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

[kenada]

My copy of the PHB has text that matches what’s in the SRD (see below). I’m not seeing where it suggests conflict resolution. The DMG even ought calls it task resolution (no SRD link, but here is the section on D&D Beyond). I think it’s a strained reading to suggest the DMG’s advice actually means conflict resolution. What it’s advising against is using a process sim approach to making rolls. Specifically, it wants you to roll when both success and failure are possible and when the task isn’t trivial. For example, 3e was had DC 0 checks (even had a cohort fail one during combat to climb down a ladder, much to the party’s amusement). In 5e, you wouldn’t roll for a check that easy. You’d just succeed (per the DMG’s advice).

Ability Checks​

An ability check tests a character’s or monster’s innate talent and training in an effort to overcome a challenge. The GM calls for an ability check when a character or monster attempts an action (other than an attack) that has a chance of failure. When the outcome is uncertain, the dice determine the results.

For every ability check, the GM decides which of the six abilities is relevant to the task at hand and the difficulty of the task, represented by a Difficulty Class. The more difficult a task, the higher its DC. The Typical Difficulty Classes table shows the most common DCs.

Typical Difficulty Classes

Task Difficulty	DC
Very easy	5
Easy	10
Medium	15
Hard	20
Very hard	25
Nearly impossible	30

To make an ability check, roll a d20 and add the relevant ability modifier. As with other d20 rolls, apply bonuses and penalties, and compare the total to the DC. If the total equals or exceeds the DC, the ability check is a success—the creature overcomes the challenge at hand. Otherwise, it’s a failure, which means the character or monster makes no progress toward the objective or makes progress combined with a setback determined by the GM.

 

[Ovinomancer]

My copy of the PHB has text that matches what’s in the SRD (see below). I’m not seeing where it suggests conflict resolution. The DMG even ought calls it task resolution (no SRD link, but here is the section on D&D Beyond). I think it’s a strained reading to suggest the DMG’s advice actually means conflict resolution. What it’s advising against is using a process sim approach to making rolls. Specifically, it wants you to roll when both success and failure are possible and when the task isn’t trivial. For example, 3e was had DC 0 checks (even had a cohort fail one during combat to climb down a ladder, much to the party’s amusement). In 5e, you wouldn’t roll for a check that easy. You’d just succeed (per the DMG’s advice).

Oh, this sounds like more of the 5e* idea Clearstream floated. I tried to point out then that the idea doesn't work because it's essentially the GM arbitrarily enforces conflict resolutions when they feel like it, with no indication, stakes, or even inputs into the check that suggest that conflict resolution is on the table. It's a slicked up version of "rocks fall" and hinges on the same authorities.

 

[pemerton]

Fronts to me seem very similar to how a lot of people in more traditional games use organisations, factions etc. To make the world living outside the PCs and fodder for conflict and interesting situations.

I agree with @Ovinomancer that they are not very similar: they don't yield fictional positioning that constrains scene framing and/or action resolution.

I think it's hard, maybe impossible, to over-emphasise how big a difference this is in approaches to play. It's at the core of the contrast between the two John Harper diagrams that @Campbell posted. Fronts provide content for consequence narration in the context of a system that dictates the need for those consequences without the GM needing to feed in constraints on fictional positioning derived from pre-authored backstory.

Whereas the "GM fiat" diagram is one that is based around the sort of use of organisations and factions that you describe - the GM draws on that stuff to help serve as the "glue" that links particular moments of action resolution to the resolution of conflicts and situations.

 

[pemerton]

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.

I think this is how AW is meant to work: the fronts are written up after the first session, in response to whatever came out of that session. (And are revised, added to, removed etc based on subsequent play, which will include players' answers to questions as well as their evinced preferences and interests.)

 

[Campbell]

Here's how I look at constraints in context of games (not just roleplaying games). A (social) constraint is something that can be socially enforced. In order to be socially enforceable, it must be observable when our expectations are not met and socially permissible to raise a stink over it. What players can raise a stink about will tell us a good deal about the structure of play.

Basically, game rules are just social constraints we agree to take on inside the magic circle. They are its foundation.

Different play structures have different social constraints. A big one for more exploration focused play (as is typical for 5e) is the expectation of tangibility. Basically, that we can poke and prod at the setting and it holds up to scrutiny. That we can basically try to investigate the contents of that black box and move things from a hidden game state to a known game state. At that point these things become a constraint on the GM because players are able to keep them honest about the consistency of the setting. They have leverage.

That ability to poke and prod at the game setting with the expectation that there are layers to unravel (even if they are under construction) is not universally shared under all play structures. For insistence poking and prodding at the setting in Apocalypse World is just a prompt for the MC to make moves and frame potential conflicts. It's not going to provide leverage or allow you to neutrally navigate the setting just to sate your curiosity. There are no layers of the onion to discover.

 

[pemerton]

I am talking about DM constraints.

Can you say how you see something not yet disclosed as necessarily not constraining?

A GM can faithfully stick to their prep. I don't think anyone is denying that. @Campbell has specifically affirmed it, both in the abstract and as part of his play, in multiple posts in this thread. I've identified it, in this thread and in many other threads over many years, as crucial to making classic D&D work.

That doesn't mean the GM is not the "glue" holding the fiction together. It reinforces that this is the case.

In many threads over many years, I have also made the point that @AbdulAlhazred has made in this thread: that once the fiction takes on a certain richness (eg cities rather than sparse dungeons), the idea' of "sticking faithfully to prep" becomes less and less meaningful. When a player whose PC is running down the streets of Greyhawk asks "Is there an alleyway I can duck into?" or "Is there a crowd of passers-by I can mingle into?" the GM has to make some sort of decision, and almost no amount of prep will help. In these circumstances, in traditional play, the GM remains the glue, but there is no longer an objective "puzzle" (the dungeon) which the players can hope to resolve.

I don't think it's a coincidence that, for these sorts of scenarios, the 1977 edition of Traveller eschews task resolution: the rules for Streetwise checks, in the 1977 edition, are conflict resolution although without any clear advice to the GM as to how to establish failure consequences. (Only successes are dealt with.) The game is shifting the responsibility for deciding what happens off the GM's shoulders, and back onto the skill-based fortune mechanic.

It's worth considering a bit of Vincent Baker's remarks about task-vs-conflict resolution that I didn't quote upthread:

Task resolution, in short, puts the GM in a position of priviledged authorship. Task resolution will undermine your collaboration.​

If a table is not looking to collaborate in their authorship, then the second of Baker's sentences will misfire, as there is nothing to undermine. But the point about task resolution, and about Harper's diagrams, and @Campbell's remarks about GM fiat and GM-as-glue, is not that the GM is arbitrary, nor that the GM is unconstrained, but that the GM enjoys a privileged position of authorship. The GM, by drawing on either (i) their prep and/or (ii) the current ideas, gets to decide whether, and how, situations are resolved. Whether or not the PCs succeed at the tasks they attempt will feed into this. But it is just another element of the fiction that the GM welds together (or intertwines, or whatever other metaphor seems apt) to produce a resolution.

I observe players in our group having rich sets of intentions. When it comes to attempting something specific that justifies a roll, they don't recite those intentions. Nevertheless, they seldom attempt actions without underlying intent.

Maybe it can be understood like this, using the example of opening a safe

1. It may seem counter-intuitive, but in 5e, you don't roll to open a safe
2. Per DMG 237, what you are really rolling for is consequences
3. Thus, the only possible outcomes are
   1. you open the safe
   2. you become engaged with additional consequences

I can wonder - what if the safe is empty? The answer depends on our decisions about the kind of play we are interested in. Perhaps if we are immersionists, we'd like to imagine possibly empty safes.

I can wonder - what consequences? As I have said, for me the answer is strictly those constrained by situation, description, system. For another DM, the answer could be entirely different. And that will matter. For 5e system and DM matters.

Per RAW, there aren't typically dead-end ability checks in 5e. I'm not saying they couldn't come up sometimes in an interesting way, but that isn't the default. In understanding ability checks for 5e, you can comfortably start with examples like the one you quoted from the primer. Later, you might read PHB 174 and pick up more sophistication. Eventually, you'll get familiar with the whole Core and see what's possible. update and I'd like to wait to hear their further thoughts.

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.

What consequences might I personally as DM narrate? There isn't enough detail in the example here to really know. System's say might be the safe is open, but with complications. Player descriptions might have ruled out any passing guards or magical alarms. Our fiction to now matters. We're here at this safe because the players had something in mind that brought us here: what was that something? What NPCs or polities are implicated? What are their means and motives? What's the situation? I'll say what follows.

You seem to be intending this as a counterpoint to what I posted, but it is absolutely consistent with it, even confirmatory of it. What the check determines is do I open the safe?. It does not determine do I find what I was looking for in the safe?. Which is the whole of Vincent Baker's point. (The way you seem to elide this fact is by describing you open the safe as the consequence you want - whereas the desired consequence, that drives the whole example, is that certain documents are found within the safe.

The fact that the GM can choose to follow up the resolution of the safe-opnening task with whatever framing they prefer - empty safe, locked safe, guards turning up, the heavens opening and angels appearing, etc - doesn't change the basic point.

The fact that you point to extrapolations from the fiction - What NPCs or polities, with what motives, are implicated? Have the PCs avoided passing guards or magical alarms? What other means might those NPCs and polities have? - only reinforces my point. You are describing exploratory play. The GM is in a privileged position of authorship. That's how exploratory play works! (I posted some examples of my actual play upthread, and linked to fuller play accounts.)

In understanding ability checks for 5e, folk can comfortably start with examples like the one in the primer. Later, they might read PHB 174 and pick up more sophistication. Eventually, they'll get familiar with the whole Core and see what's possible.

I don't know whether or not you count yourself as among those who have picked up more sophistication, or familiarity with the whole Core.

But in the posts I've quoted you're not describing anything fundamentally different from the example found on p 2 of the Basic PDF, that I posted upthread. Fundamental to framing, and to resolution, is the fiction established by the GM. There are no player-established stakes that are resolved via the fortune mechanic. The GM decides whether there is situation, what is at stake in it, whether it resolves, and how it resolves.

 

[pemerton]

Different play structures have different social constraints. A big one for more exploration focused play (as is typical for 5e) is the expectation of tangibility. Basically, that we can poke and prod at the setting and it holds up to scrutiny. That we can basically try to investigate the contents of that black box and move things from a hidden game state to a known game state. At that point these things become a constraint on the GM because players are able to keep them honest about the consistency of the setting. They have leverage.

I would add: in classic dungeon-type approaches (and any analogues - eg exploring an abandoned starship in Traveller which might be a de facto dungeon) the GM can, by an act of discipline, stick to their prep. I think this is a real thing. It has pay-off - it helps support the tangibility, and the process of revelation of a coherent fiction - and it also makes puzzle-solving possible, on top of the discovery that you refer to in the post I've quoted. (At a certain level of abstraction, it's no different from other games where the same person both writes the (hidden) puzzle and adjudicates the solving of it - hangman and Mastermind are the two I think of straight away.)

I don't think you are going to disagree with my preceding paragraph.

Here's another thing I would add. I don't expect you to disagree with it either. It flows from your remark, in the same post I've quoted from, that

That ability to poke and prod at the game setting with the expectation that there are layers to unravel (even if they are under construction) is not universally shared under all play structures.

My thing I'm adding: We can't talk sensibly about RPGing if we don't acknowledge (i) that the "tangible setting" approach, and the particular GM role it depends on, is only one way of playing, and (ii) that (as Baker puts it) the "tangible setting" gives the GM privileged authorship in respect of the shared fiction.

But it seems that nearly every attempt to acknowledge (i) and (ii) is met by hostility from advocates of the "tangible setting" approach. In the past, I have summarised what you say - about information moving from hidden game state to known game state - as the players playing to learn the content of the GM's notes. This is precisely what is going on, and the history of RPGing practice is replete with tangible illustrations of the point: players making maps of places described to them by the GM; players making notes about NPCs, factions, events etc described to them by the GM; players making records of foes defeated, where those foes were described by the GM; etc; and in all those cases that material not being dictated by the players, nor the result of a GM's soft or hard move in the AW sense, but being generated by the GM using their "privileged authorship" to decide the contents of the "black box" that is then revealed to the players.

But to say it, and to note it as only one way of RPGing, seems to be regarded almost as heretical.

 

[clearstream]

My copy of the PHB has text that matches what’s in the SRD (see below). I’m not seeing where it suggests conflict resolution. The DMG even ought calls it task resolution (no SRD link, but here is the section on D&D Beyond). I think it’s a strained reading to suggest the DMG’s advice actually means conflict resolution. What it’s advising against is using a process sim approach to making rolls. Specifically, it wants you to roll when both success and failure are possible and when the task isn’t trivial. For example, 3e was had DC 0 checks (even had a cohort fail one during combat to climb down a ladder, much to the party’s amusement). In 5e, you wouldn’t roll for a check that easy. You’d just succeed (per the DMG’s advice).

5e uses consequence-resolution. Read the PHB 174 game text in conjunction with the DMG 237 game text. Per RAW, you roll when a meaningful consequence is possible. Per RAW, when success and failure are possible but there is no meaningful consequence, the character succeeds in 10x the time. Something else that is easy to overlook is that consequence is known going in. (I will edit my post to make that clearer.)

 

[clearstream]

You seem to be intending this as a counterpoint to what I posted, but it is absolutely consistent with it, even confirmatory of it. What the check determines is do I open the safe?. It does not determine do I find what I was looking for in the safe?. Which is the whole of Vincent Baker's point. (The way you seem to elide this fact is by describing you open the safe as the consequence you want - whereas the desired consequence, that drives the whole example, is that certain documents are found within the safe.

Okay, I see a possible missing piece here. Why have the players chosen to open that safe? We're here, why? Unless I picture the party going about opening random safes, the desired consequence - find what you were looking for in the safe - is what is resolved.

I don't know whether or not you count yourself as among those who have picked up more sophistication, or familiarity with the whole Core.

I've read a few posters stopping short at the primer or the PHB text. They don't seem familiar with the whole Core. I'll try and find a way to rewrite that so it doesn't feel pandering. What I want is to point out that stopping short.

[EDIT To answer your question, yes I would. When I first started running 5e I grasped ability checks as task resolution and focused on uncertainty. Over time, experiences in play and the insights and challenges of others here and elsewhere, brought me to grasp the whole core rules for ability checks and I saw what was possible. Suppose I'd stoped at the PHB. The meaningful consequences rule isn't there, so I would have stopped at checking for uncertainty.]

But in the posts I've quoted you're not describing anything fundamentally different from the example found on p 2 of the Basic PDF, that I posted upthread. Fundamental to framing, and to resolution, is the fiction established by the GM. There are no player-established stakes that are resolved via the fortune mechanic. The GM decides whether there is situation, what is at stake in it, whether it resolves, and how it resolves.

Beyond whatever events kicked off play in session 1, DM does not decide if there is a situation: that's up to the group. Consequences are known - due to player choices and big picture elements - going in. DM doesn't choose stakes, they're chosen by the group.

 

[Campbell]

Beyond whatever events kicked off play in session 1, DM does not decide if there is a situation: that's up to the group. Consequences are known - due to player choices and big picture elements - going in. DM doesn't choose stakes, they're chosen by the group.

The intro to the game specifically calls out the Dungeon Master as being responsible for creating the adventures and calls them the heart of the game. I'm not sure how that squares with your depiction of the game. It certainly does not square with my reading of either the PHB or DMG.

The Dungeons & Dragons game consists of a group of characters embarking on an adventure that the Dungeon Master presents to them. Each character brings particular capabilities to the adventure in the form of ability scores and skills, class features, racial traits, equipment, and magic items. Every character is different, with various strengths and weaknesses, so the best party of adventurers is one in which the characters complement each other and cover the weaknesses of their companions. The adventurers must cooperate to successfully complete the adventure.

The adventure is the heart of the game, a story with a beginning, a middle, and an end. An adventure might be created by the Dungeon Master or purchased off the shelf, tweaked and modified to suit the DM ’s needs and desires. In either case, an adventure features a fantastic setting, whether it’s an underground dungeon, a crumbling castle, a stretch of wilderness, or a bustling city. It features a rich cast of characters: the adventurers created and played by the other players at the table, as well as nonplayer characters (NPCs). Those characters might be patrons, allies, enemies, hirelings, or just background extras in an adventure. Often, one of the NPCs is a villain w hose agenda drives much of an adventure’s action.

Over the course of their adventures, the characters are confronted by a variety of creatures, objects, and situations that they must deal with in some way. Sometimes the adventurers and other creatures do their best to kill or capture each other in combat. At other times, the adventurers talk to another creature (or even a magical object) with a goal in mind. And often, the adventurers spend time trying to solve a puzzle, bypass an obstacle, find something hidden, or unravel the current situation. Meanwhile, the adventurers explore the world, making decisions about which way to travel and what they’ll try to do next.

Adventures vary in length and complexity. A short adventure might present only a few challenges, and it might take no more than a single game session to complete. A long adventure can involve hundreds of combats, interactions, and other challenges, and take dozens of sessions to play through, stretching over weeks or months of real time. Usually, the end of an adventure is marked by the adventurers heading back to civilization to rest and enjoy the spoils of their labors.

But that’s not the end of the story. You can think of an adventure as a single episode of a TV series, made up of multiple exciting scenes. A campaign is the whole series—a string of adventures joined together, with a consistent group of adventurers following the narrative from start to finish.

I'm really not trying to be difficult here, but it seems like you are describing clearstream's game rather than the game as described by the text.