D&D General Fighting Law and Order

[pemerton]

I'm not discussing PbtA any more. If you want to discuss D&D or details on how you could apply an aspect of another game to D&D that wouldn't require D&D to morph into something it's not, I might be interested in discussing.

The post you just replied to did the bolded thing, in response to a question you asked me in post that replied directly to a post of mine.

 

[pemerton]

Some people enjoy worldbuilding for its own sake, and would like the world they build to maintain some verisimilitude.

Verisimilitude to whom?

Also, how is worldbuilding a "play experience" (which is what I asked about in my post)?

You seem to hold the opinion that if the players don't encounter it, it is meaningless.

I've never said that, nor implied it.

But I take it as obvious that world building is not a play experience.

I also take it as obvious that the verisimilitude of the fiction, as experienced by the players, cannot be affected by the GM knowing things that the players never learn.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Verisimilitude to whom?

Also, how is worldbuilding a "play experience" (which is what I asked about in my post)?

I've never said that, nor implied it.

But I take it as obvious that world building is not a play experience.

I also take it as obvious that the verisimilitude of the fiction, as experienced by the players, cannot be affected by the GM knowing things that the players never learn.

Worldbuilding, like everything else a player (including the GM) does as part of a campaign, is part of the play experience to me. It is certainly not "obvious" that it isn't. The verisimilitude of the fiction applies to everyone involved in the game, not just the players.

 

[Irlo]

I also take it as obvious that the verisimilitude of the fiction, as experienced by the players, cannot be affected by the GM knowing things that the players never learn.

Based on experience, I disagree.

As a DM, I do some prep and a lot of improvisation (because if I ever prepared to my own satisfaction I would never actually get started playing the game). When I have some firm ideas in the background, even if the players are never exposed to those particular ideas, I can more easily and more convincinging generate engaging and consistent improvisations. In those instances, I think, the players have a deeper sense that there might be a more engaging and consistent world to explore.

It also makes it easier to convincingly to adapt when players throw curveballs without stopping to stare at my dice like a deer staring at headlights.

 

[hawkeyefan]

If a Carrion Crawler can fit through a tunnel then a small (or gaseous) PC can fit through it as well, so why isn't it shown on the flippin' map?

Who cares?

I might not care if the players ever learn it but I sure as hell care whether I-as-DM have that info available should I need it.

And sure, there's much to be said for a madhouse dungeon now and then. But even there, at least wave at giving it an underlying explanation or reason to exist.

Why would you need to know that until it came up? You can decide when you need to. It's really no different than deciding two weeks before play. What's the difference? In both cases, the DM is making something up. In both cases, the DM can make sure it doesn't contradict anything that's already been established.

Some people enjoy worldbuilding for its own sake, and would like the world they build to maintain some verisimilitude. You seem to hold the opinion that if the players don't encounter it, it is meaningless. Well, all I can say is what the GM cares about matters too, even if it turns out the players never find out about it. It's not like the GM knows exactly what parts of the setting the PCs will interact with.

That's fine. It's a perfectly sound opinion to hold.

I don't think that the ability to make decisions on the fly prevents or undermines worldbuilding, though. Certainly even the most detailed worldbuilding will still need some decisions to be made on the fly.

I mean, let's not act like the presence of a carrion crawler and a tunnel for it to move through is Tolkienesque! These are easy things to resolve in the fiction.

 

[pemerton]

Based on experience, I disagree.

As a DM, I do some prep and a lot of improvisation (because if I ever prepared to my own satisfaction I would never actually get started playing the game). When I have some firm ideas in the background, even if the players are never exposed to those particular ideas, I can more easily and more convincinging generate engaging and consistent improvisations. In those instances, I think, the players have a deeper sense that there might be a more engaging and consistent world to explore.

It also makes it easier to convincingly to adapt when players throw curveballs without stopping to stare at my dice like a deer staring at headlights.

Fair point, and my use of the verb "affect" was probably an error. Let me rephrase:

Suppose that the GM present the players with fiction X. For the players, suppose that fiction X is verisimilitudinous to degree V. Holding X and V constant, it makes no difference if the GM who presented X knows secret things about X that the players do not.

Your (@Irlo's) point is that, for you, you can't in fact hold X and V constant without prep: you draw on your prep to establish verisimilitudinous fiction.

I don't think that was what was happening in the scenario @Lanefan described, however, which deliberately involved a "madhouse" dungeon.

 

[pemerton]

Worldbuilding, like everything else a player (including the GM) does as part of a campaign, is part of the play experience to me. It is certainly not "obvious" that it isn't. The verisimilitude of the fiction applies to everyone involved in the game, not just the players.

I've got no objection to the notion of solitary play. (See eg the card game solitaire.)

But I don't think of writing notes or drawing maps as playing a game. I think of it as preparing to play a game.

The only example I can think of that is borderline is generating Classic Traveller characters, because that has a solitaire-like component and serves as prep in the form of giving a list of NPCs for future use.

 

[pemerton]

Who cares?

<snip>

I mean, let's not act like the presence of a carrion crawler and a tunnel for it to move through is Tolkienesque! These are easy things to resolve in the fiction.

I think the concern is something like this: the player, whose has a potion of gaseous form listed on their PCs sheet, asks "Are there any small tunnels for me to sneak through if I turn into gaseous form?" The GM consults their map, sees no such tunnels marked, and answers "No".

Then the WM die is rolled, and comes up 6, and the table is checked, and it dictates a carrion crawler. And now the GM is tempted to imagine "It crawled through a tiny tunnel" but WAIT, that contradicts what came before!

Personally it seems to me that there may be a million and one other things to say about the carrion crawler - including that the tiny tunnel it came through is in a place the PCs haven't checked out yet - but I think what I have set out is the ostensible worry.

 

[Lanefan]

OK, so those are the sorts of people that one doesn't play Dungeon World with, or arrange to go to films with, or similar group activities. Although I don't really understand how people who can't compromise play D&D - eg what if the party needs to decide which door to open (of the two or three they can see) or how to divide the treasure or whatever? If someone really is impossible of ever compromising on any of those things, I can't see them lasting very long in any D&D playing group.

I run with (and sometimes myself am one of the) people like that, and we've been at this a long time now.

If the party is faced with three doors, more often than not someone will just walk up and open one. Sometimes, the party will end up oening two or even all three at once.

Treasury division used to produce tremendous arguments until a system arose that, if not perfect, was at least robust enough to end the fighting.

I've posted this twice: the first time you replied to it, which sort-of suggested you'd read it; the second time was in reply to you. Here it is again:

I didn't reply to this bit because I thought it would just lead to a long drawn-out discussion that in the end wouldn't get very far, but as you've repeated it:

DW, like its parent AW, takes for granted that RPGing is a conversation.

I don't necessarily agree with that assumption. A conversation is a free-flowing exchange among equals and can follow without limit any number of topics, paths, and ideas. Playing an RPG is different in that the talk isn't necessarily among equals, and both the topic and language are (ideally) constrained to the game at hand.

When an employee talks to the boss about work-related stuff it's not a conversation in that sense, it's something else; as they are neither equal in status nor - usually - in knowledge of the topic.

Things move forward because participants say things, according to the structure and constraints that I've just posted:

(A) The player say things that their PCs do, given the situation the GM has described - this does not require that anyone desire to create or tell a story; it does require that players be invested in their characters and the situation and have ideas for what they want their characters to do.

And those ideas for what they want their characters to do come from where? The story they want to create and-or bring about and-or build up to, of course.

(B) The GM makes moves when appropriate, either soft or hard as the rules dictate - this does not require that anyone desire to create or tell a story; it does require that the GM have a vivid sense of the fictional situation, and of what the players want for their PCs (otherwise the GM can't make decisions about "threats", "opportunities", "costs" etc), and thus of what sort of things would be fun and interesting to say next.

Same applies here: those moves can be based on what the GM might want to (maybe) have happen next, or on part of a larger story.

(C) When the dice are rolled, because a player's declared action for their PC triggers a player-side move, the participants do the things the result tells them to do - which is to say more stuff under the appropriate constraints.

As forced by the game state. Got it.

Well I'm relying on a pretty common-sense notion of "story", more-or-less what I learned in school. I've just looked at Wikipedia - the entry for "story" is a mere index, but it leads to this page: Narrative - Wikipedia. The opening line is " narrative, story, or tale is any account of a series of related events or experiences" and then some way down the page there is a heading "Aesthetics approach" and under that heading is the following:

Narrative is a highly aesthetic art. Thoughtfully composed stories have a number of aesthetic elements. Such elements include the idea of narrative structure, with identifiable beginnings, middles, and ends, or the process of exposition-development-climax-denouement, with coherent plot lines; a strong focus on temporality including retention of the past, attention to present action, and future anticipation; a substantial focus on character and characterization, "arguably the most important single component of the novel" . . .; different voices interacting, "the sound of the human voice, or many voices, speaking in a variety of accents, rhythms, and registers" . . .; a narrator or narrator-like voice, which "addresses" and "interacts with" reading audiences . . .; communicates with a . . . rhetorical thrust, a dialectic process of interpretation, which is at times beneath the surface, forming a plotted narrative, and at other times much more visible, "arguing" for and against various positions; relies substantially on the use of literary tropes . . .; is often intertextual with other literatures; and commonly demonstrates an effort toward Bildungsroman, a description of identity development with an effort to evince becoming in character and community.​

The technical accomplishment of Apocalypse World and Dungeon World (and some other RPGs that have comparable origins in terms of influences and schools of design) is to have set out methods of RPGing which will produce fiction that tends to exemplify the criteria of "thoughtfully composed stories" and hence satisfies the aesthetic demands of storytelling, even though no one has to thoughtfully compose a story.

The particular points that I've emphasised are narrative structure and related temporality, and character and identity development. The different voices interacting, including a narrator-like voice, will tend to be produced by the mere fact of a conversation among multiple participants, one of whom has an asymmetric role in creating the fiction (ie the GM), although given the spontaneous and unedited nature of play this is perhaps less likely to be as strong a feature as the others I've mentioned, which the structure of play deliberately sets out to generate.

As far as "rhetorical thrust" is concerned, DW and AW are interesting in this respect. In DW, the use of "bonds" to establish various sorts of relationships between PCs, and then the GM's use of their moves to invite and sometimes even oblige the players to act in response to or in expression of those bonds, creates some sort of "argument for or against a position" which is different from the sort of neutrality that you (Lanefan) prefer in GMing. (AW uses different techniques from bonds in this respect.)

Intertextuality and the use of tropes are of course part-and-parcel of all RPGing, and I don't think DW or AW has anything particularly special to offer in relation to these.

A couple of thoughts about this.

First, if you don't want that sort of structure, and yet you assert that pretty much any combat encounter exemplifies that structure, does that mean you don't want combat encounters in your D&D play?

No it doesn't mean that. And I'm not sayng I don't want that sort of structure ever, I'm saying I don't want it to be artificially forced. Neither do I want drama or pathos artificially forced on me by the game, preferring instead to maintain my agency as a player to introduce and-or RP those pieces if and when I think they make sense for the character I'm playing.

Second, not far upthread the issue of whether or not RPGing is sometimes dull, or sometimes does or should include "nothing happens", came up. My response to that is "no thanks!" To my mind, the most obvious way to avoid it is to use techniques that ensure the structure of rising action leading to climax or crisis. The PbtA structure of play isn't the only way to do this, but it's one.

Conversely, to posit that the player has a choice to avoid crisis/climax (I don't say the crisis/climax, because there is no the in DW/AW play, as @AbdulAlhazred has posted a few times upthread) is to posit that the player has a choice to make the fiction dull. In that case, there better be something else pretty interesting to make the game worth playing!

If I-as-player learn in-character that my character can bypass an entire adventure worth of risk, danger, and excitement by quietly sneaking in the back way and stealing the McGuffin instead then I'm sneaking in every damn time!

And yes, I think there absolutely have to be times when things are a bit dull; if only to provide a contrast with the exciting bits. It's the difference between watching the whole 3-hour hockey game or just a condensed 30-minute highlights pack: I'd rather watch the whole game.

 

[Lanefan]

Who cares?

Me, as I'm the one stuck running this poorly-mapped module.

Why would you need to know that until it came up? You can decide when you need to. It's really no different than deciding two weeks before play. What's the difference?

The difference is that if I decide two weeks before play I have time to consider and deal with any knock-on effects. In the example we're using, adding a tunnel connecting two otherwise unconnected areas can have all kinds of knock-ons (other creatures can use it, sounds/smells/lights can pass through it, I need to know to narrate its presence when first encountered (at either end!) regardless of whether anything comes out of it right now, that sort of thing).

In both cases, the DM is making something up. In both cases, the DM can make sure it doesn't contradict anything that's already been established.

That last is sometimes nowhere near as easy as you make it sound.

That's fine. It's a perfectly sound opinion to hold.

I don't think that the ability to make decisions on the fly prevents or undermines worldbuilding, though. Certainly even the most detailed worldbuilding will still need some decisions to be made on the fly.

Indeed, though ideally those decisions are being made on top of a reasonably consistent framework.