Why Jargon is Bad, and Some Modern Resources for RPG Theory

[niklinna]

Just to add a bit to @Ovinomancer's reply:

Skill challenges being with the fiction: what is the situation? what do the PCs want out of it? Then each action declaration begins with the fiction: what are you doing to try and change the situation? what are you trying to achieve? Only then is it "mechanised" and turned into a skill check. The outcome of that check ends with the fiction: the GM narrates what has changed (for better or worse!) as a result of that PC doing that thing. And this provides the context for the next skill check. The GM's narration of the fiction is also having regard to the overall progression of the challenge, making sure that some final resolution is available in the fiction as it is emerging. (Parenthetically: in my view this is the single hardest thing a 4e GM has to do. It's harder than running a 4e combat. I think it's on the same difficulty level as managing the Doom Pool in MHRP/Cortex+ Heroic.)

When the skill challenge reaches its conclusion, the GM narrates the consequences of that check, which are also a fictional state of affairs that reveal the challenge as concluded: either the PCs have got what they want, or they haven't and some new adverse situation has emerged instead.

Thus, both overall and within the challenge, we begin and end with the fiction.

I'll add a bit of contrast here by way of introducing another damn niche game folks likely haven't played. Feel free to ask for further detail!

4e skill challenges are basically defined by # of successes / failures that end the challenge, and an open list of skills that best apply. The players get to choose what actions they take in the fiction, which leads to the skill checks. Those might even be skills not on the list, if it makes sense to the DM how they would work.

Torg Eternity has a similar seeming thing called dramatic skill challenges (because drama makes things better!). In these, you have 4 ordered steps, labeled A, B, C, D, and each one has a specific skill that must be used with the equivalent of a DC to pass it. Sometimes a step will say you can use one or two alternate skills. Torg uses a deck of cards for initiative instead of dice rolls, and each card has some of those 4 letters on it; you can do a given step during the round only if that letter comes up on the initiative card. (Players have a hand of cards too, some of which can be played to manipulate the initiative card or allow for a given step to be performed.) Sometimes the challenge will describe what the skill test represents: for example, Find to discover a secret lever, Science to defuse a bomb. The whole thing is both rigidly scripted and defined overtly in terms of mechanics.

Torg Eternity does handle drama/story stuff in other ways, but its dramatic skill challenges work directly against fiction-first play and are clearly, as they say, gamist foremost, as is combat in general.

Edit: Added minor clarification.

 

[pemerton]

Linearity of adventures refers to their structure. Is the structure one where you can only go from A to B to C in that order? If so, it’s linear. Is it one where you start from A and can choose to go to B or C from there? It’s branching. Is it one where A, B, and C are all layer for you to visit in whatever order you choose? It’s open. Again, these are just the literal meaning of these words, applied to the structure of events or locations in an adventure.

As I said upthread, it's not a concept I've ever fully grasped and I still don't.

You say where you can only go from A to B to C in that order. But what generates the can only? Where is the constraint on possibility coming from? Does the adventure tell the players what action declarations are permitted, kind of like a choose your own adventure book does?

 

[niklinna]

As I said upthread, it's not a concept I've ever fully grasped and I still don't.

You say where you can only go from A to B to C in that order. But what generates the can only? Where is the constraint on possibility coming from? Does the adventure tell the players what action declarations are permitted, kind of like a choose your own adventure book does?

Yes, some published modules are written like a play, with acts and scenes in order, and no matter what the players do, the action proceeds from one to the next. Torg Eternity does this a lot, and has explicit instructions to the GM to make sure the villain escapes or that the PCs get captured, for example, no matter what the players do.

Some modules will say, if the PCs capture/defeat the villain, go to scene X, if the vllain gets away, go to scene Y. Or there will be language in the next scene about how things are if the villain was defeated or got away.

Some modules, of course, just say, here's all the significant NPCs and where they are. Have fun! (They might have notes about how NPCs will behave if certain things happen, too).

 

[pemerton]

Yes, some published modules are written like a play, with acts and scenes in order, and no matter what the players do, the action proceeds from one to the next. Torg Eternity does this a lot, and has explicit instructions to the GM to make sure the villain escapes or that the PCs get captured, for example, no matter what the players do.

Some modules will say, if the PCs capture/defeat the villain, go to scene X, if the vllain gets away, go to scene Y. Or there will be language in the next scene about how things are if the villain was defeated or got away.

So it is not that the adventure tells the players what they may do but rather tells the GM what they must do?

Some modules, of course, just say, here's all the significant NPCs and where they are. Have fun! (They might have notes about how NPCs will behave if certain things happen, too).

Presumably this is not linear but it also tells the GM what they must do (eg if the PCs are in this place, tell them they see this thing; if the PCs talk to this NPC, have the NPC reply with such-and-such).

So the difference must consist in what sort of thing the GM is being told to say. Is that right? And if so, are we able to say what the different sorts of things are that the GM is told to say in the different sorts of adventures (linear vs non-linear)?

 

[niklinna]

So it is not that the adventure tells the players what they may do but rather tells the GM what they must do?

That's...yeah, that's a way to look at it I hadn't considered! It's telling the GM what they must do to run the adventure, as written, in order that the players do what the adventure expects, for the adventure to proceed to the next step. If the GM allows players to do something else, they'll have to allow things to go off script or revise the adventure, possibly (probably) in substantial ways.

Presumably this is not linear but it also tells the GM what they must do (eg if the PCs are in this place, tell them they see this thing; if the PCs talk to this NPC, have the NPC reply with such-and-such).

In this case I might say it isn't so much what the GM must do, since there is no plot to mess up. The GM can make changes without having to alter a bunch of material.

So the difference must consist in what sort of thing the GM is being told to say. Is that right? And if so, are we able to say what the different sorts of things are that the GM is told to say in the different sorts of adventures (linear vs non-linear)?

Well again this is for published modules, so generally the aim is to keep things to provided material (acknowledging that there are adventures that leave a lot of freedom). Going further I think would be out of the scope of this thread, though. We can start a new topic if you want to get into that more.

 

[pemerton]

Going further I think would be out of the scope of this thread, though. We can start a new topic if you want to get into that more.

I might do that! In the meantime, thanks for the replies. I do feel that our discussion vindicates my intuition that "linear adventure" is jargon, and not just literal, common sense description.

 

[niklinna]

I might do that! In the meantime, thanks for the replies. I do feel that our discussion vindicates my intuition that "linear adventure" is jargon, and not just literal, common sense description.

Oh! For that I think you want to distinguish between the possiblities in the adventure. Its events as written are all hypothetical until played, like a flow chart that can have branches (or not) and maybe even loops. But any given playthrough will necessarily be linear in the sense of following a sequence of events, even if they are arranged in a winding path on the flow chart of all possible events.

 

[Malmuria]

This is my idea of a linear adventure

 

[pemerton]

This is my idea of a linear adventure

Using @niklinna's idea of a flowchart of possible events, this doesn't seem like its A to B to C. For instance, couldn't the PCs get to the secret door and then go back to room 2 to make an offering, or study the reliefs or memorise the oath? Plus there are the patrols which may or may not ambush depending on what the players have their PCs do. And the PCs might (say) Charm the Bugbear boss and send boss with squad to fight the undead.

As I've said, I think there is something going on in the usage of the term that I'm not picking up on.

 

[Charlaquin]

As I said upthread, it's not a concept I've ever fully grasped and I still don't.

You say where you can only go from A to B to C in that order. But what generates the can only? Where is the constraint on possibility coming from? Does the adventure tell the players what action declarations are permitted, kind of like a choose your own adventure book does?

Well, one way is through physical restrictions. A dungeon that only has one path through it, for example. Another way is through illusionism. No matter where the players decide to go, the DM has the next scene they had planned play out there. A third way is through player buy-in. The group agrees in advance that there’s a set plot that they’re going to follow. In some cases, this kind of arrangement is implicit - the DM doesn’t outright state that the adventure has a linear plot that the players agree to follow, but the players understand that there’s not really any adventure to be found except where the DM telegraphs that there’s going to be.