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

[Crimson Longinus]

The text is nearly identical: I've underlined the salient difference. Both texts are silent on the truth or otherwise of information acquired. Can you therefore post the text that you will find earlier in the book on procedures and handling of information?

It seems to be another case of "in the eye of the beholder Story Now mechanic" like with 4e. I assume @pemerton seems some huge significance in the first using words "The referee should set the throw required to obtain any item specified by the players," taking it literally to mean the players can request any conceivable item and the GM cannot say "nope" and must allow a roll. I really doubt that was intended, besides, certainly the GM can just set the difficulty to impossibly high if they want?

 

[clearstream]

What does players work things mean? Either at some point a player gets to set stakes and succeed; or at some point the GM exercises their authority to declare that the players have "worked it enough".

It nods to the Lumpley Principle. A method is followed by which everyone reaches agreement about what happens in play. Perhaps it helps to picture GM as another player? Like all players, they get a say. Their say is not in contest with that of other players: it conspires with that of other players. The roles are asymmetrical, but equal.

1. Someone asks "How can we be sure the dirt is in the safe?"
2. Someone else says "The accountant accesses that safe every day to get the books."
3. Someone else observes their known peccadillo.
4. Some play happens. Some social interaction ability checks are called for.
5. Finally at the safe, intents are known, consequences are understood, the location of the dirt is locked in.

It may be that some versions of S-N require only players and not GM to have a say. So for clarity that's not what's happening here. The truth is established playfully, following and within constraints of fiction, description, system... and of course, principles.

The fact of the matter isn't reached in one bound. It's not - from a cold start, someone at the table without a nod toward saying what follows and playing to find out, locks in what is in the safe. It's iterative. A big difference is that it's not locked in by the roll at the safe. Reaching that safe with an intent faithful to game-state (to retrieve the dirt) is a product of play. Players and DM all avoid fiat, by working together in good faith.

@niklinna nails it with

It's not just the motives & desires, it's the generation of a plausible fiction that everybody at the table is satisfied with (regardless of success or failure at individual dice rolls). The fiction has to take some form, but the binding from fictional form to game mechanics varies from game to game.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

It's not just the motives & desires, it's the generation of a plausible fiction that everybody at the table is satisfied with (regardless of success or failure at individual dice rolls). The fiction has to take some form, but the binding from fictional form to game mechanics varies from game to game. Apocalypse World is way at the far end of generality. Blades in the Dark leans toward appearing more (process-)simulationist, but when you look at how it handles action resolution, that turns out not to be the case.

And to me the former seems more coherent and honest. It seems weird and confused to me have seemingly simulationist measures of difficulty based on safe quality and lock-picking skill, but then draw odds for things not actually connected to these from them.

 

[Ovinomancer]

And to me the former seems more coherent and honest. It seems weird and confused to me have seemingly simulationist measures of difficulty based on safe quality and lock-picking skill, but then draw odds for things not actually connected to these from them.

There's no measure of difficulty or simulationism in Blades, though. The odds are always fixed. The Action used is not about aligning the "skill" to the "task" but more about providing another input into the fiction to direct the next bit of play. If I Wreck the safe, that establishes a set of outcomes quite different from if I Finesse the safe. Or if I Study the safe. It's not about having to match up in any kind of Simulationist sense, and certainly not about difficulty, but rather about what fiction is being told.

The bit that's Sim up front and then totally disconnected in the back is @clearstream's "consequences resolution." That's straight 5e skills married to a thin justification for "rocks fall."

 

[Campbell]

It nods to the Lumpley Principle. A method is followed by which everyone reaches agreement about what happens in play. Perhaps it helps to picture GM as another player? Like all players, they get a say. Their say is not in contest with that of other players: it conspires with that of other players. The roles are asymmetrical, but equal.

1. Someone asks "How can we be sure the dirt is in the safe?"
2. Someone else says "The accountant accesses that safe every day to get the books."
3. Someone else observes their known peccadillo.
4. Some play happens. Some social interaction ability checks are called for.
5. Finally at the safe, intents are known, consequences are understood, the location of the dirt is locked in.

It may be that some versions of S-N require only players and not GM to have a say. So for clarity that's not what's happening here. The truth is established playfully, following and within constraints of fiction, description, system... and of course, principles.

The fact of the matter isn't reached in one bound. It's not - from a cold start, someone at the table without a nod toward saying what follows and playing to find out, locks in what is in the safe. It's iterative. A big difference is that it's not locked in by the roll at the safe. Reaching that safe with an intent faithful to game-state (to retrieve the dirt) is a product of play. Players and DM all avoid fiat, by working together in good faith.

So Story Now without a meaningful sense of immediacy or hard scene framing or content directly related to player character dramatic needs? Story Now play without conflict resolution? Story Now play with a strong focus on exploration?

I just don't get what you are trying to say here. Story Now play isn't about determining or finding out the facts of the matter or details. It's about finding out what happens now in charged scenes that directly relate to player character dramatic needs. There's no shame in not doing that. There's no shame here :

Exploratory play is fun. I enjoy it a great deal. More of my play sits here than in Story Now play, but it's a different experience with its own tradeoffs. I would be more than happy to engage in a discussion of those tradeoffs. One of the things this play loop allows for insistence is is the ability to strategize, gather information, work out who does what as a group. You get to leverage your strengths in a way that is basically impossible in a game like Apocalypse World.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

There's no measure of difficulty or simulationism in Blades, though. The odds are always fixed. The Action used is not about aligning the "skill" to the "task" but more about providing another input into the fiction to direct the next bit of play. If I Wreck the safe, that establishes a set of outcomes quite different from if I Finesse the safe. Or if I Study the safe. It's not about having to match up in any kind of Simulationist sense, and certainly not about difficulty, but rather about what fiction is being told.

Right, good point. I was really thinking mostly about BW where the difficulty drawn from simulationist considerations has a huge impact.

 

[clearstream]

So Story Now without a meaningful sense of immediacy or hard scene framing or content directly related to player character dramatic needs? Story Now play without conflict resolution? Story Now play with a strong focus on exploration?

I'm trying to make it clear that it's not Story-Now, and it's not "GM-fiat" (in the way some here have described it) either. I'm fine with those two diagrams, and the play I enjoy isn't captured by either of them. The whole of RPG isn't defined by just two diagrams.

I just don't get what you are trying to say here. Story Now play isn't about determining or finding out the facts of the matter or details. It's about finding out what happens now in charged scenes that directly relate to player character dramatic needs. There's no shame in not doing that. There's no shame here :

I'm not discussing shame. I'm aiming to make clear a style of play. One in which players do not have fiat, and GM does not have fiat. It's unclear why it is so difficult to see that - as the LP implies - a robust playstyle can be found in an interative process that reaches consensus at the point of and productive of well-formed/faithful intents.

Exploratory play is fun. I enjoy it a great deal. More of my play sits here than in Story Now play, but it's a different experience with its own tradeoffs. I would be more than happy to engage in a discussion of those tradeoffs. One of the things this play loop allows for insistence is is the ability to strategize, gather information, work out who does what as a group. You get to leverage your strengths in a way that is basically impossible in a game like Apocalypse World.

Certainly. Is there anywhere - any words that I've written - that seem to you to amount to my saying that exploratory play isn't fun?

 

[FrogReaver]

So Story Now without a meaningful sense of immediacy or hard scene framing or content directly related to player character dramatic needs? Story Now play without conflict resolution? Story Now play with a strong focus on exploration?

I just don't get what you are trying to say here. Story Now play isn't about determining or finding out the facts of the matter or details. It's about finding out what happens now in charged scenes that directly relate to player character dramatic needs. There's no shame in not doing that. There's no shame here :


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Exploratory play is fun. I enjoy it a great deal. More of my play sits here than in Story Now play, but it's a different experience with its own tradeoffs. I would be more than happy to engage in a discussion of those tradeoffs. One of the things this play loop allows for insistence is is the ability to strategize, gather information, work out who does what as a group. You get to leverage your strengths in a way that is basically impossible in a game like Apocalypse World.

I’m interested in how Story now handles 2 things and am curious your thoughts.

1. Most Story Now games I see cited have mechanics that are referential to in fiction character’s ability to perform a task even though the characters’s ability to perform a task is often fictionally unrelated or at best tangentially related to the outcome prescribed by conflict resolution. Are there any Story Now games where this isn’t the case? Do you think it theoretically possible for a game to exist where the conflict resolution mechanics don’t pretend to be related to character ability and what trade offs would be present in doing so?

2. What keeps Story Now conflict resolution mechanics localized to the current scene? Is this absolute or can they directly effect more than the current scene?

3. Can Story Now handle exploration at all?

4. Can’t all task-resolution be framed as conflict resolution? Ex: I want to open the safe to see if I can find out what documents it holds. In classic d&d play the failure state would be the lock is jammed. Which forces play forward.

 

[FrogReaver]

If I was to try and codify d&d principles the 2 biggest would be:

The players agree to abide by the DMs abjucation of every in game situation. They can make suggestions and voice concerns but the decision is the DMs.

The DM should be fair but also keep the game moving (these can come into conflict sometimes)

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I'm keenly reminded of when @Ovinomancer talked about their character in a Blades in the Dark game in another thread. From what I recall, the crew was in a haunted house, and his PC chose to interact with a painting, possibly appraising its worth, in order to repay a debt for a patron or something. But in interacting with the painting and rolling dice, what was once scenery description gained dramatic importance as part of their character's story.

Yep, I remember that example also. It is quite typical of PbtA games too. Basically wherever the PCs go, the story follows! It may turn into a different story based on what choices they make, but SOME SORT of significance will exist, you never really spend time exploring empty dusty rooms or whatnot (at least not on screen, the GM is free to describe them in passing).