D&D General Fighting Law and Order

[Oofta]

That's the whole point of these threads for like, the last 15 years. It's just that the majority of the TTRPG community thinks that trad play with a focus on verisimilitude and worldbuilding IS the one true way, and it's taken a long time to chip away at its dominance so that more people realize it's just one way to play among many.

No one method of play is "better" than another as a whole, but there are other styles of play that are better than trad for a large amount of players and play agendas, and they simply haven't been exposed to them because of D&D's overwhelming shadow.

There is absolutely a lot of "My way is better" on this thread. That rules can make a DM better, that always have consequences to failure is more interesting, that having the GM always driving the narrative forward is somehow superior.

There are many ways to run a game in D&D, I think that's a strength not a weakness.

 

[TwoSix]

Do your player's characters always have a narrative arc? Heck do your characters always have a narrative arc? Because sometimes I write up interesting backgrounds, sometimes my characters have goals. Other times? It's just Thumper the Barbarian who wants to smash heads.

Depends on the game I'm playing. Different DMs have different play agendas and styles, and I try to fit my characters into their styles.

Let me reverse the question. Do you think you could play in a PbtA game with no issue, and help drive the game with your character's goals?

 

[Faolyn]

It is the same. The consequence of failing to open the door is...the door remains closed. The consequence of failing to hit your opponent is...your opponent remains undamaged. In both cases, circumstances may allow you to try again, with the same or a different method.

No, it's not even remotely the same.

If my opponent is undamaged, then it can hurt me back. I may have lost tools (spell slots, exertion) or my chance to affect it in other ways (such as if I tried to knock it prone or backwards, or if I tried to disarm it). I am affected by my failure to attack, but the combat continues.

If I failed to pick a lock... well, most GMs won't let you try to pick the lock again, or at least increase the difficulty enough to the point it becomes impossible. If I also then fail to bash down the door or teleport through it or whatever, then that area of the dungeon is lost to us and I, as the player, am left with the feeling that I just didn't play "mother may I" well enough with the GM.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Well, that assumes you can articulate ANY reason that is fundamentally rooted in some established aspect of the setting/fiction. Also that you can establish that other logical alternatives don't make more sense. The claim that you are simulating something when you simply apply garden variety TV Tropes level lampshading, which I contend is pretty much all a D&D setting can achieve, is simply reducing the term simulation to meaninglessness.

Beyond that though, obviously naming very direct proximate causes to simple immediate events isn't much in question. I think those are often also driven by game logic but "you broke your leg when you fell" can reasonably reflect how a realistic world works. As you move further out, this breaks down very quickly.

IME this is a large part of the division between classic and trad play. Classic play is mostly very focused on NOW and HERE. As you move more into the trad realm play takes on higher level trajectories and more game focused techniques become important. I just contend that simulation is a terrible name for them.

I knew we'd get into your, "simulation isn't a thing" perspective eventually.

 

[Aldarc]

Drama and themes come out through the setting the GM creates and the nature of the players interactions with it. I cannot stand any rules that attempt to engineer narrative.

Respectfully, I'm not so sure about that, and this is fully to the credit of the OSR community, which hopefully you too can appreciate.

IMHO, it seemed like an important aspect of the Philosophic OSR movement was the realization that a lot of themes and drama that were present in old school game design rules, which became a prominent part of OSR design philosophy. This includes things like how Gold for XP shapes player (character) decision-making in the game. Or even things like random encounter tables, light sources, dungeon-delving procedures, etc. help create tension in the emerging story. All of these things add up to create themes and drama through adhering to the rules themselves. This was also a revelation that Luke Crane (e.g., Burning Wheel, Torchbearer, Mouse Guard) had when he played B/X per RAW. This is what we see when people discover OSE for the first time. This is what we have seen when people on this forum have looked into Shadowdark.

 

[Micah Sweet]

In my experience, this nearly always leads to "and now what?" when the PCs have done everything they can think to do and the GM sits back and waits for the players to do something.

That is not my experience. I don't know what to say to that.

 

[TwoSix]

This is the thing that always rubs me wrong about these systems right here. The construction of a hard or soft move as the means of introducing a conflict and giving the PCs something to do is intuitive and makes sense here. I can see the value in introducing either one of those two scenarios, "go frame someone" or "go become infamous" as interesting problems/scenarios that PCs want to engage with. What I find baffling is that the system makes the resolution of all gameplay into yet more such moves, when I mostly feel like I'm done with that now, and ready to go see how resolving the situation turns out. I find myself wishing there was some other system that was used after a conflict was introduced, where I could do the standard game thing (minimize bad outcomes, maximize positive ones, determine the most efficient/safest/highest reward play to get to whatever goal we just established), but the loop just keeps iterating instead, which feels exhausting and unrewarding.

I think that's an excellent observation. It's entirely fair to note that narrative games are much less "gamist" and challenge-oriented than D&D-type games. Narrative games are more extended improv sessions with rules for deciding who's turn it is to make stuff up. Now, that kind of play is definitely its own challenge in and of itself, but it's a different challenge than using your limited resources to win a combat.

 

[Oofta]

Depends on the game I'm playing. Different DMs have different play agendas and styles, and I try to fit my characters into their styles.

Let me reverse the question. Do you think you could play in a PbtA game with no issue, and help drive the game with your character's goals?

I would find a PbtA game annoying. It's just not for me.

It's not that PCs don't achieve goals. People (myself included) often feel very invested in their PCs, sometimes to the point of breaking down in tears at a reveal. Other times it's just a light-hearted popcorn game.

But having to always focus on character growth and goals? Nope, not for me.

 

[Micah Sweet]

That's the whole point of these threads for like, the last 15 years. It's just that the majority of the TTRPG community thinks that trad play with a focus on verisimilitude and worldbuilding IS the one true way, and it's taken a long time to chip away at its dominance so that more people realize it's just one way to play among many.

No one method of play is "better" than another as a whole, but there are other styles of play that are better than trad for a large amount of players and play agendas, and they simply haven't been exposed to them because of D&D's overwhelming shadow.

I don't know, that sure sounds like, "if you really understood MY way, you'd realize it's better than yours" to me.

 

[Lanefan]

I'd say it's fair in that the person who controls the NPCs is aware of everything in the game and at the table, and so has a distinct advantage over the players of the PCs. So to balance that out a bit, you don't spring gotchas on the players. It doesn't mean you can't surprise them. Have an assassin waiting for them, but let them make a perception check first... or cue the danger in some way. Let the players be active participants instead of passively having things happen to them.

Long experience has taught me that the moment I cue danger in any way - say, by having them make a perception roll - the players often metagame their characters into acting or behaving differently than they normally would, even if-when the characters don't yet themselves have any sense of danger (as determined, say, by that perception roll failing miserably).

And so I fight against this by various means including false rolls, outright surprises, and other means to try and stop the metagaming; and in this way at least I'll happily label myself as adversarial before anyone else bothers.

Obviously, if they succeed on such a roll then they become aware of approaching danger. I'm talkng about when the roll fails.

It's not. I've incorporated that into D&D when I run it. If I can't think of what would be bad on a failed roll, then I don't call for a roll.

To lean on the door example, if there's pressure of some sort, then a roll seems in order... whatever's causing the pressure... approaching guards, the watcher in the water, a spiked ceiling lowering... can manifest. If there's no pressure or the passage of time doesn't indicate some drawback of some sort, then I just let them open the door.

Yeah, that's not for me. Sometimes the dice decide that you ain't getting through that door no matter what.