D&D General Supposing D&D is gamist, what does that mean?

[FrogReaver]

To clarify, I never said the game or the people playing it were not serious. That's a certain someone adding extra words to what I stated. And I'll concede the point that retroactively having a small hand held tool is not enough to ruin the whole experience for me. What I would find cartoonish is a player declaring they had a previously unestablished large or bulky item when their previous activities would have been hampered or even prevented had we all known they had it on them.

I think even the proponents of such games and systems would agree that such an example shouldn't be deemed realistic.

I think most such games that are oriented toward seriousness tend to have mechanisms in them to prevent such 'cartoonishness'. Typically it would be by restricting the list of what you can have that way.

For example if a player character scaled a cliff side then squeezed through some vents to enter a room, then noticed they needed a ladder to reach the security cameras. It would bother me for the player to declare they had a ladder on them the whole time. Or maybe the gm proposes a compromise in a situation like that? "You couldn't have had a ladder, but maybe collapsible stilts?"

Having not read the rules myself, maybe this is already accounted for. Guilty by ignorance perhaps?

What I find in these discussions is that general ideas get laid out, we object to the general idea by taking it to an extreme (as tends to be the case for me when I examine new systems) and then later on we find out that extreme wasn't even possible to begin with. For me, there's a serious lack of detailed nuance that just doesn't get provided until way later when explaining these systems to forum goers. I think that's to be expected to some degree, but it always feels like it happens much too often over much too important of details.

It would also be nice if sometimes we could hear from the proponents - yea i would hate it if the game allowed something like that but it doesn't due to it heavily restricting what items can be authored in on the spot.

 

[RhaezDaevan]

I think even the proponents of such games and systems would agree that such an example shouldn't be deemed realistic.

I think most such games that are oriented toward seriousness tend to have mechanisms in them to prevent such 'cartoonishness'. Typically it would be by restricting the list of what you can have that way.

What I find in these discussions is that general ideas get laid out, we object to the general idea by taking it to an extreme (as tends to be the case for me when I examine new systems) and then later on we find out that extreme wasn't even possible to begin with. For me, there's a serious lack of detailed nuance that just doesn't get provided until way later when explaining these systems to forum goers. I think that's to be expected to some degree, but it always feels like it happens much too often over much too important of details.

It would also be nice if sometimes we could hear from the proponents - yea i would hate it if the game allowed something like that but it doesn't due to it heavily restricting what items can be authored in on the spot.

Thanks for the non-hostile correction. If there are restriction that make sense, then it wouldn't be as bad as I initially thought.

I'm open to being corrected if it's in a nice way. I still don't have interest in BitD for other reasons, but at least my mind can relax a bit on this one mechanic.

 

[Malmuria]

To clarify, I never said the game or the people playing it were not serious. That's a certain someone adding extra words to what I stated. And I'll concede the point that retroactively having a small hand held tool is not enough to ruin the whole experience for me. What I would find cartoonish is a player declaring they had a previously unestablished large or bulky item when their previous activities would have been hampered or even prevented had we all known they had it on them.

For example if a player character scaled a cliff side then squeezed through some vents to enter a room, then noticed they needed a ladder to reach the security cameras. It would bother me for the player to declare they had a ladder on them the whole time. Or maybe the gm proposes a compromise in a situation like that? "You couldn't have had a ladder, but maybe collapsible stilts?"

Having not read the rules myself, maybe this is already accounted for. Guilty by ignorance perhaps?

The way Blades accounts for this is that you have to choose the amount of your load at the beginning the session. And if you choose a heavy load (6 slots), you are encumbered for the whole session even before you choose what those items are, so it would come into play in situations where being encumbered would matter. But the game also advises players to start from the fiction and then only go to the mechanics when it's necessary, so if a player wanted to pull a ladder out of her pocket, there would be a question, to say the least, of how that works in the fiction.

 

[RhaezDaevan]

The way Blades accounts for this is that you have to choose the amount of your load at the beginning the session. And if you choose a heavy load (6 slots), you are encumbered for the whole session even before you choose what those items are, so it would come into play in situations where being encumbered would matter. But the game also advises players to start from the fiction and then only go to the mechanics when it's necessary, so if a player wanted to pull a ladder out of her pocket, there would be a question, to say the least, of how that works in the fiction.

Thank you as well. Not as bad as I thought previously. So do some items take multiple slots?

 

[Malmuria]

Thank you as well. Not as bad as I thought previously. So do some items take multiple slots?

Yeah, so "climbing gear" is two slots, "heavy armor" is three slots, a "large weapon" is two slots, etc

I think the general idea is that the characters plan out what they are going to do in advance, but you don't need to roleplay all that at the table. Rather, there are various ways you can say in the middle of the session, "but I planned for this." Load is one way, but probably the bigger way are flashbacks, where you spend "stress" (a kind of HP) to roleplay scenes that happened earlier. So you might want to have a flashback of your character paying off a guard that happened 3 days earlier, so that now the guard lets you through a specific door.

I can see how this would be weird, since we (as people) experience external time as linear. If I am packing for a trip and I forget to pack my phone charger, then I'm just out of luck. But then, I will probably spend more time planning and packing for a trip than the length of an average rpg session. There are many ways, even in dnd, where a long amount of time is collapsed for the sake of expedient play. What blades does is say, "during that time you were planning," without you having to do all that planning in real time. Further, while I might experience my day in a linear way, narratives are often non-linear, so if the goal of your rpg is to create a story, linearity is not so important.

fwiw, I'm the sort of person who also enjoys the inventory mini game of classic dnd. I like thinking about what sort of items my character might need, weighted (no pun intended!) against how much money they have and how much they can carry. I enjoy different slot based inventory systems that force you to visualize how your character is physically carrying all those bulky items. And then of course there is the whole problem of getting treasure of the dungeon. There are also entire OSR games that are premised around characters starting with random equipment, so that players have to think laterally and macgyver their way of situations (for example, Knave and Cairn).

 

[Ovinomancer]

To clarify, I never said the game or the people playing it were not serious. That's a certain someone adding extra words to what I stated. And I'll concede the point that retroactively having a small hand held tool is not enough to ruin the whole experience for me. What I would find cartoonish is a player declaring they had a previously unestablished large or bulky item when their previous activities would have been hampered or even prevented had we all known they had it on them.

For example if a player character scaled a cliff side then squeezed through some vents to enter a room, then noticed they needed a ladder to reach the security cameras. It would bother me for the player to declare they had a ladder on them the whole time. Or maybe the gm proposes a compromise in a situation like that? "You couldn't have had a ladder, but maybe collapsible stilts?"

Having not read the rules myself, maybe this is already accounted for. Guilty by ignorance perhaps?

Yes. Jumping to conclusions, as I noted.

 

[Ovinomancer]

Thank you as well. Not as bad as I thought previously. So do some items take multiple slots?

I posted the entire system above, including how slots work, and how load is chosen, and how it affects things from the start, and what things are allowable.

 

[pemerton]

IMO, being logically inconsistent - assuming that's what's happening shouldn't be construed as being insulting.

Though I don't think there's actually logical inconsistency here. We've talked about authorship before and how it's much more than whether it occurs but who's doing the authoring, what gives them the power to do so, what limitations do they have on their authorship, what principles they must follow regarding it, are there any ulterior motives behind the authorhsip, and even when it happens in relation to the fiction.

Take that last one - 'when it happens in relation to the fiction'. In downtime there isn't any immediate problems that the authorship is solving - that's why it's downtime. Authoring a rope exactly when it comes up that you need one is authorship that's solving an immediate problem.

And what can you tell us about how authorship works in the BitD inventory rules?

 

[pemerton]

I'm talking about D&D, which I believe is the comparison point to BitD being used here (as in, how each game handles the same concept). If I'm wrong about that, I apologize.

As for the rest, to my understanding, the PC in BitD made no indication that they had acquired the rope until active play during the heist, when they needed it. At which point, it is retconed as having been in their kit all along. That is in stark contrast to a game like D&D, and I can easily understand someone having a problem with it.

Where is the retcon? When was it established that the PC had no rope in their load-out?

 

[pemerton]

I believe that in D&D play a character is established as not having an item if it's never brought up that they have acquired it. This would be another unspoken D&D principle. There can exist a few exceptions (an NPC planting something on your character and being unaware of it till later). So in D&D if you didn't establish having an item, then establishing that you had it the whole time would be a retcon in D&D.

Do you use "spell component pouches" in D&D?

Do you make the players bring up that they are sharpening their blades, resoling their shoes, darning their socks/hose, etc?

What about food and drink? Suppose that the PCs - in an episode that is being played out - attend a banquet. And the GM describes food being served. And a player says (speaking as their character) "I taste it carefully to work out what the ingredients are." Do you assume that the PC has never purchased or eaten any food except what has actually been brought up during play at the table?

That said, BitD is a different game with different principles. I don't believe it's fair to talk about BitD using D&D principles. In BitD there is no principle that if you don't establish having an item that you don't have it - the rope makes a great example as it's something allowable by the rules.

IMO it's the mis match of principles (especially unspoken D&D principles) and game rules that often gets us into trouble when comparing different RPG's. For you I think it's important to understand this is what's happening as it may help you better communicate with D&D players that don't realize they are mismatching D&D principles with other games that don't share those principles when they are describing such rules and play with negative words like retcon.

I am extremely familiar with the principles of play for a wide range of RPGs, including various versions of D&D. I don't think I'm the one who needs to be told to be aware of how principles vary!