important is that the GM has to prepare (or at least find in a sourcebook) the stat blocks, maps etc that will allow presenting situations that speak to the concerns that have been identified at steps 2 and 3 (so if there are Raven Queen-oriented PCs, prep undead and Orcus cultists; for Kord-worshippers prep Bane-ites; etc); think about, and in practical terms work out, how these can be interwoven within the framework of fallen Nerath, and lean into D&D tropes where they will help carry this load;

5. Begin play with an event that locates the PCs within the conflicts and tensions and connections the GM has identified and prepped for at step 4 and forces them to choose a side in some or other respect - it doesn't necessarily have to be as overtly destabilising of status quos as Edwards says, because fallen Nerath is already lacking status quos (the points of light are under constant threat from the darkness), but it has to provoke action for these characters given their contexts, and D&D leans heavily into taking sides in larger conflicts so build on that, don't shy away from it;

6. Resolve conflicts - I think Edwards's generic advice here is pretty sound for 4e D&D;

7. As a result, the setting will be transformed: so as the PCs scale up the tiers not only are they changing in their standing, capabilities etc but the world they are engaging with is changing as a result of their actions (the "tiers of play" text in the PHB and DMG gives generic ideas about what sorts of changes might be expected - these don't need to be metaplotted, as following the preceding steps will make that sort of thing happen emergently).​

I think using 4e D&D for a different setting (eg Dark Sun) needs a different set of steps, because 1 and 2 will probably be weaker in terms of a situation-rich location and context for the PCs, and hence step 4 will be harder. In my Dark Sun game, I used kickers as a supplementing aspect of step 3. That helped, but the setting still has a fair bit of "status quo" that I found it can be work to push against.