Not a Conspiracy Theory: Moving Toward Better Criticism in RPGs

[Hussar]

I think I'm getting my terms mixed up, because doesn't "Mother-May-I" refer to the need to have the GM approve of actions the characters can take, because the system in question doesn't codify abilities/moves they way many newer games do? I don't see how that overlaps with Map-and-Key, but I'm aware that this might be a forum-specific thing I'm not picking up on.

As for Map-and-Key and guesswork once inside the labyrinth or hexcrawl, I've always used a Rumours table and rumours with a small-r to disseminate the kind of information that allows for - at least - informed guessing on the part of the players. This is somethig I picked up from modules and stuff from the 80s onward, so I don't think it's a new or groundbreaking strategy!

Agreed. I think this may be where the breakdown is occurring.

People are inserting a “blind” in front of the guesswork that is neither intended nor implied. A semi-informed choice is still a guess.

 

[FrogReaver]

I’m sorry but I don’t see guesswork as prejudicial at all. It exactly describes what the players are doing. Left or right fork? Well we don’t have any real information so left it is!

Is it that way all the time? Of course not. But a very large segment of map and key play certainly is.

Or at least far more than in other styles which I believe are somewhat less granular. They fuzz over the left turn right turn, poke for traps with a ten foot pole. Which is honestly why I don’t play them because I like the procedural process of exploring in my game.

But I’m under no illusions that most of those choices are random. Heck I’ve got a player who coin tosses at corners.

IMO, you are viewing this through a process lens, others are viewing it through a goal oriented lens.

In the process sense it's essentially random, but in the goal oriented lens the 'unknown' is main part of the obstacle of exploration.

 

[Cadence]

Agreed. I think this may be where the breakdown is occurring.

People are inserting a “blind” in front of the guesswork that is neither intended nor implied. A semi-informed choice is still a guess.

It feels like there is rarely fully-informed information about anything....

 

[Hussar]

Doing that intentionally restricts the discussion to those who already agree with your jargon, at least it does if you intend fruitful discussion, and runs the serious risk of having the whole thing dismissed as elitist.

Yes but once the jargon has been explained there needs to be some effort to work with it. Insisting that your personal interpretation must be followed and thus telling everyone else who apparently doesn’t have a problem with the terminology that they must not use it is far far more arrogant and disruptive than the jargon itself.

 

[Hussar]

If a dungeon is designed such that you absolutely need to encounter the kobolds before the orcs (for whatever reason), and laid out so that it's up to chance whether you do, then that's a problem. But usually there's just some kobolds in one place and some orcs in another, so who cares what order you encounter them in? The decision to go left or right is not consequential. Especially when the most basic purpose of a simple dungeon crawl is to just clear the place out.

If a dungeon is designed so that different but interesting things happen depending on the order you encounter things, even if one is "worse" than the other from some perspective, that at least makes things a bit more engaging.

If a dungeon is designed to channel progress in meaningful ways by constraining and ordering what encounters happen when, and provide clues to inform players' decisions at branch points (whether in the dungeon itself or investigation that can be performed beforehand), then you're getting into fun adventures. The degenerate case here is a linear sequence of rooms, but even that is easily made more engaging by gradually building up challenge or offering clues to an unfolding story of why that thing was built or what happened there.

But if you just slap a bunch of 10' wide corridors and 30'x30' rooms together with absolutely no rationale, then yeah, you've just got a random sequence of encounters (and/or nothing). Why assume the worst, though?

None of these issues are exclusive to map and key, but they are definitely relevant to map and key.

Whether or not it’s consequential is irrelevant as far as I’m concerned. It’s a decision point and it’s mostly a guess. Further it’s a very common decision point.

This map and key play frequently features guesswork to proceed.

 

[niklinna]

Yes but once the jargon has been explained there needs to be some effort to work with it. Insisting that your personal interpretation must be followed and thus telling everyone else who apparently doesn’t have a problem with the terminology that they must not use it is far far more arrogant and disruptive than the jargon itself.

I remember reading many a paper in college (written in response to another) that stated such things as, "Working with your definition of term X", sometimes with the additional proviso, "as I understand it".

 

[FrogReaver]

Yes but once the jargon has been explained there needs to be some effort to work with it. Insisting that your personal interpretation must be followed and thus telling everyone else who apparently doesn’t have a problem with the terminology that they must not use it is far far more arrogant and disruptive than the jargon itself.

Seems like a fine line to me.

 

[FrogReaver]

Agreed. I think this may be where the breakdown is occurring.

People are inserting a “blind” in front of the guesswork that is neither intended nor implied. A semi-informed choice is still a guess.

There’s a big difference in a guess and an educated guess IMO.

 

[Hussar]

Oh, let's see now - I'm sure there's a few options...

--- simple observation; leave a hidden or invisible scout there to watch traffic at the intersection for enough time to see if there's any patterns
--- --- the scout might also hear conversations in passing and learn things of use
--- tracking
--- divination spells or abilities (if available)
--- capture a dungeon occupant and ask it what's down there
--- kill a dungeon occupant and ask via speak-with-dead or similar

Now it's true that many players (and some DMs) don't have the patience for this, but that doesn't make it any less valid.

And yet in the end the whole point of exploring is to learn things you didn't already know; and simply going down the passage is probably the quickest (if not always safest) way of doing so in this instance.

No, it's more exploration. You're falsely equating the two, and thus defining exploration of the unknown as a Bad Thing.

OK, let me ask: what are your-as-player's expectations here? That you know everything about the dungeon beore going in, and that anything you don't know falls under the 'guesswork' umbrella? If yes, then in effect the entire campaign boils down to nothing more than guesswork, which is IMO a rather absurd position.

So your players do that every single time they have a choice of paths? At no point do they proceed without doing one or all of your options? Might explain the length of your campaigns I suppose. .

But yes, any time you make a choice without knowledge you are guessing. That’s what guessing means.

You are the one attaching a negative meaning here. There’s nothing wrong with guessing. That’s what the players are doing most of the time. Is that chest trapped? Check it. Didn’t find a trap? Open it anyway.

Guesswork all the way along.

 

[Hussar]

There's a fundamental difference between working from a set of imperfect information and random selection. Not knowing exactly what NPC Y is up to or what is behind Door #2 does not mean I have no means to find out more or different sets of information to weigh. There are always going to be some risks in making any move in a given game. You just have to have enough obtainable information to weigh the risks.

Ok. Ok. I surrender. I will not call it guesswork any more.

What is the preferred term for making a decision with very limited information?