D&D General Fighting Law and Order

[Faolyn]

What are FKR games?

A style of play, apparently, that takes influence from the Free Kriegsspiel wargames. Minimal rules to allow players more freedom, a lot of GM authority to ensure realism and to allow for off-the-cuff rulings, and players have to trust the GM to be fair.

According to the results of my googling, at least; I haven't met any GMs who've used that term for themselves.

 

[Lanefan]

(1) I didn't write it. (2) This tells me that you should read the rules because it's getting tiring having to explain rules that are freely available on an SRD.

Cannot miss is way too strong and misunderstands what's going on. @AbdulAlhazred is saying that the reason that the attack will hit is because when you the GM use a hard move to inflict damage that you are fundamentally declaring that it hits through bypassing an important part of the resolution process: i.e., the entire player-side of the resolution process! This doesn't mean that the attacker is far too perfect. It means that you as a GM are not playing by the rules! (Which would make you a horrible referee!) Again, this is tantamount in D&D to you as a GM declaring that the sniper hits the PC without you first making an attack roll against the PC! For shame!

Exactly - you've seen the issue I'm raising and, while jokingly turning it back on me, are also agreeing it's a problem. No, the sniper shouldn't auto-hit in D&D; my point is that the sniper shouldn't auto-hit period, and that rolls for actions of any character should be made by the person controlling that character, in this case - as the sniper is an NPC - by the GM.

There is no to-hit by GMPCs, because the GM doesn't roll in PbtA games.

OK, so the rules aren't even consistent in how (the players of) NPCs and PCs interact with them on something as basic as combat. That's a deal-killer right there.

Only players roll. Players react to the fiction that the GM frames. If the GM frames a soft move, for example, that goblins are shooting at the PC, the GM will ask the players what they do. The PC then tells the GM how they react. The player characters' actions may trigger a move roll, such as Defy Danger. In which case, the players may roll to avoid the damage in some way: e.g., take cover, raise a shield, dodge the arrows, etc. On a full success (10+), the PC likely will avoid all the damage. On a failure (6-), the GM can then make a hard move to Harm Them with damage. There is some flexibility in the results of a mixed success (7-9).

If it doesn't mechanically work the same when the positions are reversed - i.e. when it's the PCs shooting at some Goblins the Goblins get to Defy Danger etc. - that's a huge red flag as to how this game is designed. D&D has issues in this area as well, don't get me wrong, but nowhere near to this extent.

 

[Lanefan]

I've a friend who watches that religiously every year.

In fall 2008 when it first started, two of the originators had me as their manager at work; I had to arrange time off for them so they could do this...or at least try it: at the time they had no idea at all whether it would work out or not, and even in that first year it succeeded beyond their wildest dreams.

 

[Micah Sweet]

A style of play, apparently, that takes influence from the Free Kriegsspiel wargames. Minimal rules to allow players more freedom, a lot of GM authority to ensure realism and to allow for off-the-cuff rulings, and players have to trust the GM to be fair.

According to the results of my googling, at least; I haven't met any GMs who've used that term for themselves.

Sounds great! I don't know why anyone would have an issue with this.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

@FrozenNorth , I agree with @Campbell above and I also agree with what you've said, but I want to make sure that we're all on the same page here. That is because, sometimes, people who do not play games where "be a fan of the player characters" is an organizing principles get confused as to what exactly that principle means.

What that principle means:

* Engage with the player character's dramatic needs. Follow player and system cues as to what that is about, follow player breadcrumbs when they introduce content that pursues that and frame scenes that put provokes and tests those dramtic needs. It is a statement about "what is the nature of conflict in our game?" If the answer to that question is "what the players have flagged via system and direct input" and you're relentlessly engaging with that, then you're "being a fan of the player characters."

What that principle does not mean:

* (a) Having a preferred outcome in favor of players and/or (b) executing a preferred outcome in favor of the PCs by putting your thumb on the scales.

---

TLDR: Its about the nature of content-following-protagonism and who decides what that protagonism is, not preferred outcomes or thumbs on scales.

EDIT - @pemerton , I'm working backwards and barely following along! I just grabbed a snip of something I briefly saw and it was something I could comment on quickly so I figured I would! Though I will gladly retcon a "ninja'd" into my post for you

Right, so as a player in our Stonetop game my character has the ability to sense elemental energy, and (in DW parlance) Discern Reality about it. This is like a danged laser pointer! I get to just basically say "look at this!" And make the @Manbearcat answer questions about it and often make them useful. It's sweet, and I can't really see this happening in the same way in D&D.

I mean, sure I can tell the GM I'm looking at whatever, maybe even detect magic on it or something, but I can't enforce "this is interesting/useful". In trad play 90% of the time the GM is going to react like "nothing here" and if I keep poking at stuff the GM doesn't have any interest in, it's going to be problematic! Either the adventure gets off on some unimportant tangent or it's going to be seen as some form of pixel bitching or even disruptive. IME rare is the time when it will guide play.

Now, that being said, Meda generally uses this power in a mostly conventional way, to suss out a way past an obstacle, etc. It would likely become silly to constantly try to rejigger the trajectory of the story at every turn. Players need to keep some focus. Like we got involved with this whole bear thing the other night and @Campbell , I think, finally poked us to get back on mission. The bear was cool though, and I bet it will lead to more adventures later.

 

[pemerton]

I don’t own Moldvay, so I can’t read it myself, but I am definitely willing to believe that it is more transparent about the DM’s agenda and core principals than the 5e DMG, which, as I mentioned, was written to try and appeal to the extremely disparate playstyles that existed in 2014.

Moldvay remains, in my view, the clearest ever instructional text that TSR/WotC have produced. Tighter than 4e, which is probably the next best.

My relationship to Moldvay, these days, is based more around nostalgia than rational play preferences. But I think my admiration for its clarity of both vision and execution remains fully justified.

@Iosue had a terrific "Let's Read" thread some years ago now: https://www.enworld.org/threads/lets-read-dungeons-dragons-basic-rules-by-tom-moldvay.333865/

 

[Oofta]

In fairness, I can easily enough see how "artificial" could be both used and taken as a perjorative.

Well the problem is that when we're describing our personal impression it's difficult to say anything negative at all no matter how much we qualify it as an opinion. I do my best not to be offensive but sometimes it's nigh on impossible.

 

[pemerton]

I think you're conflating the setting with the GM.

No. I'm pointing out that, in D&D, it is not true to say that the normative baseline is "the GM establishes the setting". That is one approach, but not the only approach contemplated over the history of the game, both as published and as played.

Well, first off, pointing out five games out of the literally thousands of RPGs out there does, in fact, mean that the GM has this function in "nearly every single game."

Here are a few more, then: BitD, DitV (don't be misled by the fact that the GM authors the town), In A Wicked Age, HeroWars, Marvel Heroic RP, Fate, d20 Conan.

The GM's key function is to establish adversity, to "orchestrate conflict". This requires some authority to author setting, undoubtedly. But it does not require all of it. And it certainly doesn't require being able to appeal to as-yet-unrevealed elements of setting as the basis for resolving a conflict by making a hard move.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Not so much; it's more that there's a realism in a character (and thus player) sometimes getting seriously diverted from what it wants to focus on, and having to deal with that diversion (which might take a while both in-game and in reality) before resuming its original course. And those diversions are highly unlikely to be self-inflicted by the player they have to originate elsewhere; usually the GM, though occasionally another player might cause one.

Yeah I don't think this is true. In all of the last four campaigns I have had a character in there were diversions and whatnot. In 2 5e campaigns those mostly arose from the DM creating various adventures, though many of those were built as reference to character backstory. In the 2 narrative style games they all consisted of us diverting ourselves. The BitD game had THEMES and reccuring elements, but I don't think I would have called it a very obvious story arc, except maybe after the fact. Fundamentally there are no real diversions in these games, the plot simply has no outline until you play! If Aedhros got wrecked on X1 I expect he'd leave again ASAP and BW wouldn't allow the GM to subvert that, although attempts to do so might fail.

 

[pemerton]

“Be a fan of the characters”



Exactly, which is why I believe it is inconsistent with a principle/playstyle espoused by other posters on this thread “the PCs are not the main characters”.

1 million per cent this.

There is no reason I'm aware of that D&D cannot be run consistently with such a principle. (I ran 4e D&D this way. I've run AD&D this way.)

And if this were a rule in D&D I think it would help identify the problems with what went on in the OP.

Hence, over the course of the thread we have identified one rule that, if introduced into D&D, would help avoid OP-like situations.

Whether or not D&D should include the rule is a further question that thankfully is above my pay grade!