D&D 5E [+] Explain RPG theory without using jargon

[Cadence]

Incoherence is probably the most clearly used and direct term in GNS. It literally means "does not cohere" and cohere means to be united and consistent. If you're unsure of what agenda you're engaging from moment to moment of play, then play is incoherent.

The problem comes only from people that want to use "incoherence" as meaning 'babbling' or 'nonsense.' But that's not the only meaning of the word.

"X is incoherent" feels a lot different than "X is incoherent in terms of ABC theory". In a thread predicated on ABC theory, the folks entering the thread probably have some duty to know/recognize that. In threads not predicated on ABC theory it feels like those meaning in terms of ABC theory probably have some duty to clarify and explain.

 

[Ovinomancer]

I wouldn’t. Ovinomancer asked me what I would need to change about 5e to make it work for Narratibist play, to prove that I’m a Real Narrativist Gamer Girl, and I humored them. I’m guessing one of you has the other blocked.

I'm going to call this out for a moment. I'm not at all attempting to engage in gatekeeping here, I don't care about your gamer girl cred. You did make a claim, though, that you understood narrativism. And you're using that claim as a bolster to your arguments in this thread. That makes it fair game to look at. I didn't bring up your credentials in this regard, you did. I didn't require you to have credentials to be taken serious, you used your claimed credentials to bolster your arguments. This isn't me gatekeeping, it's me not quite believing your claimed credentials. If you'd like to make it not an issue, I'm more that happy to mutually drop it. No difference to me, so long as the claim isn't being used rhetorically to bolster your arguments.

 

[pemerton]

Well, that recontextualizes the theory pretty significantly. Add “incoherence” to the list of things that was poorly named then, because it really sounds like an accusation. “A good, Coherent game must understand the Three Reasons People Play Games and pick exactly one of them to cater to. Otherwise it is Incoherent and will confuse people.”

The GNS essays aren't really addressed to WotC. They're addressed to small indie designers trying to design in a "tight", artistically deliberate fashion. (WotC's system design is deliberate. But not artistically so.)

We can see how "incoherence" plays out in 5e D&D. It is deliberately designed to appeal to two different groups of players: those who like finding out what happens to their PCs in the imaginary world; and those who want to play a compelling resource-management game with a risk of player loss (in the form of PC death). The latter often complain that the encounter challenge advice is pitched too easily, and that some feats and/or spells are dominant strategies. The former don't like playing with munchkins/powergamers.

(There's an element of simplification in the preceding paragraph. I don't think that obscures its basic truth.)

Each individual group has to work its way through the issues in the preceding paragraph itself. There's no "official" answer because WotC wants both sorts of play groups to buy and play its game!

 

[Ovinomancer]

"X is incoherent" feels a lot different than "X is incoherent in terms of ABC theory". In a thread predicated on ABC theory, the folks entering the thread probably have some duty to know/recognize that. In threads not predicated on ABC theory it feels like those meaning in terms of ABC theory probably have some duty to clarify and explain.

Incoherence hasn't been mentioned at all outside of GNS theory, and then only in the specific context of attempting to serve multiple agendas at the same time. The term "incoherence" was also brought up by detractors as a way to dismiss the theory -- it wasn't brought up by anyone trying to explain it. The people trying to explain the theory have all described the issues without use of the jargon.

This is entirely misplaced.

 

[pemerton]

But if we care about simulationism too, then we play them coherently and with integrity.

A key principle in AW is to play with honesty - the GM is instructed to "always say what honesty demands".

But AW isn't simulationist by any measure, at least as that term is used to describe RPGs. So there has to be some narrowing of usage if the terms is to be useful.

 

[Ovinomancer]

The GNS essays aren't really addressed to WotC. They're addressed to small indie designers trying to design in a "tight", artistically deliberate fashion. (WotC's system design is deliberate. But not artistically so.)

We can see how "incoherence" plays out in 5e D&D. It is deliberately designed to appeal to two different groups of players: those who like finding out what happens to their PCs in the imaginary world; and those who want to play a compelling resource-management game with a risk of player loss (in the form of PC death). The latter often complain that the encounter challenge advice is pitched too easily, and that some feats and/or spells are dominant strategies. The former don't like playing with munchkins/powergamers.

(There's an element of simplification in the preceding paragraph. I don't think that obscures its basic truth.)

Each individual group has to work its way through the issues in the preceding paragraph itself. There's no "official" answer because WotC wants both sorts of play groups to buy and play its game!

This bolded bit. 100%

 

[Charlaquin]

The "incompatibility" thesis is put forward by Ron Edwards. I've posted, not far upthread, why he puts it forward: winning requires stability; but stability is the antithesis of playing to make a point. Do you have any thoughts on that?

Sorry, missed this earlier.

I’m not sure I understand what is meant by “playing to make a point.” I agree with the notion that winning requires stability. This is in fact exactly why I believe simulation supports gamism. You need the fictional
world to function in a clear, understandable way to be able to confidently make the decisions by which you succeed or fail. I also believe these consequential decisions are an exceedingly effective way of revealing interesting things about the characters who make them, which is one of the things I have been told narrativism is about.

 

[Xetheral]

Here we hit the jargon issue again though. "Coherence" in GNS theory literally, only means that priorites are the same, and "incoherence" that they differ. It does assert—most explicitly—that no single moment or decision can have two agendas be equally prior. Unfortunately, as I've pointed out several times, stuff like this gets reified into describing a whole person or a whole game (or at least game session).

(Emphasis added.) If the bolded claim is true, and under GNS theory we can't infer anything about something labeled "incoherent" other than that it has conflicting priorities, then wouldn't that make the entire concept of "coherence" in GNS theory tautological? In other words, what's the function in GNS of looking at whether play priorities are the same to determine coherence if the only thing coherence tells us is that the play priorities are the same?

 

[Campbell]

I don’t necessarily agree with the third bullet point as phrased, but I think I understand the sentiment behind it and I agree with that. I think Appocalypse World is more likely to feature poignant scenes which directly interrogate the PCs’ emotions, desires, fears, inner turmoil, etc. I don’t think this is the only way to learn who the PCs are as people though, and I think 5e has similar potential for doing so, but would be likely to go about it in a different way than AW. Otherwise, I agree with these.

This is pretty much all I mean. I'm speaking to the fact that we all only have so much cognitive overhead we can handle. When I choose to use that cognitive overhead on reasoning out how things would logically progress both off screen and on screen that's mental energy I could be using to come up with dynamic scenes that speak to the player characters' dramatic needs. That's mental energy I could also choose to focus on keeping the challenge up during a combat encounter. That I need to choose how to budget my available brain chemistry and how that impacts play.

There are also a couple things I find to be true from play experience :

• Play is better when we are all here for mostly the same reasons.
• Taking the game's agenda on is more fun than pushing my agenda on it. There are many sorts of fun. I play different games for different sorts.
• While we can seek to avoid conflicts with well structured system designs and play structures we should have a consistent approach to when conflicts do occur.

 

[Charlaquin]

The impression I have is that you want to face incoherence, and resolve it by choosing one option over the other(s). If so, resolving it fits in fine with the model.

I… Guess? Again, I don’t think “incoherence” is a good description of it, unless this is yet another term Edwards used to describe a concept that’s dramatically different from the word’s English definition.

Can you give me an example of something GNS would call incoherent where you don't have to choose one over the other(s)?

Well, no, because Incoherence definitionally requires resolution under GNS… Doesn’t it?