Not a Conspiracy Theory: Moving Toward Better Criticism in RPGs

[clearstream]

I like this, but just have one question: there's a hole in the table - what happens if the DC is missed by -3 or -4?

Were it me, I'd have it something like:

Nat 20 - critical - something extra-beneficial happens
DC+2 or better - success - you do it
DC+0-1 - success with complication - you do it but something happens you maybe didn't want
DC-1--2 - failure with progress - you don't do it but something happens that moves you forward (or maybe gives a chance to try again)
DC-3 or worse - failure - you don't do it
Nat 1 - fumble - something extra-bad happens.

That's right, the DMG rules leave a lacuna in -3 and -4. My recommendation based on using this in play is that groups change DC-2 to DC-4, which has the beneficial side effect of expanding the success with complication range. IIRC I suggest that in my thread on this method. Possibly some groups prefer the lacuna.

At first glance, the risk you'll run by adding a band is increased processing burden at the table. Someone (I can't recall who) also wrote a pretty cogent argument for why your two middle bands will likely prove redundant: success with complication being tricky to consistently disambiguate from failure with progress.

EDIT I should add that a group will also need to adopt in a set of principles. This method serves it's purpose but does not give the whole picture (which should be self-evident, and on which I have written before.)

 

[Malmuria]

This is utter irrelvancy to the point I was making. I was not making this comparison so you could take unrelated shots at Marxists, intellectuals, or theorists.

The point of comparison is this: knowledge over theory does not give you privileged access into or over the lived experiences of other people.

 

[pemerton]

@Aldarc

Here's an interesting thought - if you intended it via your remark about Marxism than I apologise for being slow to pick it up; if you didn't have it in mind then I hope you agree with me that it's interesting!

Marx differs as a thinker from (say) Rawls in that he gave rise to an actual political movement (one may prefer to say a series of political movements). It is hard to think about the significance of Marx without also having regard to the actual movements that he spawned.

The Forge is distinct as a body of thought about RPGing in that it gave rise to some of the most prominent developments in contemporary RPGing. It's hard to think about the significance of The Forge without thinking about Apocalypse World, "story now" as a self-conscious way of thinking about RPGing, "fail forward" as a technique in consequence narration, etc. The impact of the Forge is visible in 5e D&D as well as elsewhere (eg but for The Forge there would not be discussion of success-with-consequences, nor BIFTs, as best I can tell; nor would 5e D&D have its 4e-derived elements, like superiority dice and hit dice and short rests just for starters, without 4e; and there would be no 4e but for The Forge).

For obvious reasons, of which board rules is the first and foremost, I won't take the Marx component of this post any further. But the fact that The Forge is an actual design movement with a tremendous impact on contemporary RPGing seems like it is relevant to considering its status as a school of thought and body of criticism.

 

[pemerton]

The point of comparison is this: knowledge over theory does not give you privileged access into or over the lived experiences of other people.

And it gets even worse when people with no knowledge of theory start telling others what their lived experience is!

 

[Thomas Shey]

I think hit points basically exist as a gamist thing though.

Eh. You can see them that way, but just as easily see them (at least the way their used in D&Doids) an abstraction of a particular trope of heroic characters rarely falling to the first strike they get. As I've said, I don't think they're the best way to do that, but surprise, they're an ancient mechanic at this point that predates the vast majority of people playing games that use them. They certainly have some gamist usage, but I don't think that's all that's there.

Well, again, Superiority Dice are not described as representing anything fictionally, and their use is entirely at the option of the player, where they are consumed to power maneuvers, which are quite similar to 4e powers. As for barbarians, they get a specified number of rages per day, so for whatever reason they're a daily resource 'martial' class, where fighters are mostly a short rest based one. However, once you start raging, generally it lasts the whole fight, so mechanically that's the reason for the difference. No real fictional reason is given, so I would consider both Superiority Dice and Rages to be meta-currency.

Wheras I will still argue they're an in-between case; they represent things that people in the setting can and do talk about, though they're handled in a metacurrancy-like fashion because D&D has never had the courage of its convictions about handling things in any sort of simulationist fashion. It talks a good game there, but usually drops back to a pretty gamist solution given any chance (in part because that's what the majority of users probably want).

The distinction is true metacurrancies never really represent anything anyone in-setting would be able to talk about (I say "rarely" rather than "never" because Torg demonstrates its not impossible for this to be the case). They're a purely authorial tool.

I would agree with a statement that there are 'kinds' of meta-currency though. Some are 'process currency' and don't cause any in-fiction resolution at all, 5e inspiration is of this type. Others, like Rages and Superiority Dice trigger fiction and mechanics directly (IE spending a Superiority Die lets your PC invoke one of her maneuvers, which has both mechanical and fictional effects, though being D&D combat the fiction part is often of no further consequence). The former type of currency doesn't really admit of any specific interpretation at all and is really a pure game mechanic (though it will often lead to downstream fiction via whatever rules it invokes). The later type of currency is sometimes glossed as something like 'fatigue', or sometimes 'luck', but is more properly a pacing kind of mechanism.

And that's the distinction I'm arguing for. I suspect most people unfond of metacurrancies aren't too happy with either, but I bet they're far more willing (if perhaps not happy) to tolerate the latter (and of course, you still have the potential for the Torg situation, but I suspect Torg would bother most such folks for any number of reasons).

 

[Campbell]

The point of comparison is this: knowledge over theory does not give you privileged access into or over the lived experiences of other people.

Would that extend to those of us who have attempted and struggled to implement an Apocalypse World style structure onto the 2e/3e/5e line of games over the theoretical ramblings of people who have never made that attempt in earnest because they have no interest in that style of play?

Personally, I struggled for years to bend 3e into the shape I desired. 8 in fact. 8 years of actively fighting against the system, trying to develop rules tech that was workable. As to 5e I run a game for 4 months, attempting to make it work for Apocalypse World style play, What I found is that in every moment of play I had to decide when a roll was necessary, what the possible suite of outcomes was and struggled against the resource paradigm, specific spell effects, how the game pretty much demands representing NPCs with the same sort of fundamental model as PCs. In both cases it was a tremendously frustrating experience and when I sought help on these boards during the 3e era I was told I needed to change my play priorities, that it would never work, etc.

In both cases the system fought me every step of the way. Similarly, when I attempted to implement a more Burning Wheel style model in 3e.

 

[Aldarc]

The point of comparison is this: knowledge over theory does not give you privileged access into or over the lived experiences of other people.

But the glaringly obvious point that you apparently missed in my discussion is that my issue is not with the lack of theory or a desire to privilege theory - I don’t really care about whether people have theory - instead, the issue is those that have neither taken the time nor effort to either read or play these games but to talk about them as if their opinions were as informed as those who had. It’s the absence of actual play praxis or lived experiences here rather than theory that concerns me. So your point of kinda irrelevant and dismissive.

 

[Malmuria]

So your point of kinda irrelevant and dismissive.

My apologies, I'm sorry that it came across that way

 

[Thomas Shey]

But then it would appear you have curiosity about and interest in the wider hobby, wouldn't it?

Yes, which is why I addressed the way you constructed that sentence; you seem to be linking people who tried or read other games and decided they were not for them as lacking same interest and curiosity. I was noting those two things don't go together. As an example, I don't see much in PbtA per se that interests me, but I found the application in Monsterhearts (which is attempting to make a playable RPG out of a specific subgenre I would have thought that was extremely difficult to do) very interesting; I just can't see any likelihood I'd ever get anything but reading out of it. It was the apparent link between "not for me - lack of interest" I was objecting to.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Perhaps. What I'm after is to strip it down to the studs: what makes an RPG tick. Someone (was is Manbearcat? I forget now) said upthread that different games have greatly different play loops; I'm trying to say no, this is not the case; all they have are different details overlying the same fundamental play loop that every TTRPG has. In order to say this, it's only fair that I try to define and delineate what that underlying basic play loop looks like.

I think the problem is, IMHO, what I call the PROCESS OF PLAY, the essential "how do we make 'plays' in this game" includes some of the stuff that you've consigned to being extraneous. Yes, sure, at some trivial level every RPG boils down to "some people talk about some stuff" but who gets to decide when to talk and what to talk about IS the essence. How that translates into other activities, when, why, that too is part of the essence. I mean, pray let us proceed, but we may have to reintroduce some of what you've labeled as unneeded.