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

[kenada]

The AGE Stunt subsystem is a fortune in the middle mechanic. The AGE resolution mechanic is 3d6 (+Attribute, +Focus). If the player rolls doubles on 3d6, then it generates a number of stunt points equal to the value on the designated "stunt die." Those stunt points can be used to perform special moves and enhanced effects.

I do a few things like that using how the dice are rolled. Event rolls encode weather, but they also do that for looking up discovery or wandering monster events when they are rolled. The thief’s read scrolls also uses the initial roll’s dice to determine mishaps. I don’t like rolling multiple times if I can avoid it.

You will get no counterargument from me about that. That is one reason, FYI, I have been happy with Stonetop. It does a much better job at elucidating what play should look like, including many examples. Stonetop reworks Fronts into "Threats," but these represent potential issues that come out of Session 0 character creation, PC backstory, etc. So in this regard, Stonetop Threats are something between Kickers and DW Fronts. But there is an entire chapter in Stonetop dedicated to running Threats.

That sounds similar to what Apocalypse World 2e did, which also dispensed with fronts but retained threats. It was after reading that I put things together and realized fronts were an organizational tool for dangers.

One way to use Fronts would be to ask the players about the threats of the area or even what sort of things they want their characters to face.

How any kind of faction/danger/whatever would be pre-seeded will have to be determined once I have a better idea of what that looks like structure worked out.

 

[clearstream]

@pemerton's point is key though, where does 5e give you any other path besides the GM deciding when, where, how, and why something happens (outside of combat)? A player can declare an action, and the GM will decide "should it be a check." Now, this is based on certain principles, but many of the inputs to those principles are the GM's fiction, often unrevealed backstory. Furthermore, it is a very 'task oriented' system, so while the PC may pick the lock, the actual substantive outcome of doing so is almost always to refer back to some fiction that is outside the player's current view. The clue may or may not be in the drawer, GM decides. Nothing may be in the drawer at all, or successfully picking the lock may expend so much time that they fail to achieve their goal for some other reason. The GM may impose innumerable checks, each of which is a 'must pass'. Yes, presumably the basic agenda of play, whatever that is, probably falls in favor of "when the player rolls success a lot, the character's fortunes are good." However, that is nothing like assured. So, 5e really does rest FUNDAMENTALLY, in an ARCHITECTURAL SENSE on the GM to determine where things go next, in a fairly unconstrained way.

Can you say how you see something not yet disclosed as necessarily not constraining? For example, suppose in the LotR boardgame The Confrontation my Nazgul is not yet disclosed. Do you see that as freeing me from constraints in its regard?

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Okay. I think that's a good definition. There is honestly no obstacle at all (except a decision folk make for themselves) to a 5e DM holding themselves accountable to their players.


Can you say more about the connection between "clear and immediate" and "accountable" which if I read you correctly you imply is a necessary one?

(I ask, because one implication of necessity if intended, might be that a GM is never "accountable" except where everything is "clear and immediate". That doesn't sound right to me. I don't actually see any necessary connection at all between accountability and clarity and immediacy, other than perhaps of trust. None of this is to deny clarity and immediacy of stakes could have a connection with tension.)

In a Story Now game, played correctly, the players could decide the moves. They have as much information and insight into the fiction and an equal appreciation of the techniques and forces involved in play. So as a player in an SN type of game (or similar) I can IMMEDIATELY say that any given 'move' or act of scene framing by the GM is or is not well conceived and appropriate, and to what degree. It doesn't mean I can always really comment on fictional details, like what sort of monster appears, but I can definitely say "that follows from what came before, the GM played by the rules." In our TB2 game when the children pulled out knives and attacked the PCs, that was THE MOVE. It was utterly RIGHT, and you could instantly understand the rightness of that move.

I would never say that in, say, a 5e game that is basically setting exploration that there aren't better and worse options for the GM. Some partake more of the principles of play, and lead to better results than others. However, in many cases it is not possible for the players to make any sort of judgment on that. Much is hidden.

 

[clearstream]

In a Story Now game, played correctly, the players could decide the moves.

Pointing to my OP, I could say that this thread isn't about story now. It's about "gamist" play. But as we've digressed into story now at length your assumption here is fair enough.

To clear that assumption up, I am not talking about story now: I am talking about DM constraints.

 

[Thomas Shey]

I feel I've learned a lot from this thread. In part, that asking if D&D is "gamist" isn't that good a question. It means different things to different people, and worse still it invokes a take on what counts as "gamist" that is too narrow. While reading in relation to conversation here, I found more recent commentary (2015, I think) from Vincent Baker on GNS

I'm a little less on board this, mainly because GDS was first developed for the explicitly to be able to talk about these things in a coherent way, and it served our purpose back in the day halfway well. I do think it requires everyone to be on at least mostly the same page on what a term means, however, and the GNS distinctions having become terms-of-art with a fairly wide swath of people makes this probably easier for them but harder for everyone else, since it means there's a considerable drift in the way the concept is being perceived by others (and I say that even though GNS gamism is the closest to the way GDS gamism was used, and probably the least likely to create problems with third parties of the three in general (though it being off is not new; GDS gamism was largely defined by non-gamists, which is why the version of it used in John Kim's essay has some artifacts in it that neither I nor Gleichman (nor I think, Szonze) really agreed with).

So to discuss it in this way, you need the group doing so to decide and largely stick-to a usage, and that really was only done by GNS users in this thread, and those not using GNS didn't find their usage altogether useful, so here we are.

 

[Aldarc]

I do a few things like that using how the dice are rolled. Event rolls encode weather, but they also do that for looking up discovery or wandering monster events when they are rolled. The thief’s read scrolls also uses the initial roll’s dice to determine mishaps. I don’t like rolling multiple times if I can avoid it.

To be clear, you are only rolling once as part of the basic resolution.

You may get the above result (3+3+6+Attribute+Focus), which could succeed. The result produced doubles. The red die is the stunt die, which has 3 points, so the player would get 3 points from that roll. No additional rolls required unless the player chooses a stunt that may provide them with the option for an additional attack.

That sounds similar to what Apocalypse World 2e did, which also dispensed with fronts but retained threats. It was after reading that I put things together and realized fronts were an organizational tool for dangers.

Pretty much.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

@pemerton's point is key though, where does 5e give you any other path besides the GM deciding when, where, how, and why something happens (outside of combat)? A player can declare an action, and the GM will decide "should it be a check." Now, this is based on certain principles, but many of the inputs to those principles are the GM's fiction, often unrevealed backstory. Furthermore, it is a very 'task oriented' system, so while the PC may pick the lock, the actual substantive outcome of doing so is almost always to refer back to some fiction that is outside the player's current view. The clue may or may not be in the drawer, GM decides. Nothing may be in the drawer at all, or successfully picking the lock may expend so much time that they fail to achieve their goal for some other reason. The GM may impose innumerable checks, each of which is a 'must pass'. Yes, presumably the basic agenda of play, whatever that is, probably falls in favor of "when the player rolls success a lot, the character's fortunes are good." However, that is nothing like assured. So, 5e really does rest FUNDAMENTALLY, in an ARCHITECTURAL SENSE on the GM to determine where things go next, in a fairly unconstrained way.

And in 5e the GM is allowed by the rules start the session by "rocks fall, everyone dies," but they probably won't. In practice these things have structures and conventions governing them; it is not arbitrary. Now it perhaps could be argued that DMG does poor job in outlining such principles and conventions.

 

[kenada]

To be clear, you are only rolling once as part of the basic resolution.

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You may get the above result (3+3+6+Attribute+Focus), which could succeed. The result produced doubles. The red die is the stunt die, which has 3 points, so the player would get 3 points from that roll. No additional rolls required unless the player chooses a stunt that may provide them with the option for an additional attack.

Right, that’s what I understood. I have a few places where I interpret the dice to determine what happens after the roll is made. For example, if the thief gets a 9−, the left-most die determines what the mishap is. Events do something similar to determine the result on the appropriate event table. This has the effect of skewing the distribution of the d6 event table based on the danger level added to the roll, which I think is neat. Weather is also like that but more complicated (also considering doubles, triples, relative values of the first and last dice, and more), but it’s still in the trial phase and could change. However, it was easier to use than I expected last session, so maybe not.

 

[Thomas Shey]

I'm reluctant to impute a lack of sophistication to players. For example, I would not make the assumption that players who choose fighter will always prefer rules that make their characters stronger, because (apposite the thread topic) that could prevent the game being appealing on the qualities that matter to them.

As a possible example of this, in D&Doids, I lean in to fighters and related. What I like about PF2e is not that it makes Fighters stronger (though I think it mildly does so, and in practice the sense of it is more because casters are not the all-purpose-power-tool for every purpose), but it makes them more engaging (i.e. you have more decision making that actually can make a difference).

(Note that some players are actively put off by the fact that PF2e virtually demands engagement for success; going on cruise control works pretty poorly).

 

[clearstream]

I pulled this out of another response and tidied it up as it captures something I've been mulling. Maybe 5e ability checks are helpfully explained like this, using the example of opening a safe

1. It may seem counter-intuitive, but in 5e, you don't really roll to open a safe
2. Per DMG 237, what you are really rolling for are consequences
3. Taken together with PHB 174, the results can be
   1. you open the safe (the consequence you want)
   2. you open the safe but with additional consequences
   3. you become engaged with some consequences

For emphasis, per RAW, outcomes of ability checks in 5e - pass or fail - are ordinarily not inert. I'm not saying a dead-end couldn't ever come up in an interesting way, but that isn't the default.

I can wonder - what if the safe is empty? The answer depends on decisions about the kind of play I am interested in. Perhaps an immersionist would like to imagine possibly empty safes.

I can wonder - what consequences? For me, the answer is constrained by fiction, description, and system. For another DM, the answer could be entirely different. And that will matter. For 5e, system and DM matters. Because consequences are what justified calling for a check, they're known going in. Thus one could most accurately characterise 5e ability checks as consequence-resolution.

In understanding ability checks for 5e, folk normally start with examples like the one in the primer. Later, they might read the PHB 174 and see they should take uncertainty into account and can narrate complications on failure. Eventually, they'll get familiar with DMG 237 and see what's possible: that 5e uses what I'm calling consequence-resolution. Stopping short at primer or PHB leaves the picture incomplete. Because in D&D system + DM matters, even the whole picture won't guarantee that any two groups will play it the same way.


[EDITED To tighten up a few elements.]