Not a Conspiracy Theory: Moving Toward Better Criticism in RPGs

[AbdulAlhazred]

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

You either are or are not a FORTH programmer. If you are not, then a discussion of DOER> <DOES is entirely pointless and, even if you are an adept C programmer (or whatever) your opinions and speculations as to what it might do are largely meaningless since its not a concept which really translates to most other programming languages. 'Lived experience', no amount of it, is going to help here, you have to first know what the thing is so you can talk about it. THEN your lived experience (as a software developer in this example) may become quite relevant.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

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, I was there almost at the start, I'm a old fart! I am reminded of the way Gygax tried to retcon some sort of fiction onto hit points in his famous "obviously the fighter is not as tough as a warhorse" essay in the 1e rules. Its a wargamer hack. In fact Dave Arneson literally stole hit points from a wargame. It was a simplification there, and it was also in D&D. Its impossible to say you are wrong here, the mechanics of hit points certainly establishes a fact about D&D characters, that they don't go down until you deal them a mortal blow (in D&D/1e rules at least). Was that intended? I don't know, but it differs a bit from most of the primary sources. Sure Conan never seems to be in such bad shape that he can't 'do his thing' and various action heroes of more recent time seem to adhere to a version of this trope. I wasn't there to ask Dave what he was thinking when he invented it.

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).

I don't really agree with you on this one. Nobody's Battlemaster is going around saying lines like "Well, I have 1 more Superiority Dice left and the next encounter is going to be tough, lets rest here..." I think its a game mechanic, it is there to regulate how much you can use your maneuvers because otherwise they'd be at-will. Someone didn't like that, for whatever reasons which almost certainly have to do with "how it plays" considerations and nothing to do with how the fiction will sound. These gamist solutions are SIMPLE and people are generally perfectly happy with the fact that D&D is a game, and don't demand anything else. In fact, I have never heard outside of message boards people talk about how 'meta' something is or isn't. Hit Points were, historically, a bit of an anomaly that way, as bigger tougher monsters have more, and so do higher level PCs, so people kind of saw that as a question. Nobody EVER questioned why 1e Monks can only do this or that a certain number of times/day.

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.

And what would Superiority Dice ever represent in the fiction?

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).

Well, we do still not agree on specific examples in 5e, but I think that we've established that difference of opinion, and its not really all that significant in the larger picture. I will reiterate my observation though, people don't really seem to care much about this, its mostly used as a cudgel to beat up on people for not conforming to liking and disliking the 'right' stuff.

 

[Lanefan]

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.

My issue with that take is that success with complication is still, in the end, success. In effect, you're reducing the net success/fail cutoff point by 4 in trade for some complications, which (assuming you're talking 5e D&D here) makes an already relatively easy game easier unless you up all the DCs to compensate.

I think I missed your other thread where you put this forward.

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.

The idea would be that success with complication and failure with progress kinda merge into each other, such that sometimes it might even be difficult to quickly tell (in the fiction) which one had occurred.

 

[Baron Opal II]

I think I've set out pretty clearly the reasons for my doubts: 5e D&D doesn't have the requisite moving parts...

Well, as a stock ruleset I would guess not. It doesn't have "moves", it has player declarations. It can't have something that was defined in a later ruleset.

My game of D&D has all the opportunities that you have stated or implied your games do, near as I can tell. Now, it's a heavily mutated form of AD&D. I don't say this as a challenge or denial of your position. From the respect that I can tell you and others have for Burning Wheel and Powered by the Apocalypse games it seems that Baker's innovations can be noteworthy for a particular playstyle. And, it seems like they are actually innovations. I'm excited to read through when I can. I'm excited to adapt what I can. I have absolutely no compunctions or fear of taking concepts and having them fit into my ruleset.

I think a big part of my attitude towards this from Northeastern car culture. My dad and friends brought over all sorts of junk, and a few weeks later of welding, hammering, sanding, painting, and swearing there was a sweet hot rod that we could drive around. If something doesn't work for you modify it, change it, fix it. Figure out how the parts can serve the greater whole. That's part of my attitude towards RPGs. It is so easy to change things and come up with new stuff! How can you not?

 

[Thomas Shey]

I don't really agree with you on this one. Nobody's Battlemaster is going around saying lines like "Well, I have 1 more Superiority Dice left and the next encounter is going to be tough, lets rest here..."

I find it not at all incredible that they go "Okay, I think I need to get my wits back together here a bit before I'll be up to my best in another fight." That's all you need. Yeah, they aren't called superiority dice, but then, spell slots aren't probably called spell slots in-setting but I'd bet both are still recognized as a thing, even if its not in quite the mechanical terms we'd address it.

In fact, I have never heard outside of message boards people talk about how 'meta' something is or isn't.

I absolutely have. The phrase "Yeah, its a metagame thing" comes up when discussing aspects of games with a number of game groups I've been with. Not all of them were big online discussion types, either. It just was a phrase that had spread from contacts.

Hit Points were, historically, a bit of an anomaly that way, as bigger tougher monsters have more, and so do higher level PCs, so people kind of saw that as a question. Nobody EVER questioned why 1e Monks can only do this or that a certain number of times/day.

Again, my experiences differ, in part because we'd played all kinds of games that didn't feel a need to do that. Perhaps that's the difference; when you have people who have seen a lot of different systems handle somewhat similar concepts, the sausage being made is much more obvious.

And what would Superiority Dice ever represent in the fiction?

Answer what distinguishes a Fighter from a Battlemaster, and I bet I can answer that, but I have a suggestion up above.

Well, we do still not agree on specific examples in 5e, but I think that we've established that difference of opinion, and its not really all that significant in the larger picture. I will reiterate my observation though, people don't really seem to care much about this, its mostly used as a cudgel to beat up on people for not conforming to liking and disliking the 'right' stuff.

A lot of people don't think about gaming things at all beyond "I like it" or "I don't." That doesn't mean some of them wouldn't unpack it similarly if they were pressed on it and had the language. I certainly saw similar terms used decades ago by people trying to explain what they liked (again, online, but how much discussion do you get about such things face to face anywhere?)

 

[Micah Sweet]

Honestly, I don't think there's anything 'valid' or 'invalid' about people's preferences, they are what they are, generally speaking.

Superiority Dice are the resource used by the 5e Battlemaster class. They're a purely abstract resource that completely refreshes at every short rest. I mean, obviously you can color this as 'resting' etc. but fundamentally its not different from 4e Fighter encounter powers (and not really much different from daily ones in this sense). Famously the 4e version are 'dissociated mechanics' or 'purely gamist', but the same criticism is almost never leveled at the 5e version of the same thing! My point being, preferences are HIGHLY contextual, and often less about game analysis and more about gamer politics...

I find Level Up's exertion point system much easier to wrap my head around vis a vis explaining it in-universe.

 

[clearstream]

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.

That sounds painful. I've followed a somewhat thorny path, but not as frustrating and wearying as that must have been for you. I wanted to share the solutions I have been using for a couple of the problems you identify.

I had to decide when a roll was necessary, what the possible suite of outcomes was

The first part of this I eventually solved by adopting a principle that a) a roll is called when the rules indicate, and b) "uncertain" has a concrete meaning at the table, which is (only) anything that looks worse than +5 nett. The latter means for instance, that a talented or skilled PC doing something easy doesn't indicate a check (DM shall not call for one.)

The second part I solved by putting very strong emphasis on what the player describes doing. Barring actual magical mind control, players say what their characters do. Consequences, according to DMG 237, are known up front, so our conversation establishes them (or if there are none, the rules do not indicate a check.) I'm not confident this will work for pick-up groups, though.

the game pretty much demands representing NPCs with the same sort of fundamental model as PCs

I ran hard into this because my campaigns involve less murdering designated monsters and more interacting with NPCs. What I frequently wanted was a mechanically lighter-weight version of characters. That problem actually drove me to write a note on the interaction between complicated mechanics and extemporising (I have a feeling that I shared it only on an RPG discord I'm in.)

During the lockdowns when I started using a VTT in earnest, I discovered lightweight NPCs scattered among my sources. For example, just looking now alphabetically, I see Abjurer, Acolyte, Apprentice Wizard, Archdruid, Archer, Archmage, Assassin, Bandit, Bandit Captain, Bard, Berserker (various types), Captain (various), Commoner, Conjurer, etc. In play, I find that these light-weight versions serve well and are quick for me to modify using the VTT tools. Not much help at the table, perhaps. On my wishlist for a supplement is a book of characters! There are a few works in that direction on DMs Guild.

If you'd like to share any rules or principles you drafted over those fraughtful years, I'd love to see those. Equally, if you'd prefer not, then given what you have described I can readily appreciate why.

 

[Aldarc]

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 dunno. It seems to me that in order to say this that it's only fair that you seek to gain actual play experience with other tabletop games and how they work rather than base your experience almost entirely on your heavily homebrewed game of 1e D&D. You may need more actual data than that. And if people who are playing these other games that you have no experience with are telling you that they are different, then maybe it's worth listening to them.

I would probably do pretty shoddy work as a political scientist if I thought that the only way that liberal democracies can work is if I only had working knowledge of the United States and presumed that all liberal democracies must be structured like the USA, or a Constitution and Bill of Rights, in order to function. If I ignored all the liberal democracies and democratic republics outside of the USA but stated that all liberal democracies in the world were fundamentally the same, including Canada's, I would be ignoring some key structural differences. I would likely be accused of trying to universalize the American democracy.

 

[Staffan]

And what would Superiority Dice ever represent in the fiction?

I find Level Up's exertion point system much easier to wrap my head around vis a vis explaining it in-universe.

4e actually had a pretty good explanation for martial encounter exploits: once you've done it, they're on to your tricks. But in 4e, each exploit was a distinct thing, not sharing a resource the way superiority dice work.

 

[Lanefan]

I absolutely have. The phrase "Yeah, its a metagame thing" comes up when discussing aspects of games with a number of game groups I've been with. Not all of them were big online discussion types, either. It just was a phrase that had spread from contacts.

I think the first time I heard the term "metagame" used in a manner similar to its use today was back in the mid or late 1980s. It's not new.