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

[EzekielRaiden]

Ok, but like… What if, you want the concern of “how can my character win this conflict?” to be one of the factors which determines “how will this conflict change my character?”

I don't understand how this computes. Why does "defeating the enemy efficiently and effectively" lead to, in your emphasis, determining how the character will change? Are you using a single, consistent sense of "conflict" here, or are you using two different senses? Because it very much sounds to me like this is two very different senses of the word "conflict." One is a matter of violence and survival. The other seems to be an internal struggle to come to a decision, an internal confusion or lack of commitment due to incommensurate and incompatible desires.

This is not to say that "I want violence and survival to be one of the things I am struggling to decide about." You can totally do that. But that would mean that the second sense of conflict, coming to a decision about what actually matters to you, is the one you really care about, and the other sense of conflict, survival in the face of violent dangers, is merely cared about for its instrumental value.

Perhaps a better way to phrase the above. Call the first question A, and the second question B (simply to save space.) Let's say you're afforded an opportunity where you are absolutely, 100% certain you could get situations asking A in a satisfactory way, but which would be completely irrelevant to B, OR situations asking B in a likewise satisfactory way but which would contain no amount of A whatsoever, which would you choose?

What if you want winning to be one of many competing agendas that form the crucible in which your character is forged?

There's nothing wrong with that, but that very much sounds like what ultimately interests you (a word you took umbrage with before...) is finding out what your character would do when faced with various situations, which might include physical violent combat, but it wouldn't have to. Is that correct?

What if you feel like just deciding how the conflict will change your character (whether by whim or by some game mechanic) cheapens it, and what you really want is to experience the same push and pull of conflicting desires as the character would, which requires intrinsic and extrinsic rewards and consequences that can serve as proxies or analogues for the factors influencing the character’s own internal conflict?

You know, hypothetically. Asking for a friend.

Then it sounds to me like your friend is either looking for "High Concept Simulation" (what I call "Conceit and Emulation") or "Narrativist" (what I call "Values and Issues"), they just prefer it to be fairly crunchy in the doing. Handwavy abstract mechanics seem to bore (or at least fail to excite) them; they want consequences with "teeth" as it were. They want more than just descriptions of the ways various things affect their characters; they want the actual mechanics themselves to mediate and deliver those costs.

I don't have a broad enough knowledge base to tell your friend what game might serve their interests very specifically. However, it seems very likely that your friend would like 4e and 13th Age are very probable options. While they are very much designed to serve "Gamist" (what I call "Score and Achievement") design goals, they both have some baked-in Narrativist/"Story Now"/"Values and Issues" superstructure that seems like it would deliver the kind of "dilemmas-with-teeth" your friend seems to desire.

Others would be better at explaining exactly how 4e (and, IMO, 13th Age) pull off such things.

 

[Charlaquin]

I'm not 100% sure what you have in mind as a performance metric, but I think you're referring to your PC winning or losing, not to you, Charlauqin, the game player winning or losing. The latter is what Edwards has in mind as core to gamist play: judging the performance (the guts, the strategising, the bravado) of the actual players. Like you would at a casino, or in field sports, or in chess.

Nope, I definitely mean me the player winning or losing. Gaining XP, overcoming challenging encounters, that kind of thing.

 

[Charlaquin]

I think your friend's main concern is sim.

I could be wrong, but I don't think your friend is setting out to get the kudos for winning as a player at the table.

No, winning as a player at the table is exactly what I mean.

 

[pemerton]

If you're a fan of or think you understand any particular kind of RPG theory, here's your chance to explain it to people without that ever-present stifling layer of jargon.

A few ground rules. 1. No jargon; use plain English. 2. No tautologies. 3. Don't quote; use the Feynman Technique*. 4. Use examples from 5E.

Outside of combat, and perhaps the social resolution mechanic that only @Manbearcat ever seems to talk about, 5e D&D appears to have no rule for producing any finality in resolution - is this conflict done? - other than GM decision-making.

And it has no formal process, and as best I can tell no well-established informal process, for taking player suggestions on that GM decision-making.

This means that 5e D&D is highly suitable for play in which the main thing the players do is enjoy, and respond to, scenes and events and places the GM describes to them. This is illustrated by the sample of play on p 2 of the Basic PDF, in which the GM describes a drawbridge and grotesque statues at the entrance to Castle Ravenloft, and the players explore them. This might also be extended to NPCs.

It might also be pretty good for play in which the players solve puzzles, escape-room style, by describing how their PCs manipulate the environment the GM has described to them (White Plume Mountain, to me, remains the poster child for this sort of RPGing - the frictionless room, the heat induction tunnel, the mid-air stream with kayaks, are all classic examples of this sort of thing).

For a different sort of RPGing, where it is not the GM's job to provide finality in resolution but the job of the system, 5e will not do so well. (Unless the focus of the game is in combat.) For RPGing in which how things turn out should in some sense reflect what concerns or commitments the PCs bring into a situation, 5e will not do so well. (Not even in combat. 5e combat is not really sensitive to the concerns or commitments a PC brings into it.)

There are fairly well known bits of terminology for describing these features of 5e, and the sorts of roleplaying it does or doesn't support, but given that they seem to fall under the label "jargon" I won't use them in this post.

 

[Charlaquin]

And Luke Crane's Torchbearer is a love letter to Moldvay B/X dungeon-crawling. Dungeon World sings to the outward aesthetics of old school gaming. (But we all know that Freebooters on the Frontier and World of Dungeons did a better job of it.)


Sounds like your friend may want to play Fate or Cortex, which are both oriented towards more Neo-Trad gaming cultures, which tend to align with High Concept Sim but with Narrativist leanings.

(Unless your friend thinks that Fate or Plot Points ruin their immersion and are the sort of toxic, gatekeeping OneTrueWay gamer who thinks that these aren't "true roleplaying games." In which case, you should ditch that friend.)

Plot Points aren’t my favorite mechanics, but I don’t hate them and I definitely don’t think they “aren’t true roleplaying.” FATE does seem interesting, if not something I’m itching to play. But from what I understand of neo-trad, it’s definitely not my style.

 

[pemerton]

Nope, I definitely mean me the player winning or losing. Gaining XP, overcoming challenging encounters, that kind of thing.

No, winning as a player at the table is exactly what I mean.

OK. That suggests you have (what Edwards would call) gamist motivations. It seems to imply that, as a player, you would be looking for GMs who will "bring it" - present genuine challenges (I'm guessing at the group/party level rather than the individual level, given what you posted upthread about party cohesion) that then require you and your fellow players to "bring it" in return - in some sense to "show what you're made of" in order to win.

It would also seem to imply that you might be frustrated by a GM who frequently "softballs" - fudging, or manipulating the fiction - to give you easy or unearned wins.

 

[Aldarc]

Plot Points aren’t my favorite mechanics, but I don’t hate them and I definitely don’t think they “aren’t true roleplaying.” FATE does seem interesting, if not something I’m itching to play. But from what I understand of neo-trad, it’s definitely not my style.

A lot of trad/neo-trad seems to be what 5e D&D increasingly caters to, partially as a result of Critical Role's influence and impact.

PP are mostly similar to Fate Points. Although there are multiple ways to earn them, one of the most common ways is that player can decide that one of their Distinctions (similar to Fate's Aspects) would hinder them, so they downgrade a Distinction die (d8 -> d4) in return for 1 PP, which they can use in a variety of ways, including powering special abilities (SFX).

IME, I have found that a people who dislike Fate's invoking of a Trouble tend to find Cortex's Plot Points a little more palatable.

 

[Manbearcat]

I’m running a game of Torchbearer for @AbdulAlhazred , @kenada , and @niklinna presently. Its an example of one of the most unique games ever on the market because of its deep and intentional love affair with incoherency. It sits there at every moment of play threatening to be the most incoherent play experience possible. How and why does it do this? And why is it unique? I’m glad you asked:

* Is is the most unabashedly and most brutally Gamist engine you have ever experienced. The game is ridiculously demanding in every moment of play for the players to play skillfully and in extremely intricate and interlocking ways. If they don’t play well continuously (guts, guile, tactics, strategy, sacrifice, and some 4d chess to thread thematic needles), the extreme feedback loops will catch up to them and Grind (capital G) underfoot.

* However…you have to willingly punish your PC…willingly lose…and endure that experience as a player…in order to advance and win. You cannot win without skillfully and thematically losing…a lot. You have to advocate for your character’s ethos (Goal, Belief, Creed), save your Friends, confront your (much more powerful than you) Enemies in order to access crucial resources that enable short term success and long term advancement. And you have to manage to avoid getting swept up in the moment and throwing yourself headlong into terrible (highly likely mortal) danger for the sake of Story Now priorities which will likely kill you…but you won’t (avoid getting swept up) because either it’s irresistible or you’re exhausted and your guard is down…and that is the point of play.

* The game features a Town phase that manages intense resource economy demands with Story Now play (through procedural generation of content and PC declared actions and resultant Twists that are often centered around what the PC cares about; relationships and ethos). Things can go sideways quickly.

* The game also features a Journey phase, a Camp phase, and an Adventure phase where every moment is governed deeply by Gamist priorities…but…there are intentionally lurking Story Now priorities to tempt you…to reward you…to maybe sweep you up in the moment so you do something incredibly rash despite your meticulous planning and intricate management of your intensely demanding decision-space in each situation + a huge host of resources (Turns, Light, Food/water, Nature, Instincts, Gear/Supplies/Tools/Kit, equipped weapons and armor and their perks for varying Conflicts, Checks, Fate, Persona, Disposition, Cohorts) + a hugely demanding inventory system + PC build suites + marshaled dice pools + deft uses of Wises to Help but insulate yourself from failed Test fallout.

* Twists in all phases often bring in Story Now priorities to find out what and who you’ll fight for. Are your Beliefs and Creeds real things to fight and die for or will your PC handle them with a shrewd expeditious eye. Will you tax your Nature to nothing and walk away from this life?

* The game is all conventions for play, all Gamist trappings, with deeply lurking Story Now priorities that (a) you must commit to willfully (and the GM must frame them into play) to advance and (b) you’ve got to resist or throw yourself at with wild abandon because your guard is down due to the endless struggle of play. But this designed in incoherency is the point. And the extremely unique thing about Torchbearer?

It leaves this out in the open, table-facing and on purpose.

Instead of the GM secretly resolving these moments of incoherency, it’s up for the players to resolve them and they do so openly.

Because of this orientation to play, this complete preoccupation at every moment, because of the overwhelming contrivances, it doesn’t have an Sim bone in its meticulously-designed body. There are no instances of play possessed of a quality marked by being lost in a moment of “I’m here…in this place…experiencing and exploring this world…pushing and prodding and poking to examine its causal relationships…to see how it works…to focus on characterization and ‘smelling of roses’ and benign/conflict-neutral interactions with tavern-goers and innkeeps and peddlers”…not even incidental ones.


The game is a ruthlessly Gamist grind with Story Now seduction and phantoms lurking all over the place. The Story Now moments are probably 1 out of every 9 moments of play. But despite that small ratio and despite the intensity of the Gamism, those few Story Now moments (where we get to find out about these lowly characters and be completely surprised by their grit, their merit…their undoing) often ultimately define the through line of a Town or Adventure phase and then deeply reverberate into the future.

 

[Charlaquin]

I don't understand how this computes. Why does "defeating the enemy efficiently and effectively" lead to, in your emphasis, determining how the character will change?

Well, first of all, “winning as a player” doesn’t necessarily have to mean defeating enemies efficiently and effectively. It usually does in D&D 5e, since the main success metric is XP and you get that from combat by default. But in like B/X you get it from acquiring treasure. In Vampire: the Requiem Second Edition you get it from resolving Conditions (among other things). Success metrics are a powerful tool for motivating player decision-making, and as someone who firmly believes that whatever the player decides the character does is what the character would do, they are by extension powerful tools for motivating character decision making. In fact, used well, I would say they are the most powerful tools for aligning player interests with character interests. They therefore are one of the most important factors for me in shaping character through the making of difficult decisions, because they allow me to experience the same conflict as my character when the motivation to earn that success metric comes into conflict with other motivations. It helps me immerse in the character, you might say.

Are you using a single, consistent sense of "conflict" here, or are you using two different senses? Because it very much sounds to me like this is two very different senses of the word "conflict." One is a matter of violence and survival. The other seems to be an internal struggle to come to a decision, an internal confusion or lack of commitment due to incommensurate and incompatible desires.

Internal and external conflict both affect our every decision. Violence and survival should be one of the things that affects my struggle to make a decision, as should internal desires, fears, all that stuff.

This is not to say that "I want violence and survival to be one of the things I am struggling to decide about." You can totally do that. But that would mean that the second sense of conflict, coming to a decision about what actually matters to you, is the one you really care about, and the other sense of conflict, survival in the face of violent dangers, is merely cared about for its instrumental value.

I guess, sure. But that instrumental value can’t be overstated. Without weighing the desire to win against those other factors, the internal conflict isn’t nearly as engaging or rewarding to me.

Perhaps a better way to phrase the above. Call the first question A, and the second question B (simply to save space.) Let's say you're afforded an opportunity where you are absolutely, 100% certain you could get situations asking A in a satisfactory way, but which would be completely irrelevant to B, OR situations asking B in a likewise satisfactory way but which would contain no amount of A whatsoever, which would you choose?

Im sorry, which questions are these?

There's nothing wrong with that, but that very much sounds like what ultimately interests you (a word you took umbrage with before...) is finding out what your character would do when faced with various situations, which might include physical violent combat, but it wouldn't have to. Is that correct?

I mean, yeah, but I think the conflation of winning with violent physical conflict is obfuscating things here. What ultimately interests me is indeed finding out what my character would do when faced with various situations, but I consider a desire to be successful as a player (according to the game’s success metrics, which only incidentally means winning violent physical conflict in D&D) to be an essential component of that finding out process.

Then it sounds to me like your friend is either looking for "High Concept Simulation" (what I call "Conceit and Emulation") or "Narrativist" (what I call "Values and Issues"), they just prefer it to be fairly crunchy in the doing. Handwavy abstract mechanics seem to bore (or at least fail to excite) them; they want consequences with "teeth" as it were. They want more than just descriptions of the ways various things affect their characters; they want the actual mechanics themselves to mediate and deliver those costs.

Mmm… That doesn’t quite resonate. I have no issue with abstraction, and while I enjoy some crunch now and then, I also greatly appreciate economy of design, and those things tend not to walk hand in hand,

I don't have a broad enough knowledge base to tell your friend what game might serve their interests very specifically. However, it seems very likely that your friend would like 4e and 13th Age are very probable options. While they are very much designed to serve "Gamist" (what I call "Score and Achievement") design goals, they both have some baked-in Narrativist/"Story Now"/"Values and Issues" superstructure that seems like it would deliver the kind of "dilemmas-with-teeth" your friend seems to desire.

I definitely love 4e, though it doesn’t quite scratch the exploration itch as well as 5e does for me. My ideal D&D would have the gameplay procedures of 5e (or… actually maybe the gameplay procedures of B/X; 5e has them, but they’re so hidden as to be easily overlooked or ignored, while they’re positively central to B/X) with the oh so elegantly designed crunch of 4e. Maybe throw in PF2’s 3-action economy as a treat.

13th age didn’t really do it for me, it was touted by many as the spiritual successor to 4e, but whatever those folks saw in 4e must have been different than what I saw in it, because 13th Age didn’t feel like an evolution of what I loved about 4e at all,

 

[Charlaquin]

OK. That suggests you have (what Edwards would call) gamist motivations. It seems to imply that, as a player, you would be looking for GMs who will "bring it" - present genuine challenges (I'm guessing at the group/party level rather than the individual level, given what you posted upthread about party cohesion) that then require you and your fellow players to "bring it" in return - in some sense to "show what you're made of" in order to win.

It would also seem to imply that you might be frustrated by a GM who frequently "softballs" - fudging, or manipulating the fiction - to give you easy or unearned wins.

Yup, absolutely. But, again, to me those motivations are ultimately in service to a desire to learn what the character would do, which I keep hearing is simulationism. I seem to want simulationism by way of gamism.