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

[hawkeyefan]

Yeah, but most of that is not usually potentially contadictory or ""things we should have known before". Some (including the matters at hand) are. That makes a difference to a lot of people. Where the line is is somewhat subjective, but that doesn't make it any less real.

Neither is "what's in the backpack" contradictory or something we should have known before.

Let me clarify my stance a bit, because I don't really consider any of these things better in some objective sense, I'm just stating my opinion and the reasons for it.

There are games where it makes sense to meticulously track all inventory and resources because that's an essential part of the game. B/X D&D was mentioned, Torchbearer was mentioned.... it makes sense to do so for these games because those decisions are meaningful. If you have a ton of supplies, you can't carry as much loot out of the dungeon, but if you don't bring the right supplies, you may not get much loot. And so on.

I think that anyone designing a game needs to decide how to handle these things and I think they should consider things like how easy it is to manage at the table, how engaging the inventory system may be on its own and/or when interacting with other rules, and what kind of feel the game is going for.

Again, if you can't accept its very much different to some people, this conversation is going to keep going in circles. Telling people "this is the same thing, it shouldn't bother you" is about as useless a response as is possible in this sort of thing, even if that's the way it feels to you.

I don't think it's useless. As I said, it's a difference of degree, not of kind. When people say "I don't like this loadout system because it just feels far too abstract" or something similar, that's fine! When they say "I don't like when information is established after the fact" then I'll point out that many elements of the game work exactly that way. It's still fine that they feel that way... it's a preference and we're all entitled to whatever preferences we want.... but I think examining that preference further is worthwhile.

That's your view, but they're not required to agree with you. I'm not sure I do myself and I'm far more flexible about this sort of thing than the people objecting.

That's fine! I'm not trying to convince anyone to agree with me.

 

[hawkeyefan]

Right, you look around and see who is there. And whoever is there is not there by your will or decision. Asking the DM if anyone I know is there mentally fills the roll of my looking around.

If I had created someone in the backstory who is likely to be there I might ask the DM if they're there.
Or if I'm a regular, I might say "I assume I know who the bartender is and go chat them up."
If the entire bar staff has been replaced by an outlaw gang I'd hope the DM would tell me know when I entered that no one looked familiar and I would take that as a very strange thing.

Sure, there are any number of ways to handle it, and depending on how it's presented.

My point is that anything can be "jarring" for a player. Having to consult another person to confirm if I know anyone in my hometown pub would seem jarring to me. Can't I just say that I know people there?

I think that sometimes there's a knee jerk reaction against that kind of player decision even when it likely doesn't matter. In most cases, all that's going to matter is that the GM is going to go through some process to establish details that the player's idea would have already facilitated.

In real life when I'm on a hike and see a plant, I may know it well, be vaguely sure, have a guess, or not know. I don't get to decide what plant it is though or if I know it. The roll/check with the DM takes the place of my brain quickly dredging my memory. And if I know it, I probably don't mentally monologue to myself how I know what it is.

Seeing the plant, telling myself why I know it, and then knowing what it is feels different.

But that's not what I'm saying. I'm saying that when the plant is introduced to the fiction of the game, the player doesn't know if his character knows this plant or not. Typically, a Nature or Survival (or similar skill or stat) roll will be called for, and then based on the result of the roll, we establish the character's knowledge about the plant.

This happens in play all the time, and is no less "quantum" than the loadout rules from Blades. We don't know the details of something until the time they are introduced.

Yup!

Sure, but it feels like we default to things that feel similar to the world usually (gravity, breathing, long distances taking time to travel, the arrow of time).

But if I'm playing superheroes I probably let a lot of physics go, don't worry about breathing in toon, fast forward through travel to the good points in 13th age, and would probably jump back in time in a heist.

Right, but we're talking about the characters perceiving and experiencing those things... gravity, breathing, etc. They're not actually happening, we're just imagining them happen. So we can imagine that for the characters, time is linear, even if we as players do some things out of sequence.

I can totally see why it's a test of skill!

I'm not sure likening it to a spell makes the case of it not being a very different thing though.

Well it's partly resource management. Limited inventory slots and stress mean you have to try and make your use of those things worthwhile, much like a spell. But yes, beyond that similarity, I think it's different than player preparedness which more traditional approaches to inventory tends to test.

Definitely agree.

I appreciate everyone in this thread (including you) who has convinced me I want to try something with flashbacks at some point!!

I hope so! I like having different games do different things, personally.

 

[Cadence]

This happens in play all the time, and is no less "quantum" than the loadout rules from Blades. We don't know the details of something until the time they are introduced.

Right. I think I agreed with the likening of many standard D&D things to the BitD loadout of standard gear a few posts up.

Right, but we're talking about the characters perceiving and experiencing those things... gravity, breathing, etc. They're not actually happening, we're just imagining them happen. So we can imagine that for the characters, time is linear, even if we as players do some things out of sequence.

Do human beings have an easier time imagining things that work the way they have for them IRL than they do things they've never experienced in IRL?

I hope so! I like having different games do different things, personally.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Neither is "what's in the backpack" contradictory or something we should have known before.

It isn't contradictory necessarily, but I quite disagree that its not something you should have known before if its your backpack.

Let me clarify my stance a bit, because I don't really consider any of these things better in some objective sense, I'm just stating my opinion and the reasons for it.

There are games where it makes sense to meticulously track all inventory and resources because that's an essential part of the game. B/X D&D was mentioned, Torchbearer was mentioned.... it makes sense to do so for these games because those decisions are meaningful. If you have a ton of supplies, you can't carry as much loot out of the dungeon, but if you don't bring the right supplies, you may not get much loot. And so on.

I think that anyone designing a game needs to decide how to handle these things and I think they should consider things like how easy it is to manage at the table, how engaging the inventory system may be on its own and/or when interacting with other rules, and what kind of feel the game is going for.

I don't disagree with this. As I've noted, there are games that do things quite different and I'm good with most of them given context.

But not everyone is. And in some contexts, neither am I. There's at least one person in this thread who's made it clear that he'd rather just avoid some genres of RPG specifically because to make them work right requires certain kinds of contrivance, and he'd simply rather not deal with those genres or styles of game if that's what's required because he finds it disruptive.

I don't think repeating the reasons you don't find them disruptive--or in many cases I don't--is going to change his feelings on this. He simply doesn't see it the same way.

I don't think it's useless. As I said, it's a difference of degree, not of kind. When people say "I don't like this loadout system because it just feels far too abstract" or something similar, that's fine! When they say "I don't like when information is established after the fact" then I'll point out that many elements of the game work exactly that way. It's still fine that they feel that way... it's a preference and we're all entitled to whatever preferences we want.... but I think examining that preference further is worthwhile.

When it comes to something like this, I disagree. If its a strong preference, its probably not something that's subject to reexamination in any meaningful way; if it changes slowly, largely as an element of other changes in personality or experience.

As I noted very early in one of the earlier threads, I was much more strongly simulationist in the 70's and 80's. That didn't change because people noted its impossibility on some levels or a number of other things people would do to criticize it as an approach. It changed because some of the things that mattered to me stopped, over time, mattering as much. I can't say there was no outside influence on this, but to the degree it was, it was because I progressively realized some things I wanted in the game just weren't compatible with a simulationist agenda, and others benefited from tools I was taking off the table too much for what I was keeping to avoid them to be worth it. But all the people telling me my view was overly selective or a number of other things did was tell me they didn't see things as I did (and often came across as dimissive of that difference to boot).

After all, in the end of the day, what parts of the experience are actually comparable in an apples-to-apples way is subjective. That one thing seems relevant and the other doesn't, or to the contrary, is based on perspective, not any objective comparison that can be made.

That's fine! I'm not trying to convince anyone to agree with me.

I'm just not convinced what you seem to be trying to do is productive here. When the proper response to "But about these other apples..." is can very well be "They don't seem to be apples to me." I can understand that engaging with them on their own level can be pretty much letting them beg the question here, but without that, you're arguing from a premise they simply don't share.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

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.

Right, and that was of course part of the genesis of the idea of skills. Greyhawk's thief has 'Open Locks' and 'Find/Remove Traps' for exactly the same reason. The GM is very unlikely to possess the skills of a locksmith (or even a picklock) or a trapsmith (as if some such thing even formally exists). So the very notion of a player describing the sequence of actions required to disarm all but the most rudimentary traps (deadfalls and such) is a non-starter. I'd note that in 1e AD&D the description of F/RT is slightly rewritten to make it clear that it only really applies to 'small mechanical and magical devices', so by a strict reading if you want to avoid a deadfall you have to describe it NARRATIVELY even in 1e, though 99.9% of all AD&D GMs didn't notice that (its a bit less clear in Greyhawk, though the best interpretation is still similar). Gary certainly seems to have been pretty hostile to the idea of skills in any case, although the option started to creep in around the time he got the boot.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

This is now reminding me of that old Saturday morning Sid & Marty Krofft show, Electra Woman and Dyna Girl, in which every episode started with their resident engineer, Frank, showing them his latest experimental module for their utility belts high-tech wrist thingamabobs, which would of course invariably turn out to be just the thing they needed at a critical point toward the end of the episode. That would be more like the GM handing the players particular items with a wink & a nod, of course.

Toggle switches. So quaint.

I'd point out that this kind of thing is SUPER apropos for, say 007. IIRC in Top Secret S.I. back in the mid-80s you could spend a fortune point or whatever they called it to have some gadget that 'M' handed you at the start of the adventure be exactly what you need RIGHT NOW, though fictionally its going to be some small hand-held or car-mounted widget, so there's clear narrative limits on what it can do (no nukes, basically). You might even have a couple of these, though I seem to recall that dipping into that well very much got expensive fast.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Right, and that was of course part of the genesis of the idea of skills. Greyhawk's thief has 'Open Locks' and 'Find/Remove Traps' for exactly the same reason. The GM is very unlikely to possess the skills of a locksmith (or even a picklock) or a trapsmith (as if some such thing even formally exists).

Modern intrusion and security system specialists get pretty close. They aren't strongly separated from just dealing with locks in some cases, but they recognizably deal with designing and setting alarm systems and getting by same, which is probably indistinguishable from doing the same to traps, accounting for technological level differences.

So the very notion of a player describing the sequence of actions required to disarm all but the most rudimentary traps (deadfalls and such) is a non-starter. I'd note that in 1e AD&D the description of F/RT is slightly rewritten to make it clear that it only really applies to 'small mechanical and magical devices', so by a strict reading if you want to avoid a deadfall you have to describe it NARRATIVELY even in 1e, though 99.9% of all AD&D GMs didn't notice that (its a bit less clear in Greyhawk, though the best interpretation is still similar). Gary certainly seems to have been pretty hostile to the idea of skills in any case, although the option started to creep in around the time he got the boot.

Well, at some point I always think the swimming case (and jumping and climbing to a large extent) are pretty stark here; just how does one describe doing those in a way that tells you anything about success or failure except in the most extreme cases? I'm an experienced swimmer of many, many years, and I don't even have a clue how I'd describe how to deal with rough waters or know from listening to someone's description if they were going to be successful. You could just pull a number out of your behind of course, but this writes off any difference based on condition, let alone experience.

Its not a coincidence that even a game as early as Traveler at least gave you some idea of how to look at attributes and factor those in, and it was pretty primitive when it came to some of these things itself.

 

[Thomas Shey]

I'd point out that this kind of thing is SUPER apropos for, say 007. IIRC in Top Secret S.I. back in the mid-80s you could spend a fortune point or whatever they called it to have some gadget that 'M' handed you at the start of the adventure be exactly what you need RIGHT NOW, though fictionally its going to be some small hand-held or car-mounted widget, so there's clear narrative limits on what it can do (no nukes, basically). You might even have a couple of these, though I seem to recall that dipping into that well very much got expensive fast.

Its pretty near endemic in games of that nature, honestly; only superhero games do it more often (though often only with characters who are pretty gadget-focused in the first place; power oriented characters just spend metacurrency to do new and unusual things with their powers).

 

[hawkeyefan]

It isn't contradictory necessarily, but I quite disagree that its not something you should have known before if its your backpack.

“You” meaning who? The player or the character?

I don't think repeating the reasons you don't find them disruptive--or in many cases I don't--is going to change his feelings on this. He simply doesn't see it the same way.

I don’t even know who the “he” is that you’re talking about. Since I posted yesterday, I think you and @Cadence have replied to me. I’m not trying to convince @Cadence of anything, I’m just offering a different take. I don’t think either of us have had any problems with what the other has said.

So I don’t really know who you’re telling me to stop talking to.

When it comes to something like this, I disagree. If its a strong preference, its probably not something that's subject to reexamination in any meaningful way; if it changes slowly, largely as an element of other changes in personality or experience.

I doubt that there’s one way such things happen. My own path was different than you describe.

I had accepted many things in gaming as given due to lack of exposure to other ways. Hearing other people offer differing views, whether aimed at convincing me or not, spurred my thinking on the matter.

Plus, let’s not act like the dominant way of doing things is in danger because some folks find another way to do it.

I'm just not convinced what you seem to be trying to do is productive here. When the proper response to "But about these other apples..." is can very well be "They don't seem to be apples to me." I can understand that engaging with them on their own level can be pretty much letting them beg the question here, but without that, you're arguing from a premise they simply don't share.

I’m not trying to convince you of anything. Agree with me or disagree with me, that’s fine either way.

But don’t tell me not to speak my mind. That seems not only presumptuous but also rude.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Yeah, but most of that is not usually potentially contadictory or ""things we should have known before". Some (including the matters at hand) are. That makes a difference to a lot of people. Where the line is is somewhat subjective, but that doesn't make it any less real.

I see -and my experience indicates there is none- no reason to think that it is less contradictory not to know what my PC knows ahead of time before I make any decisions! Like if I'd known just how dangerous grues were, would I have entered this cave? With only one torch? It actually happens all the time in my experience that some knowledge my character has is revealed mid-story that would potentially have altered the course of events in previous scenes because I would have acted on it much sooner! At least if we can 'flashback' it mitigates this situation considerably.

Again, if you can't accept its very much different to some people, this conversation is going to keep going in circles. Telling people "this is the same thing, it shouldn't bother you" is about as useless a response as is possible in this sort of thing, even if that's the way it feels to you.

There's nothing wrong with asking WHY people have these, to me odd, 'cutouts' in their acceptance of temporal or factual matters where only very specific ones are problematic! Its not at all the same as condemning people's preferences.

That's your view, but they're not required to agree with you. I'm not sure I do myself and I'm far more flexible about this sort of thing than the people objecting.

Well, I think its just not tenable to claim that some of these really illogical positions are driven by some sort of logic, sometimes they are simply illogical preferences. Human beings are not at all required to work on logic. In fact I suspect it is much less common than people would like to think.