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

[Ovinomancer]

It's probably been said 500 times already in this thread, but perhaps an issue is that 5e (or most any TTRPG) can be played in very different ways.

One table could have a prepublished campaign, characters with no personal story, and a GM that is going to run a series of sections from the book exactly as they are written.

A second table perhaps has a GM with a prewritten adventure that is crafted with a few connections to the players stories weaved into it.

A third GM (me) might have absolutely no prewritten adventure in mind and instead some loose ideas of interesting things that they might throw at the PCs if the opportunity presents itself. Their session revolves around asking the players "what does your character want to do?" and then parsing how the world would react to the answers to that question. It MIGHT be "Go check out that dungeon for loot" or possibly "Go look around town for exotic animals" or even ""Go gather up supplies, build, and advertise a sandwich shop in the ground floor of our temple".

In the check out a dungeon request, then as a GM I will maybe switch modes of play and use something prewritten, and it may or may not connect to other storylines.

I'm the other two requests, however, I'm just creating things on the fly to give the player an interesting and challenging stream of feedback for as long as they want to pursue the idea. A trip to the exotic animal market might spin into a multi session trek across the world as the players direct the story.

Honestly, that all sounds like it has the same agenda, with differing adherence to pre-planned materials. In each case, the players are prompting the GM to reveal more about the world, and the GM is sitting in the place of the world-engine -- the creator and definer of what this world is about and how it acts. GNS doesn't really tell you how you need to run your game, it identifies what creative aspect of play is primary. Here, this all reads as strongly Simulationism. Doesn't surprise me, honestly, as 5e is pretty strongly slanted to support Simulationism as an agenda, at least at the High Concept end (ie, not process).

And this is why I disagree when a game system is given a GNS label, because most games can be used to give the players whatever they want out of it.

You can have a session of 5e that's basically a tactical miniatures combat game followed by one solely roleplay that never touches a die and is about the characters confronting a mentor who let them down.

Most game are versatile enough to accommodate many playstyles, and many groups use multiple playstyles in their gaming session.

Yes, you can 100% switch between agendas, not just between sesssions but even between scenes and sometimes inside a scene. The more often you do this -- change what's going to be the deciding factor of play -- the more you increase incoherence, specifically that the game appears to be switching between what's important and isn't keeping consistent. If you make this obvious, as Torchbearer does, you can alleviate any confusion about what's going on, but that doesn't remove that the agendas are not consistent.

Also, inside D&D, "playstyles" really refers to a a few different ways to support what's largely still the same creative agenda within GNS. There's a few ways games support Story Now as well, and hence why games like Burning Wheel play differently from Apocalypse World which plays differently from Blades in the Dark. All of these strongly support Story Now (Narrativist) play, but in different ways that are very much like what "playstyles" often refers to in D&D discussions. "Playstyles" on ENW is almost entirely locked into D&D -- it's pretty narrow in what it reaches.

In short...why do I keep seeing the GNS labels that I have been told are for describing players tacked onto game systems themselves?

It's a shorthand. Many games provide strong support for a particular agenda. They don't have to be used that way, but most commonly are. This is a reason I've tried to take care to say that game support an agenda rather than just labelling them with the agenda. It avoids the confusion caused by the shorthand.

 

[Charlaquin]

This seems true of at least a plurality of the playerbase, though. It's certainly true if I announce I'm running a WotC AP. And, honestly, if the GM is up front about the paladin being a problem as you suggest, I think that's loads healthier than some of the things I see on these boards far too often.

I'm not resentful. That's the game. If I sign up to play in a WotC AP, I should not expect my character's backstory to have any impacts (unless I pick one of the specific AP backgrounds, in which case nothing else about my character matters but I'll get a nod at specific places due to that choice). This carries over into non-AP games as well, and fairly often if the discussions about it on ENW are any guide. Any inclusion of PC backgrounds is also likely to be de minimus.

I guess, but with a couple of standout exceptions, WotC APs are mostly crap anyway, so who cares what you should expect out of them? Any good DM should (in my opinion) be heavily customizing any WotC APs they run, which opens the opportunity to tailor them to the players’ interests. Heck, I’m not even sure how you could run most of them without doing so.

Oh, no, we're verging into the conflict between Neotrad and Trad, and how Neotrad is slowly pushing trad out of the D&D space. The new things coming out in UA and hints on the 5e update are strongly indicating a return to 3e era Neotrad leaning PC build rules.

I’m not a especially keen on either, myself.

 

[Aldarc]

@Charlaquin, I hope you don't mind me circling back to my earlier question:

Does your preference lean towards PbtA with OSE trappings or OSE with PbtA trappings?

Because I think that this would also help getting a better sense of what you want out of a game.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

There's a lot of talk about Main Character Syndrome on these boards. One recent thread (Things Pro DMs Do That You Shouldn't) put a good deal of emphasis on the conceit that you should not give individual characters too much attention (with much of the commentary coming from a player's perspective).

I didn't read that thread much, but it seems like a weird complaint to me. I feel that one of the strengths of the way they play in Critical Role etc is that the play revolves a lot around the backstories and personal issues of the characters, so it actually matters a lot who the characters are.

Look at all the commentary on this thread alone on "not running 4 games" you see on these boards all the time as another example of this at work.

I think it was me who mostly brought that up, and my whole point with that was that sometimes such things really don't have anything to do with gaming agendas and such, but just practical considerations regarding the use of limited gaming time.

 

[Malmuria]

The insistence that it be negative is on you.

If I tell a student that they’ve written “an incoherent essay,” that’s definitely a criticism. Not necessarily in the sense that its complete babble (“incoherent with grief”), but that it is disjointed disorganized, nonsensical. If I mean to say that it makes multiple interesting arguments, all of which make sense, I would not say it it is “incoherent.”

Notably, design, as in “game design,” has quite a different meaning:

to create, fashion, execute, or construct according to plan : DEVISE, CONTRIVEdesign a system for tracking inventory
2a: to conceive and plan out in the mind. he designed the perfect crime
b: to have as a purpose : INTEND. she designed to excel in her studies
c: to devise for a specific function or enda book designed primarily as a college textbooka suitcase designed to hold a laptop computer

Design implies order, organization, and intention. If I designed a game, and the reviewers said it was “incoherent,” that would read quite clearly as a criticsm.

That’s totally fine by the way; as a criticism of WOD-style design I see where Edwards is coming from. But to make a criticism, and then say that it is not a criticism but a neutral way of describing all rpgs, strikes me as disingenuous (and pointless).

 

[Charlaquin]

@Charlaquin

There's a lot of talk about Main Character Syndrome on these boards. One recent thread (Things Pro DMs Do That You Shouldn't) put a good deal of emphasis on the conceit that you should not give individual characters too much attention (with much of the commentary coming from a player's perspective). Look at all the commentary on this thread alone on "not running 4 games" you see on these boards all the time as another example of this at work.

I have personal experience of receiving significant pushback when I have tried to accomplish individual goals in traditional games despite being wildly supportive of other players doing the same. It has taken me years of wandering to find a group that supports and appreciates a focus on individual characters.

When I mentioned seeking out the sort of play that was focused on individual characters on these boards and being willing to leave games that did not feature it I was told that I was selfish for having that desire. This has happened to me on multiple occasions over the years on these boards.

Thesis: I have a desire for exploration of the individual player characters.

Antithesis: RPGs are a group activity and I don’t want the exploration of any individual’s character to come at the detriment of the other players’ characters.

Synthesis: I should take into account what each player is most interested in exploring about their individual character and endeavor to incorporate those interests into the broader scenario that the players are participating in as a group.

Or, an alternative synthesis (which is increasingly what I find myself drawn towards): The players should come in with as little already decided about their characters as possible, so that through the act of engaging with the challenges within the scenario they are playing through as a group, they discover more about their characters as individuals.

 

[Ovinomancer]

I guess, but with a couple of standout exceptions, WotC APs are mostly crap anyway, so who cares what you should expect out of them? Any good DM should (in my opinion) be heavily customizing any WotC APs they run, which opens the opportunity to tailor them to the players’ interests. Heck, I’m not even sure how you could run most of them without doing so.

Well, WotC certainly publishes them as a fait accompli with regard to a complete adventure. That the designers are choosing to highlight this kind of thing as exemplary is worth noting. It means that your suggestion above is going off-label, so to speak. Is that what I do? Most certainly. I very much dislike the AP offerings, with Curse being the least disliked.

Still, even if this is so, the content that is character related is, going by descriptions here, going to be small compared to total content. Using Iserith's games as a barometer, for instance, there's nothing mentioned that engages with the PCs stories in the prep. This appears entirely intentional!

I’m not a especially keen on either, myself.

 

[overgeeked]

I think it was me who mostly brought that up, and my whole point with that was that sometimes such considerations really don't have anything to do with gaming agendas and such, but just practical considerations regarding the use of limited gaming time.

I think that's really easily forgotten in all this. We're playing games. Generally in real time with real people at a real table. We have neither infinite time nor infinite patience. All these theories and models and practices are tools to be used when needed and set aside when not.

To me, trying to design a game with a singular focus is great as a thought experiment, but are really rather quite limited (and limiting) in practice. It's the gaming equivalent to intentionally only having a hammer in your toolbox. If all you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail...or you pretend it's not actually a problem. Well, there are situations that arise where there is a problem and it's not a nail. That's gaming and gamers. The players will swerve left when you expected them to zag right.

That's why broader games, with more tools in the box, are wildly more popular than laser-focused games. People can add in the things they like about Dungeon World to D&D far easier than they can add the things they like about D&D to Dungeon World. Plus they can do a lot more. Tell a wider range of stories. Play a wider range of styles.

Sometimes you want to dig deep into character and motivation. Sometimes you want to dig deep into the texture of the world. Sometimes you want to skip over a long and tedious stretch of time with a die roll or monologue. Sometimes you just want to bash monsters and get a pat on the head. Explore. Create characters. Add drama. On and on and on. Instead of having 10 separate games that handle one sliver of those desires, far better to have a less focused game that can deliver more of those desires. And everyone isn't forced to learn 10 separate systems to do it.

 

[Aldarc]

If I tell a student that they’ve written “an incoherent essay,” that’s definitely a criticism. Not necessarily in the sense that its complete babble (“incoherent with grief”), but that it is disjointed disorganized, nonsensical. If I mean to say that it makes multiple interesting arguments, all of which make sense, I would not say it it is “incoherent.”

Have we mentioned before that Edwards was terrible at naming things?

 

[Malmuria]

Its something to either (a) reconcile with or (b) design out. But you have to first acknowledge that "its a thing" if you're going to do either of those things. I've spoken about it a lot. I've written excerpts of play that demonstrate it in action. Its about moments of play where you have to subordinate one priority for another (like subordinating skillfulness resolving play to story imperatives or subordinating simulationist priorities because you need game conventions and contrivances to suss out skillfulness of play) because they don't cohere in that moment.

You see indications of it all over ENWorld all the time with people lamenting this problem or lamenting that problem because their play doesn't match up to their expectations. And then you have all kinds of back-and-forth on how to resolve that issue. They're talking about incoherency. @pemerton posted this last page and folks seemed to think it was a good explanation so I'll repost it here.





I assume you believe this to be a heavy point of contention given the tone of what you've written here, but no one that I know of disagrees with this.

This has been conceded over and over and over and over again. 5e overwhelmingly achieves this through GM-facing action resolution and heavily GM-directed play (relying upon the GM to skillfully, behind the screen, resolve moments when priorities don't play nice so the players can just do their thing). 5e also achieves this through a well-designed puzzle game of social interaction a la Pictionary (which, IMO, is the only site of reliable Gamism that will never threaten other priorities in 5e...a fantastic minigame that really has no issues that are a threat to clash, conceptually or in my own running of the game)...which...at least back when I was running it...virtually no one knew existed or just ignored it entirely (every time I brought it up people were all "huh?...what?...just happened again a few days ago").

The game is wildly popular for a host of reasons and one of them has to be that, presently, this is the proverbial nut draw of system design. And this wasn't a happy accident. This was intentful, skillful design by the 5e designers. They built toward a particular game and they executed that effort. Bravo.

All that makes a lot of sense. It suggests that incoherence is a problem to be solved. As you say, the problem can be solved by reconciling different modes of play into a cohesive game.

My two points would be

A) While I understand, I don’t think I agree with this framework. Or, at least, I’m unconvinced. I’m unconvinced that “incoherence” is that much of a problem, or that the problems and debates that arise in play are due to such incoherence, and specifically incoherence between G,N, and S, as opposed to some other typology (Robin Laws types of players, etc). I’m unconvinced that “incoherence” is purely a problem of design, and can be ‘designed away,’ as it were.

The concept of “drift,” as I understand it, is telling in this regard. It implies that a game or play agenda starts out in one camp (G,N, or S), and then “drifts” into another or into some no man’s land. And you can still have fun if your game has drifted but you’re not playing it by the rules but hey if you’re having fun etc etc. But it’s interesting to me that to actually get to a game that plays according to a “pure” single agenda takes a lot of work. It suggests to me that players are really comfortable with “drifted,” or “incoherent” play—that, rather than throwing up problems all over the place, fits how a lot of players think about ttrpgs (and problems come from other sources). Granted, that might just be due to how ttrpgs developed historically and the fact that most people start with dnd.

B) If we are trying to describe a game “intentful, skillful design,” the term “incoherence” is incredibly infelicitous. It connotes the opposite of all of that. It’s a real problem with using the terminology if a term that ordinarily suggests disorganization, disjointedness, and lack of clarity is the same term that can be applied to “intentful , skillful design.”

This is something I don’t know: does the Forge or Forge-descended design provide advice on how to design games that sit in between two agendas? Like, someone who says, here’s how you design a game that is half narrativist, and half simulationist, because that’s a totally valid and great design goal. Or, here’s how you design a game with both story-now and story-before elements.

Note: almost all of what I’ve written above assumes that G, N, and S are indeed valid ways to class game design and play preferences, and as I’ve stated before, I don’t know that I would assume that. But, per this conversation, those are the terms on offer.