Not a Conspiracy Theory: Moving Toward Better Criticism in RPGs

[pemerton]

I agree with pemerton that there's little use in starting down the path of laying bare the procedural workings of RPGs without being willing --- truly willing --- to revise a notion, understanding, or principle you thought worked one way but was actually something else.

<snip>

And truthfully, that's the danger in engaging in ANY kind of criticism/critique. One of the things studying literary criticism taught me was that there is a risk involved --- there is an inherent element of "de-mystification" of the thing you're critiquing. It possibly takes away some of the psychological "warm feelings" or fervor you have for something, the deeply felt part of your own psyche and persona that thing has placed in you.

It's dangerous, because sometimes you have to rethink what that thing means in the context of your broader self . . . and in so rethinking what that thing means in context of your self, you also have to rethink your concept of self at the same time.

Edit: And thinking about it a tiny bit more, you have to be comfortable with that change --- the demystification leading to understanding. You lose the idealization and fervor, but gain greater understanding in its place.

A further thought on this: part of the disciplinary training in my field (my core humanities training is in philosophy, with theoretical sociology on the side) is to learn to detach disagreements in analysis from personal convictions and relationships.

This is why - for instance - I can supervise work that relies on Marx and supervise work that relies on Nozick and supervise work that defends cosmopolitanism and supervise work that defends nationalism. It's why I can referee favourably a piece that uses a methodological framework that I personally would reject in my own work. It's why I wasn't perturbed when the supervisor of my PhD explained why they completely rejected the premise from which my own work started.

When, a couple of decades ago, I first read Ron Edwards essay about "simulationist" RPGing which explained why initiative is such a problem in this sort of game, and also why it is prone to produce anti-climax in play, I wasn't offended or insulted. My first thought was this explains why RM has probably double-digit different initiative systems spread over its editions and supplements. This didn't change my own approach to initiative; but the stuff on anti-climax did shape how I approached GMing after that, and it's thanks to Ron Edwards and Paul Czege that I was able to bring a 10+ year campaign to a successful resolution in a way I would not have been able to do before I read them.

 

[pemerton]

though pemerton was very equipped to run Burning Wheel, I wouldn't have given him a chance to correctly run Torchbearer a few years ago. Not until he put in the work to understand not just the significant intricacies of the system (and how/where it diverges from BW) but how the entirety of each individual play loop (Town, Journey, Adventure, Camp) connects with each and integrates into a macro play loop to create the whole experience of play of the game. And then I still wouldn't have trusted him to deftly execute both Adventure building + the game's particular requirements of the GM on handling Fail Forward (how to manage the Twists or Condition + Success model and when to deploy Gear Twists vs the various other Twists etc).

As per the bit of your post that I snipped, I like to think I'm fairly good at reading a rulebook and working out what it's telling me to do, and why.

Being able to actually do it can be a different thing. For me, reading and re-reading and thinking and talking about Apocalypse World, and then a deep dive into GMing Classic Traveller, probably explain the difference that you're seeing. (I'm assuming that you take it that today you do give me a chance to correctly run Torchbearer and do Adventure Building.)

 

[kenada]

I'm curious... how would you compare/contrast the way PbtA does this with OSE's reaction and morale rolls?

Reaction rolls are more similar than morale. Morale is a way to provide a default end condition to combat that’s not just killing all the monsters. If you can break their morale, you can drive away something that is otherwise strong enough to kill you. This helps PCs survive and stay alive when they’re otherwise pretty fragile. It’s one of several release valves OSE provides to keep combat from being too dangerous (another being the escape and pursuit rules).

Anyway, reaction rolls are similar to PbtA in that they are used to determine the default disposition of the monsters instead of having the referee making a ruling on that. You just don’t know if Old Gregg is going to be hostile or not until it’s put to a roll. Where they differ is OSE leaves the rest after that to rulings. If the roll finds that Old Gregg is friendly, he might just help them without any parlay. If he’s not (say neutral or indifferent), then it comes down to the rulings the referee makes. The party might make an excellent argument, and the referee will describe how Old Gregg tells them what they want to do know. They might try to parlay, and the referee will ask them for a Charisma check, and that will continue until the situation is resolved (Old Gregg helps, gets upset when the PCs make a ridiculous demand, a patrol wanders by, etc).

In a PbtA game, the system takes over where OSE would have the referee make rulings. That’s not to say it’s a mechanical process. The MC has to describe the situation and say what happens as the PCs interact with it in the game world. It’s just the mechanics and principles work together to indicate when and sometimes what they are supposed to say. Note that it’s not the degrees of success or moves structure that enable this. FitD games have a very different mechanical interface compared to traditional PbtA games. However, they’re both based on the same approach (tied together by principles they enumerate).

Could one do this with OSE instead of PbtA? My homebrew system started off as a hack of OSE and WWN before it evolved into what it is now, so I’d say yes. There are obvious starting points (such as using reaction rolls for a skill system or repurposing the skill system from WWN). However, you’d need to make sure there’s the same principle-based approach to indicate when and how those rolls are being deployed. That’s what took me a few iterations of the skill system to understand. It was actually a similar situation to the one described above. Deirdre (the barbarian) had been trying to climb one of the tanks when she failed the check. The consequence was the tank was coming down, and she and Dingo (the thief) had to scramble to safety.

 

[pemerton]

@ClusterFluster

A lot of your post illustrates my point about the struggle with moving beyond map-and-key/notes-based framing and resolution:

Second issue involves the method of how the events in a given game even transpire. I've started with five categories:

Scripted:
There is an ultimate end point that needs to be reached, but everything leading to up that point is generally negotiable, though there are pre-loaded elements to interact with which are concerned with this end point. I'm borrowing from the idea of TV shows in particular for this idea, as a script tends to be revised a lot over the course of the show's existence. Any individually published adventure goes here.

Guided:
There is no ultimate end point, but there are lots and lots and lots of pre-loaded elements for adventurers to interact with as they go about their business. You essentially create alternate realities of this world through every group playing separately, with every group's next adventuring party. Published campaign setting books go here.

Note: The above two categories should only count when you use a super-majority of all the written elements (60% or more) as written and generally played in any sequence provided, but not when otherwise mining these books for a handful of ideas to use in other play styles.

Algorithmic:
Almost everything about each adventure is randomly generated, the pure sandbox style of play. I'm not aware of any sandbox materials yet that might offer something of what Campaign Settings do, but if those materials existed I might call these "Almanacs" which would present a loose grouping of thematic elements that won't have much of a hard-coded continuity, set of relationships, or schemes for world domination. Honestly, most people would prefer to use the random tables given in whatever counts for a game master's rulebook, anyway.

<snip>

Fatalist:
This is railroading, where the GM has absolute law over the game, and events are not merely scripted so much as pre-ordained. If this were a historical period played out, all of the players get justifiably upset that they are just acting out the choreography of DB Cooper's escape and disappearance. Not much needs to be said here, as nobody likes this category, but it needs its own placeholder to help make sense of the others.

Here's what I snipped out:

Rationale:
This category is most unlike the others for its permissiveness for the players to making adjustments to the game world or story. As far as I understand this, many games that claim to be "story games" fall into this category, as generally you're allowed to do almost anything if you can come up for a reason as to how you can accomplish your action.

I have no idea what RPGs this is supposed to describe; but the notion of "doing anything" (which is something that happens in the fiction) illustrates my point upthread about treating the content of the fiction as explanatory. And the idea that there is a pre-given "game world" or "story" that the players adjust also reinforces the centrality to your post of the idea of map-and-key or "GM's notes".

@FrogReaver, given that this post seems to me a good illustration of my prediction upthread, I thought I'd draw your attention to it.

 

[Hussar]

I’ve never understood the hostility towards the term story.

Story needs three things - character, setting and plot.

Now whether these things exist in random tables or the DM’s notes or are created during play, it doesn’t really matter. All rpgs have story. The second you drop a plot hook, you have story. Even if the story doesn’t go anywhere, it’s still a story.

I’m often baffled why people think that story=completed narrative. It doesn’t.

The opposite of story is not sandbox. The opposite of sandbox is linear.

 

[kenada]

DMG 242 supplies the same nuance in results, albeit not as elegantly. I should preface this with my view that whereas the DMG contains "optional" and "variant" rules, it also contains just rules. The basic game is given in the basic rules. A more complete game is given in the Players Handbook and Monster Manual. The whole game is given in the three core books together. DMG 237 specifies that a roll is not made unless there are consequences. I've written on that elsewhere.

I was trying to speak broadly because there’s a pretty wide range of experiences when it comes to D&D, so I apologize if I glossed over a detail that could apply to one edition or another. When I ran 5e, I regarded degrees of success stuff in the DMG as optional and didn’t use it, so it slipped my mind. However, see below.

In the example at hand, per 5th-edition rules failing by 5 or more topples the tank. If failure would have no consequence, one might following basic rules alone still call for a roll. Using the whole rules, one would not.

The example given is disabling a trap, and the DM is only advised to consider adding similar distinctions to other checks. I would consider that the domain of a ruling, which is the contrast I was trying to draw. That PbtA uses degrees of success is beside the point. It’s the principles it enumerates and uses to undergird the mechanic and how the MC engages with them that’s the part I’m pointing out. One approach systematizes the process while the other leverages rulings and judgement calls. They’re both fine ways of doing things, and they both have their trade-offs.

 

[kenada]

The bit about holding back is interesting. I think it can be teased apart in this way: I can (and do) play RPGs in which there is no "hidden gameboard", no map-and-key determining framing and resolution, and yet still have trouble bringing home hard consequences. The fact that the players bought into it doesn't, for me, necessarily make it easier.

I was thinking of how play has evolved away from save or die/suck effects. Something that could kill the PC outright, even it makes sense given the situation, might be taken by the player (or players) as an unfair play on the DM’s part. When the decision-making is delegated to the system, I’m suggesting that allows you to use consequences as hard as what the situation suggests.

I’ve been that player, and I’ve been in groups with that player. Do a thing (step through a prismatic wall, touch something so evil it will change your alignment, etc) then expect a saving throw and be told nope. That’s the ruling, and it makes sense as a consequence, but the way things are structured in the system makes it feel like a norm violation.

 

[pemerton]

I’ve been that player, and I’ve been in groups with that player. Do a thing (step through a prismatic wall, touch something so evil it will change your alignment, etc) then expect a saving throw and be told nope. That’s the ruling, and it makes sense as a consequence, but the way things are structured in the system makes it feel like a norm violation.

A small point, which is tangential to your main point:

Saving throws have their origin as a type of "get out of jail" roll. But then somehow get turned into just another player-side ability (like being fire resistant, or being able to jump long distances, or whatever) and so then abilities get invented/written up that circumvent them. Which undercuts their whole rationale in the game in the first place.

I think it's a sign of the design becoming unmoored from its own foundations.

 

[niklinna]

A small point, which is tangential to your main point:

Saving throws have their origin as a type of "get out of jail" roll. But then somehow get turned into just another player-side ability (like being fire resistant, or being able to jump long distances, or whatever) and so then abilities get invented/written up that circumvent them. Which undercuts their whole rationale in the game in the first place.

I think it's a sign of the design becoming unmoored from its own foundations.

I remember it Being A Thing in the D&D of the early to mid 80s to come up with the most fiendish possible deathtraps and such in order to teach those dirty players a lesson. I mean, Tomb of Horrors flat-out dispensed with a lot of saving throws and just outright killed characters who entered certain apertures or touched certain objects. Fortunately, those days have passed.

 

[kenada]

I remember it Being A Thing in the D&D of the early to mid 80s to come up with the most fiendish possible deathtraps and such in order to teach those dirty players a lesson. I mean, Tomb of Horrors flat-out dispensed with a lot of saving throws and just outright killed characters who entered certain apertures or touched certain objects. Fortunately, those days have passed.

Are you telling me it’s not a good idea to climb into the mouths of devil faces? But there’s probably treasure in there.