D&D General Fighting Law and Order

[Faolyn]

The rather key part that seems to be incompatible to me is the degree of granularity (particularly in combat) of resolution and in the mechanics which support that; present in D&D (more or less) but not present in some of these other systems as described here and elsewhere.

I don't like the idea of 4e-like skill challenges for the same reason: they allow too much granularity and too many details to be skipped over.

My usual example here is a maze of sewers under a city, through which the PCs are trying to find their way from A to B. 4e would reduce this to, it seems, a single skill challenge, and other games would reduce it to a similar single-roll resolution; where I want them to have to make a choice at every intersection and, preferably, make even a vague map.

Why?

Because every choice point allows them an opportunity to do something different, or decide to take a side trek, or go a different way, or turn around and say "bugger it, we're going above ground for this!".

Yes this takes longer at the table. I don't care.

While I haven't played 4e or, indeed, read any of the books, I would imagine that something like those sewers should be treated as a single challenge if they existed only as an obstacle and there wouldn't be any fun to be had actually going through every intersection. If there are no clues to be found, treasures to be claimed, NPCs to be dealt with, monsters to be fought--if the only point of those sewers is to get through them (or, perhaps, to get through them in X amount of time or less), then I can't imagine there would be much fun roleplaying finding your way through it.

Sure, the PCs may decide to go a different way... but is it really fun to get so annoyed in-character that you want to turn around and go a different way?

 

[Aldarc]

Serious question: the tentacle monster attacked after a success. I thought the GM couldn't make a hard move after a success?

The GM hinted at a looming threat in the water, but the party nevertheless ignored it:

A soft move ignored becomes a golden opportunity for a hard move.

Even if Gandalf had a "success," it may very well have been a mixed success (7+) rather than a full success (10+), which would further justify the previously established threat coming into the forefront. Keep in mind, that the monster attacking could still count as a soft move: "A tentacled monster comes out of the water and begins attempting to grapple you. What do you do?"

 

[Faolyn]

But they happen all the time in a world with verisimilitude. Which is why games like DW don't appeal to me.

Which "they" were you referring to there? I can't tell if you mean dragons or nothing happening when you talk to a statue.

 

[Micah Sweet]

You've hunted at this sort of question before, and previously Micah Sweet wrote...

And honestly, I find this baffling.

What do you mean "at what cost"/"what is sacrificed"? I genuinely don't understand. It doesn't seem to me that DW is "sacrificing" anything, and the "cost" is merely that GMs actually have a few rules they must abide by, just lile everyone else at the table.

So, what are these "costs" of which you speak? What is sacrificed? Because unless you can spell that out, these comments sound like specters without substance.

The freedom for both GMs and players to declare what they want to do and do it, without any requirement to figure out what "move" your proposed action counts as. The freedom to not concern yourself with following narrative beats and pay-offs, but rather simply to live in an imagined world and make choices.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Which "they" were you referring to there? I can't tell if you mean dragons or nothing happening when you talk to a statue.

I mean nothing happening.

 

[Micah Sweet]

While I haven't played 4e or, indeed, read any of the books, I would imagine that something like those sewers should be treated as a single challenge if they existed only as an obstacle and there wouldn't be any fun to be had actually going through every intersection. If there are no clues to be found, treasures to be claimed, NPCs to be dealt with, monsters to be fought--if the only point of those sewers is to get through them (or, perhaps, to get through them in X amount of time or less), then I can't imagine there would be much fun roleplaying finding your way through it.

Sure, the PCs may decide to go a different way... but is it really fun to get so annoyed in-character that you want to turn around and go a different way?

See, I don't concern myself with any narrative reason the PCs are interacting with something, and I certainly don't let those ideas affect what rules for handling the situation are utilized.

 

[Faolyn]

The fiction doesn't have a mind of its own. It doesn't dictate that nothing happens. That's a choice someone makes. It's not a choice that the rules of AW and DW permit.

There is always something that makes fictional sense.

OK, while I've never played DW, I'm currently running MotW and almost at the end of our second mystery. I'm still very new to the system in general and none of us have actually played a PbtA game before this. So... help me out here.

Let's say the PCs see a (non-magical, non-living) statue and decide to talk to it. In both a logical and fictional sense, nothing would happen and this clearly wouldn't trigger a move. What would you, as a Dungeon World GM, then do. In my mind, unless there was a logical and in-fiction reason for the PCs talking to cause a different problem (attracting a monster, activating a sound-based trap), saying "nothing happens, what would you do?" makes sense.

And I don't want to have a game where the PCs test every square inch of the floor with an 11-foot pole, in case any of their actions cause a trap to be sprung because ain't nobody got time for that, so I don't want merely talking to a statue to cause major problems.

 

[Micah Sweet]

The GM hinted at a looming threat in the water, but the party nevertheless ignored it:

Even if Gandalf had a "success," it may very well have been a mixed success (7+) rather than a full success (10+), which would further justify the previously established threat coming into the forefront. Keep in mind, that the monster attacking could still count as a soft move: "A tentacled monster comes out of the water and begins attempting to grapple you. What do you do?"

In what way would opening a door with a 7+ lead to a tentacle-monster attack while opening the same door with a 10+ wouldn't? Where's the in-universe justification for that?

 

[Faolyn]

I mean nothing happening.

Gotcha.

First of all, there are clearly plenty of times when nothing happens in LotR, they just don't get put on the page because it's a story and the focus is on things happening. An RPG shouldn't, in my opinion, be presented as a story, but rather as a setting that the PCs interact with and change through their actions.

It's been ages since I've tried to read LotR, but all I recall is, honestly, a lot of nothing happening wrapped up in an excruciating amount of scenery. I almost threw the book across the room at having to read yet another page of Tom Bombadil talking about trophy wife Goldberry. I was like, get on with it!

...I am not a fan of Tolkien's books.

 

[Oofta]

You've hunted at this sort of question before, and previously Micah Sweet wrote...

And honestly, I find this baffling.

What do you mean "at what cost"/"what is sacrificed"? I genuinely don't understand. It doesn't seem to me that DW is "sacrificing" anything, and the "cost" is merely that GMs actually have a few rules they must abide by, just lile everyone else at the table.

So, what are these "costs" of which you speak? What is sacrificed? Because unless you can spell that out, these comments sound like specters without substance.

I'm speaking of personal preference. I thought I made that clear. Just because a game handles on minor aspect of the "better" doesn't mean it's superior for every player.

I'm not going to bother with details on why I wouldn't like DW other than to say it doesn't work for me.