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

[Manbearcat]

Now, explaining social interaction rules in D&D 5e being "like Pictionary?" That's great! It's a good frame of reference. The DM paints a picture by portraying the NPC and you get to guess at the NPC's personal characteristics (perhaps with the help of a Wisdom (Insight) check) then leverage those to make subsequent rolls to influence the NPC, if any, easier. It doesn't require jargon. People can have a layman's conversation with common-use vocabulary and share thoughts about how to use those tools to make their games better. It's less likely to result in confusion, irritation, or division. We need more of that in my view, not comments on this being "the only site of reliable gamism that will threaten other priorities in 5e." That jargon is going to be immediately confusing to some, maybe even most, and apt to lead to unhelpful exchanges.

Or, alternatively, we could collectively ponder why the bolded statement is true.

Why is it true?

Because it doesn't interact with the wonky Adventuring Day scheme.

It doesn't interact with the wonky Encounter Budget system.

Because it doesn't interact with the wildly divergent resource scheduling of D&D classes which in turn interacts with the competitive pressures of the Short Rest/Long Rest arms race between GM and players which in turn interacts with the Encounter Budget system which in turn interacts with the Adventuring Day scheme.

It doesn't put pressure on story imperatives.

It reliably yields its objective and it doesn't rely upon any kind of GM sleight-of-hand or management of a pile of overhead/book-keeping or abundant cognitive workload to do so.

Its just straight forward scene resolution that is built to be reliant upon at-will PC resources, thematic PC/NPC tech, guile, skillful characterization, and a Pictionary play loop (which is a tried-and-true formula for sussing out skillfulness of play).

 

[FrogReaver]

Yes, that's what @Campell is saying.

Contrivances come in all shapes and sizes. In Spider-Man, who is killed by the burglar Spidey lets escape? None other than his Uncle Ben!

Dickens novels are full of that sort of thing - everyone ends up related to someone else with big reveals and reversals of fortune the order of the day.

The contrivances in The Quiet American are more subtle, but they're there. Pyle and Fowler. Pyle and Phuong. Pyle and the "third force". The "third force" and the explosion. Fowler and the explosion. Fowler and the Communists. The whole plot works on the basis of contrivance. You can't get dramatic storytelling without it.

I'd say scene framing in D&D is one major place where contrivance can be added in.

 

[pemerton]

No, I totally get that they would produce very different experiences, and of course the concept of an adventure path is incompatible with narrativist games.

But interestingly, and contrary to popular belief, it is possible to have published scenarios for narrativist play.

Prince Valiant has many of these, in its core rulebook and the Episode Book. Some in the Episode Book are failures as written (Mark Rein-Hagen's the worst in this respect; it has some good ideas but needs to be completely reworked to actually be playable - which I did) but many are not (Jerry Grayson's The Crimson Bull is in my view a masterpiece, and a candidate to be the best published RPG scenario of all time).

Robin Laws has some in the HeroWars Narrator's Book. I adapted one of them - The Demon of the Red Grove - to 4e D&D. It's a good scenario and worked well in its adapted form.

What I take issue with is the idea that what Edwards would apparently call “character exploration” is, by contrast with Narrativism, is not and can’t be, as you say, “centered on interrogating the character -- who they are, what they want, what they're willing to do to get it” that’s like, verbatim what I get out of this (apparently sumulationist) “exploration of character” sort of play.

Maybe it can, maybe it can't - "centred on interrogating the character" doesn't look like a term of art, and to the best of my recollection appears nowhere in Edwards's writings on narrativism, so it might depend on what is meant by it by a given user of the phrase.

It is certainly true that a scenario designed for “exploration of character” doesn’t care what characters show up to play it. That’s, in my view, a strength because it allows for development of the character through play. You can start out with a blank slate and discover who they are through the choices you make in response to the world, instead of coming to the table with a picture already in mind of who the character is, and trying to faithfully portray them.

…Aaaaaand, in typing that, I’ve realized these play styles have reversed player and GM roles compared to one another. In one the scenario is designed in advance and the characters develop organically in response to it. In the other the characters are designed in advance and the scenario develops organically in response to them.

This is why there is no "special pleading". It's not special pleading, when talking about RPGing - a form which depends on asymmetric allocations of authority to participants (roughly, the player role and the GM role) - to distinguish approaches to play in terms of who wields what sort of authority governed by what sorts of expectations and principles.

In narrativist play it's pretty common for the characters to change. Whether or not that's organic would be a matter of opinion ("organic" also isn't a term of art in this context). The key thing is that it's not on a pre-established or pre-guided trajectory: thus, a player is accountable (in the way an author is accountable) for the way their character develops.

 

[iserith]

Or, alternatively, we could collectively ponder why the bolded statement is true.

Why is it true?

Because it doesn't interact with the wonky Adventuring Day scheme.

It doesn't interact with the wonky Encounter Budget system.

Because it doesn't interact with the wildly divergent resource scheduling of D&D classes which in turn interacts with the competitive pressures of the Short Rest/Long Rest arms race between GM and players which in turn interacts with the Encounter Budget system which in turn interacts with the Adventuring Day scheme.

It doesn't put pressure on story imperatives.

It reliably yields its objective and it doesn't rely upon any kind of GM sleight-of-hand or management of a pile of overhead/book-keeping or abundant cognitive workload to do so.

Its just straight forward scene resolution that is built to be reliant upon at-will PC resources, thematic PC/NPC tech, guile, skillful characterization, and a Pictionary play loop (which is a tried-and-true formula for sussing out skillfulness of play).

I would submit that the bolded statement is likely to be true because few will have the frame of reference to understand what the heck most of that jargon means and it's often actively insulting to some people. I don't think it's more complicated than that. I mean, look at all the jargon in the post I just quoted. I'm pretty well versed in this stuff and my eyes just glaze right over. In most other threads, I'd just abandon it right now. For the worst offenders, I've had to block their posts just to make some threads bearable.

The thread puts forward a single request: Explain your RPG theory without using jargon. Can you? It doesn't seem like it. Perhaps it's even an impossible thing to ask. And that's okay, but some awareness of how unhelpful, even insulting, certain jargon can be seems well overdue to me. (And, again, I'm no angel, but c'mon.)

 

[Charlaquin]

I guess it depends on what is meant by organically.

My take is that character development would occur much faster in a story now style game as the character is constantly pressured. Whether you consider that pressure as organic or not would be the question.

See, I think develops more so than organically is the key word here. If you come to the table with a character already in mind you’re not really developing them. The development already happened, when you were coming up with their motivations, desires, personality, and backstory. What you’re doing is thrusting a fairly well-developed character into a still-developing situation so as to showcase what you’ve already decided about them. Whereas in the “character exploration” focused scenario, you’re coming to the table with little to nothing decided about the character, and thrusting them into an already-developed scenario in search of opportunities to test them and find out, rather than show off, who they are.

In a traditional game character development occurs but often at a slower pace and it's easy for the DM to not apply enough pressure to really force development (players can skillfully get out or avoid many situations where they might be tested in that way). I've often seen other players characters develop very little in my D&D campaigns - mostly because their personality is smash face or something really basic.

True. But that’s fine, if the player isn’t interested in developing their character beyond “me smash!” then that’s their prerogative. The scenario provides the opportunity to develop the character, but not every player is going to want to take you up on it. You can lead a horse to water and all.

 

[pemerton]

I'd say scene framing in D&D is one major place where contrivance can be added in.

I think it's hard to do this well.

My experience is that many, perhaps most, serious D&D players (eg the sort who post on ENworld) find hard scene-framing to be very railroad-y. Because their model of hard scene-framing is a scenario like Dead Gods.

There are ways of making scene framing not railroad-y - I worked some of them out for myself over 15+ years from the second half of the 80s to the early 2000s, and then learned more by reading commentary on The Forge and games like Burning Wheel. But they rely on doing other things that aren't traditionally part of D&D play - players building characters with strongly-presented dramatic needs, GM improvisation in both framing and consequence narration, treating the setting as a vehicle for "riffing on" the characters as much as an end in itself.

 

[Charlaquin]

I think you've made a rather large misunderstanding. Narrativist characters have built in questions that are presented during creation, but they're not at all fully fleshed out. That would defeat the purpose. You actually see fully fleshed characters in non-narrativist play. A D&D character tends to have much more predefined about their character than most narrativist characters do.

Well, then we’re back to non-narrativist not adequately describing my “agenda.”

 

[pemerton]

If you come to the table with a character already in mind you’re not really developing them. The development already happened, when you were coming up with their motivations, desires, personality, and backstory. What you’re doing is thrusting a fairly well-developed character into a still-developing situation so as to showcase what you’ve already decided about them. Whereas in the “character exploration” focused scenario, you’re coming to the table with little to nothing decided about the character, and thrusting them into an already-developed scenario in search of opportunities to test them and find out, rather than show off, who they are.

I think you are characterising characters, in "story now" play, as having already developed, and then being showcased. That's not typical of "story now" play.

 

[Ovinomancer]

Well, then we’re back to non-narrativist not adequately describing my “agenda.”

I really have no idea what this is supposed to mean.

ETA: and I'm tired and that probably reads as short. I mean I'm very confused at to what you're trying to impart. No clue. Clueless, even.

 

[FrogReaver]

I think it's hard to do this well.

I think so too.

My experience is that many, perhaps most, serious D&D players (eg the sort who post on ENworld) find hard scene-framing to be very railroad-y. Because their model of hard scene-framing is a scenario like Dead Gods.

I can see this. Though I think it's at least possible to avoid that.