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

[pemerton]

And for the most part the examples you've used are either trivial or not on the same scale as what has been discussed. Assuming someone with a sword has a scabbard is not in the same class as assuming someone has a collapsible ladder just because they're a thief.

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its certainly at least Shroedinger's Object.

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the item is decided at the point of use, not at the point of acquisition.

I suspect in most cases the "tools" issue is that even the designers don't really know what the hell to include there. This gets even more of a problem with specialized materials for, in some cases, fictional functions (what all is in a portable alchemy kit? Maybe a chemist could come up with some sort of a plausible list, but I doubt many other people could).

So you agree that a "portable alchemy kit" is "Schroedinger's Object"?

 

[Malmuria]

To comment on the Blades in the Dark gear/loadout discussion, I’ll just say that while I understand that it’s not for everyone (no rule really is, right?) I have to say that I’ve found the Blades inventory management to be a far more compelling way of handling inventory than most games I’ve played.

The reason for this is that nearly every game I’ve ever played, there is at least some amount of handwaving going on. @Micah Sweet provided an example of spell components and how if the player hasn't restocked them in a while, the GM can just say that they no longer have those items. This is not an exact method….it’s a GM judgment call. One GM may decide one way, and another may make the opposite call.

And although maybe that example was incompletely described, many loadout/inventory rules involve a similar amount of handwaving. Many are not exact. Many others are absurd for any number of other reasons (usually carrying capacity combined with unrestricted movement and similar elements).

So, accepting that most systems fail any kind of realism sniff test, I’d rather use a system that actually creates meaningful decision points in play, and which also evokes the feeling of the world and its characters, instead of just being a test of player preparedness that’s (very often in my experience) highly contingent upon the GM being a generous, reasonable, and fair interface between the fiction and the players. Often much more so than is reasonable to expect.

I’ve played that game and one of two things happen. One, It’s tedious and annoying; or two, in order to avoid it becoming tedious and annoying, most of the rules get ignored anyway.

So give me an inventory system that will actually be relevant to play, isn’t tedious or overly complex, and feels like it fits the game being played all day.

I like the various slot-based inventory schemes people have come up with (for dnd style games) It’s simple and places a reasonable limit on what you can carry. It’s like the inventory mini-game in Diablo. There’s also something to be said for the lateral thinking that comes with having to think about how the tools you have can solve a problem in a non-obvious way.

 

[Cadence]

So you agree that a "portable alchemy kit" is "Schroedinger's Object"?

I'm guessing that the difference in the preciseness of what is Schroedingered and how useful it is supposed to be to the particular mission feel so large as to be a difference in kind to many, and those folks find the argument that there is essentially no important difference to be flabbergasting.

 

[Cadence]

Following up to my last post, I would like for the players to list everything, but that's annoying and sometimes they forget. If it's something a reasonable, experienced person almost surely would have brought along based on what they knew before heading out, then I'm fine with calling an audible/mulligan/space-time warp/retcon/Schroedinger and saying they remembered it. If it's something that feels like they probably wouldn't have taken it based on the initial info then I'm not fine with it.

Say you're going repelling that afternoon... you probably brought your repelling gear, first aid kit, and your standard way to signal in an emergency. You probably didn't bring formal wear, a bomb defusing kit, and your fishing gear.

If there is nothing unobvious or out of the ordinary ever gotten or gettable by the BitD rule, then it kind of feels like it just formalizes what a lot of folks use in D&D and expects it to happen more often.

 

[hawkeyefan]

Following up to my last post, I would like for the players to list everything, but that's annoying and sometimes they forget. If it's something a reasonable, experienced person almost surely would have brought along based on what they knew before heading out, then I'm fine with calling an audible/mulligan/space-time warp/retcon/Schroedinger and saying they remembered it. If it's something that feels like they probably wouldn't have taken it based on the initial info then I'm not fine with it.

Say you're going repelling that afternoon... you probably brought your repelling gear, first aid kit, and your standard way to signal in an emergency. You probably didn't bring formal wear, a bomb defusing kit, and your fishing gear.

If there is nothing unobvious or out of the ordinary ever gotten or gettable by the BitD rule, then it kind of feels like it just formalizes what a lot of folks use in D&D and expects it to happen more often.

There is a list of standard gear. Then, there’s a short list of additional gear available to each playbook.

Anything out of the ordinary must either be acquired as an asset during downtime, or else a flashback must be used to establish how/why the item was obtained, which typically requires some Stress to be spent.

So your assessment that it’s just a formalized way to do what many people already informally do is fairly accurate.

 

[Cadence]

There is a list of standard gear. Then, there’s a short list of additional gear available to each playbook.

Anything out of the ordinary must either be acquired as an asset during downtime, or else a flashback must be used to establish how/why the item was obtained, which typically requires some Stress to be spent.

So your assessment that it’s just a formalized way to do what many people already informally do is fairly accurate.

Cool. Thank you very much for the clarification!

So the only substantial difference might be taken to be the ability to have a flashback (possibly requiring stress) to get a non-standard item?

 

[hawkeyefan]

Cool. Thank you very much for the clarification!

So the only substantial difference might be taken to be the ability to have a flashback (possibly requiring stress) to get a non-standard item?

I don’t know if it’s the only difference... I'm sure that will depend on who you ask... but I'd say it's the main substantial difference.

The chronology in Blades is less linear. Think of fiction where things are not presented sequentially. The game allows for that. Many games don't, at least not in a formal way. I think a lot of games or GMs allow it in ways that are deemed either minor or sensible in some way, as you've touched on, but that's a pretty gray area.

 

[Thomas Shey]

As a chemist by education, yeah maybe I could suggest some things, but since alchemy is 'magical' it COULD include most anything in terms of say, reagents. In terms of say climbing gear, I have very little idea beyond 'ropes, pitons, and carabiners', but I have only really a notional idea how those are used, not having done any serious climbing. I suspect anyone could suggest some plausible carpenter's tools. One difficulty is that many of these items have a wide variety of potential 'off label' uses. I mean, hammers are surely part of carpenter's tools, but they also make a serviceable emergency weapon. The way games like 5e and TB2 handle this there's no provision for using them that way. It certainly isn't disallowed, but its not exactly clear how that would work. Beyond that, couldn't my carpentry hammer and some spikes help with a climbing task? I mean, maybe that kind of 'cross label use' isn't SUPER effective, but it could be better than nothing!

You can see why classic early Dungeon Crawl D&D wasn't super excited by the idea of having these sorts of 'kits', since it primarily wanted to use a pure 'solve problems narratively' kind of approach. Obviously that is where the whole 'everything must be exactly specified' point of view comes from.

Of course early D&D had no skills. Over and above the whole offloading anything vaguely intellectual or technical on the players, ask an original 3 book GM how to resolve someone falling into a fast moving river, and you'll probably get as many answers as GMs. So an awful lot of that was going to end up being completely arbitrary on any grounds.

 

[Thomas Shey]

So you agree that a "portable alchemy kit" is "Schroedinger's Object"?

In practice, most of the time its not. It's a portable alchemy kit. But if you want to look for specific things to use for other purposes, yes, it absolutely is.

(Its actually worse than that since there's no clear borders about what'll be in it).

But as I said, that's because the truth is, almost no one knows what should be in it. People have enough trouble with just normal craft kits.

 

[niklinna]

I don’t know if it’s the only difference... I'm sure that will depend on who you ask... but I'd say it's the main substantial difference.

The chronology in Blades is less linear. Think of fiction where things are not presented sequentially. The game allows for that. Many games don't, at least not in a formal way. I think a lot of games or GMs allow it in ways that are deemed either minor or sensible in some way, as you've touched on, but that's a pretty gray area.

One big difference is that a character's loadout in Blades in the Dark is limited to 3, 5, or 6 "significant" items from that limited list you mentioned earlier. Each limit corresponds to your increasing likelihood of drawing unwanted attention. Compare that to the usual inventory list characters have in many other role-playing games (and this isn't even considering bags of holding and the like). This tight limit on gear means that, even though you are determing on the fly what you have, deciding when to commit to having a particular item is a heavily consequential decision: Once you run out of loadout slots, that's it.