D&D General Fighting Law and Order

[pemerton]

What determines these things in BW?

In Burning Wheel, the skill of an Orc combatant is represented by its weapon rating. Its luck is represented either by its roll of the die (if combat is being resolved via a Bloody Versus opposed check) or by the quality of the scripting for it (if the combat is being resolved via Fight!). For instance, and as an example of luck in Fight!: if I script Block for the Orc while my friend, playing the Orc's adversary, scripts Feint for the same action, then I got unlucky! (Because the Feint automatically defeats the Block and hence will go through unopposed, and my Orc might therefore be hosed.)

I won't go into the full minutiae of how, in Fight!, we might establish whether an Orc slips in a patch of mud. The starting point would be that someone would have to establish that some mud is part of the fiction (eg a player might script Assess for their character, so as to get the lay of the land, and see if there is any mud that they could use to wrongfoot the Orc).

But you wrote about Steel as if it literally inhibits the player's actions in normal activities, which is far less cool.

<snip>

Unless this check is because that PC has a Pacifism disad or something similar that prevents them from attacking willy-nilly

I gave an example of Aedhros attempting a cold-blooded murder. I don't know why you describe that as a normal activity. It doesn't seem that normal to me.

If I wanted Aedhros to be a ruthless murderer I could have built him that way: a Burning Wheel PC can have traits (cold-blooded, heartless and the like) that make them inured to violence (in practical terms, the obstacle for Steel checks is reduced). But I didn't.

More generally, I don't see why you think it's fine for a RPG to assume a ruthless baseline, and then allow players to build in non-ruthless disadvantages, but not OK to start from a more human baseline, and then require players to purchase special abilities to be ruthless.

A very large percentage of gamers--perhaps the majority--refer to their character as I. I do this; I attack the monster; I pick the lock. Most of us do this for every game out there. "I landed on Go; give me $200."

<snip>

As a GM, I call players by their character's names, in order to maintain immersion.

OK? They also refer to themselves in the first person too - like, if someone's die rolls off the table, and they say to the person sitting next to them "Could you pick up my die for me?", no one gets confused that that's an action declaration. This is no different from how many football fans refer to their team as "We", but they don't therefore get confused about who is actually on the field moving the ball around.

But I don't see how any of this stuff about first person usage relates to what I've been posting.

Here is an example of the process of play for Burning Wheel.

Aramina's player, wanting to instigate something interesting to them: Don't I remember that that Evard's tower is around here somewhere.

GM, noticing that this is the first time Evard has been mentioned in this campaign: Do you? How do you know that?

Aramina's player: Because I'm wise in the lore concerning the Great Masters. <points to Great Masters-wise on their PC sheet>

GM: OK, that's "details" but not "uncommon knowledge" - Obstacle 3.

Aramina's player, putting together there dice pool and making the roll: Three successes!

GM: Yep, you definitely remember that Evard's tower is in this neighbourhood somewhere, probably on the north of the river.

<Snip debate between Thurgon and Aramina about whether to go to Evard's tower or rather explore some of the abandoned fortresses of his order. Snip details of some of that exploration. Snip details of how Thurgon and Aramina meet Fredrick, a former knight of Thurgon's order, who is able to take them on his barge upriver to where Evard's tower is - that last one was the result of a successful Circles check by Thurgon's player.>

GM: As you approach the tower, you see someone coming towards you, and the tower, who looks like Evard, at least as you recall his description from your study of the history of the Great Masters.

<Snip the ensuing events in which this being turns out to be a demon, Aramina falls unconscious from the tax of attempting to call down a Rain of Fire, and Thurgon drives off the demon thus earning the infamous reputation in Hell as an intransigent demon foe.>

Thurgon's player: I make sure Aramina is alright, and lay her out so she can sleep comfortably and recover from her tax.

<Snip details of how this is resolved.>

Thurgon's player: I enter the tower. <I don't recall if a check of some sort was required at this point>

GM: <describes the tower - my recollection is stone, and probably beams>

Thurgon's player: I look for spellbooks!

GM: Test Scavenging. <I don't recall the obstacle, but it was probably around about Ob 5, for rare objects (eg books, documents, specialised tools, etc), but perhaps with an advantage die for being in a wizard's tower.>

<Thurgon's player puts together dice pool, rolls, and fails. The GM describes Thurgon finding letters in a child's writing. to Daddy Evard, signed X . . .>​

Nowhere in the fiction that is created in this example of play do Aramina or Thurgon do anything strange: they remember things, meet old friends, travel places, meet new enemies, and (in Thurgon's case) explore a tower.

Nowhere at the table do the players of Aramina or Thurgon do anything but describe what their PCs are doing: thinking, remembering, keeping an eye out for someone they know, travelling up river, fighting off a demon, trying to cast a spell, looking around a tower, etc.

At no time does the GM does the GM adjudicate a declared action by reference to their notes. Nor is the GM relying on maps, notes etc to frame scenes. In this way, it is quite different from GMing a typical D&D module, in with both those things are commonly done by GM.

It may be imaginary, but it exists for the duration of the game--just like the world of a novel or movie exists for however long you read the novel or watch the movie.

For the duration of the time I imagine that world, I am imagining it. That doesn't mean that it exists.

I mean, suppose that I could make it exist by imagining it - then I would have a power similar to the classic illusionist spell Shadow Monsters!

The game world may not "exist" to answer the question about spellbooks, but spellbooks exist in the game, and therefore, people (specifically, the player whose PC is looking for them) want to know about them. For the shared fiction to even work, there needs to be an answer

I've described a game in which the shared fiction worked perfectly, although - at the time after Thurgon failed to find any spellbooks, and before Aramina did find Evard's spellbook - noone at the table knew whether or not Evard's tower had any spellbooks in it.

And to me it seems obvious that if no PC has found any spellbooks, or otherwise obtained knowledge about what spellbooks might be in the tower, then no PC will know whether there are any in the tower, or not. That's not an unrealistic state of affairs for those characters to be in. The fact that the players and the GM don't know, either, whether or not there are any spellbooks in the tower doesn't get in the way of play. I am reporting that directly from experience.

having a spellbook not exist in a place where they likely would, just because no players thought to ask about them, doesn't make sense.

Why are you concluding that, just because Thurgon didn't find any spellbooks, none exist?

Why are you concluding that, just because no PC has looked for spellbooks in Auxol, there are none there?

These aspects of the fiction are not established. Because play has not required that they be established.

According to pemerton, though, it is.

Where did I say this? I even discussed the possibility of the GM narrating the discover of trapped or cursed spellbooks. More generally, you've had many posts, from @Citizen Mane and me, telling you how, in the play of Burning Wheel, the question "Do I find any spellbooks" can be answered. This post also gave an extended example of play that dealt with the issue. It shows how the resolution does not depend upon the GM knowing whether or not the fiction contains spellbooks in the tower independently of action resolution.

The PCs enter the tower. How do you, the GM, describe it to them, the PCs?

<snip>

I'm asking how you, as a GM, would describe something in a BW game. The PCs enter the tower. You are the GM. Describe it as if I am one of the PCs, entering the tower and seeing it for the first time. Is it a blank canvas until I, the player, make a Wises check for my PC?

Earlier, I asked you to describe an area, but you didn't. The PCs walk into the tower. What do you, as the GM, say? Do you describe it at all? Or do you require your players to describe it to you?

When I was GMing, and the PCs entered the tower of Jabal high on a hill in the city of Hardby, I described what they could see. Here is an extract from the actual play report (posted on RPGnet):

As the PCs left the tower, they noticed a dishevelled, wild-eyed figure coming down the stairs. This caused suitable speculation about the nature of Jabal's conspiracy with the person who had sold the feather to the peddler.​

I was the one who told the players that they noticed the dishevelled figure. The description matched something they had earlier been told by the peddler, about the vendor of the cursed angel feather he had sold to one of the PCs. Hence the players' speculation.

Because you said, and I quote, "But suppose that it had already been established, say via a Wises check, that Evard's entrance hall is painted all in crimson red, then of course the GM would include that in their description." Which rather suggests that yes, it's up to the PCs, who made a Wises check, to determine that the hall is red.

No it doesn't.

If, via play - such as a Wises check - it has been established that the hall is crimson red, then the GM must honour that in their description.

That does not entail that a Wises check is the only way to establish something. But you asked How does the GM decide how to describe the tower?, and I pointed out one important consideration that the GM might need to have regard to. If I didn't mention it, then you may well infer that the GM is always at liberty to establish (say) the colour of a building with no possibility as constraint. Which would be just as much a mistake as it would be in relation to spellbooks.

the imaginary world does play a causal role at the table. The way you describe the world tells people how they should act in that world.

The causal role is being played by the description - an event that happens in the real world - not by the imaginary world, which is not a real thing and has no causal powers.

And why do you keep hiding behind "imaginary game participant" and similar phrases?

I don't believe that I've ever used that phrase. But the reason I keep distinguishing the game participants from the fiction is because, without doing that, nothing sensible can be said about how the fiction is created. Like, no one tries to explain how the Sherlock Holmes books were written without beginning from a recognition that Holmes is imaginary, but Conan Doyle was a real person.

If you have no trouble drawing this distinction, then why do you make posts about the PCs describing the game world when you seem to clearly mean the players, or about spellbooks not exisitng when you fairly clearly seem to be referring to as-yet-unauthored parts of the fiction?

Sounds fairly dull--the only way for the game to be different is if you fail.

Different from what? I was replying to a question about how a twist might occur, like finding out that your PC's grandfather was an evil wizard. What is that different from? What is the problem with indexing this sort of thing to failed checks? That's more-or-less how Apocalypse World does it too.

the idea that the GM even saying that something could or should logically exist is too much is not, in itself, is logical.

I still don't know what you mean by the GM "saying something". What context do you have in mind?

You have ideas that no doubt are very clear to you about when and what the GM might say in a typical RPGing context. As far as I can tell, they are not consistent with the GMing techniques appropriate to Burning Wheel or Apocalypse World. I have tried multiple times to explain how those games use different techniques that do not rely on making decisions about what happens next based on notes. But you seem not to want to take those explanations at face value. I'm struggling to work out what you are looking for, by way of explanation or even account of play.[/QUOTE]

 

[pemerton]

You seem to be side stepping the question by adding the assumption that there is an incompetent GM at play. That the abandoned farms are not relevant to the characters. I see no reason you should make that assumption, as I indeed specified they made a note of it to investigate later. Nothing I wrote exclude the posibility that these abandoned farms are critical to the characters.

My first thought, then, is why is the GM framing the scene so weakly? But moving on . . .

Imagine for instance that one of the characters are scouting out for a new place their family can set up farm, as the river nearby their old farm is drying out over the span of years. I guess you in that case would agree that the introduction of the abandoned farms are highly aproperiate, as it serves as both a potential opportunity, and a bad omen tying into this core motivation?

(And just to make sure you don't just change similar focus to the introduction of beggars, imagine another of the characters is all about fighting systemic poverty).

OK. And how does this fit in with the interest in circus performers? We now have someone who is either both farmer and circus-wise, or at least a farmer travelling with a circus-wise person.

You are wanting to me accept both (i) that the players are deeply invested in farms, circuses and impoverished beggars, but (ii) are likely to struggle, in their play, to establish how these various things are connected. I don't accept this.

 

[Oofta]

Which brings us to the next point in discussion of 5e as narrative game. That is, the assumption of ubiquitous preexisting fiction. You can see here why low myth play is a popular approach. I don't think there are hard reasons why 5e cannot do this, but consider the extreme ease of constructing a 4e encounter. Monster roles, level as a 95% reliability difficulty gauge, no spells to cross reference, etc. Also a resource model that is much more consistent.

A 4e GM will simply smile, grab some terrain, 5 orc stat blocks, and roll initiative!

Not sure I follow what you're saying here. But for you and @pemerton in D&D, as DM sometimes I've determined preexisting fiction, sometimes I only have an outline, sometimes I haven't thought about it. In the first case, I don't care what the player says or does, that fiction is not changing.

In the latter two cases, I may pick up on something players have said or done and incorporate it into the campaign as long as it fits. That has nothing to do with any specific roll, the player did not establish any fiction because they asked if there were orcs in the hills and rolled high. It's just adjusting unestablished fiction based on what I think will work best for the players and my long term campaign outline. I don't care if the player asked to roll for history of orcs, trolls, giants or goblins in the hills; on a successful roll they get what knowledge I think they may have on what may reside in the hills. Maybe I'll think "Yeah, it would be cool for there to be orcs there so why not" or I'll respond "You know nothing about orcs, but there used to be a reclusive clan of dwarves that have not been hear from for a long time."

This relates back to the farmer/circus performer example. I as a DM may have introduced fiction that the players do not yet realize is relevant. Changing the farmers to circus performers would disrupt my established fiction from my notes and previous description, it would disrupt my campaign outline. As DM I may choose to tweak that outline anyway, but players don't control the outline.

If you want to build a world collaboratively, I think D&D still works for many things it's generally not my cup of tea if it goes much beyond fairly minimal character background lore.

 

[Oofta]

@pemerton - after page upon page I see you're still sticking to the PC can't change the world, only the players around the table can theme.

So one last attempt at an explanation, which has nothing to do with games other than D&D. I would start with the obvious that characters are just extensions of a character's imagination and will. They don't exist outside of the player. In D&D any time a player says "I cast fireball", it's really just a shortcut way of saying "The character I currently control casts fireball". I can also say "Putzy the wizard [the character I control] casts a fireball."

So we all accept that Putzy isn't real, sometimes we say "I open the door" but we really know it's the character. It helps with immersion, with envisioning ourselves inhabiting this world of imagination. In D&D the player has no direct control over the world. So when people say that the PC doesn't get to decide the world outside of their control all we're saying is that the player cannot extend control beyond what their PC can do.
So yes, I personally cannot cast fireball. But I'll still say "I cast fireball". Same way I'll say "I don't want to play a game where my PC changes the fiction of the world" is really just "I don't want to play a game where I change the fiction of the world outside of what my PC can do if they were really just a wizard existing in that world."

Take it, leave it, give an obviously overly pedantic response. Just thought I'd try to explain one last time that we all know our PCs don't really exist and can no more change the world than they can cast fireball.

 

[soviet]

Not sure I follow what you're saying here. But for you and @pemerton in D&D, as DM sometimes I've determined preexisting fiction, sometimes I only have an outline, sometimes I haven't thought about it. In the first case, I don't care what the player says or does, that fiction is not changing.

In the latter two cases, I may pick up on something players have said or done and incorporate it into the campaign as long as it fits. That has nothing to do with any specific roll, the player did not establish any fiction because they asked if there were orcs in the hills and rolled high. It's just adjusting unestablished fiction based on what I think will work best for the players and my long term campaign outline. I don't care if the player asked to roll for history of orcs, trolls, giants or goblins in the hills; on a successful roll they get what knowledge I think they may have on what may reside in the hills. Maybe I'll think "Yeah, it would be cool for there to be orcs there so why not" or I'll respond "You know nothing about orcs, but there used to be a reclusive clan of dwarves that have not been hear from for a long time."

This relates back to the farmer/circus performer example. I as a DM may have introduced fiction that the players do not yet realize is relevant. Changing the farmers to circus performers would disrupt my established fiction from my notes and previous description, it would disrupt my campaign outline. As DM I may choose to tweak that outline anyway, but players don't control the outline.

If you want to build a world collaboratively, I think D&D still works for many things it's generally not my cup of tea if it goes much beyond fairly minimal character background lore.

I think the difference between what you've described here, and how many of the more collaborative games play out, is not as different as you might think.

Very broadly I would say I operate in three categories:

1. I have some level of predetermined fiction within my notes (ie the identity of the murderer) that is rock solid; it's not changing whatever players might speculate about.
2. I have other things that are more flexible where I have something sketched out but might change my mind if the players (or myself) come up with a better idea before it's actively encountered (or becomes so heavily trailed that I risk causing a contradiction) - the abandoned farms/performers example is an interesting thought for that one.
3. And I have a third category where I have nothing prepared at all (maybe the characters have gone somewhere unexpected, or I'm actively freestyling) where I might just hand the reins to a player directly 'Bob, tell me something about the inn'.

You might not think of it as such but you seem to be doing a little bit of 2. I'm sure less than I do, and with less impact, and maybe with less/no player awareness, but it's there and it doesn't seem to stand out to you as obviously breaking the feel of the game. There seems to be some ability to tolerate and absorb that kind of player input without ruining anything. I suggest to you that people playing with more of it may simply have a higher tolerance for it than your group, or a greater preference for it, rather than necessarily doing something categorically different. They're 50% vanilla and 50% chocolate rather than 90% vanilla and 10% chocolate, say.

 

[Oofta]

I think the difference between what you've described here, and how many of the more collaborative games play out, is not as different as you might think.

Very broadly I would say I operate in three categories:

1. I have some level of predetermined fiction within my notes (ie the identity of the murderer) that is rock solid; it's not changing whatever players might speculate about.
2. I have other things that are more flexible where I have something sketched out but might change my mind if the players (or myself) come up with a better idea before it's actively encountered (or becomes so heavily trailed that I risk causing a contradiction) - the abandoned farms/performers example is an interesting thought for that one.
3. And I have a third category where I have nothing prepared at all (maybe the characters have gone somewhere unexpected, or I'm actively freestyling) where I might just hand the reins to a player directly 'Bob, tell me something about the inn'.

You might not think of it as such but you seem to be doing a little bit of 2. I'm sure less than I do, and with less impact, and maybe with less/no player awareness, but it's there and it doesn't seem to stand out to you as obviously breaking the feel of the game. There seems to be some ability to tolerate and absorb that kind of player input without ruining anything. I suggest to you that people playing with more of it may simply have a higher tolerance for it than your group, or a greater preference for it, rather than necessarily doing something categorically different. They're 50% vanilla and 50% chocolate rather than 90% vanilla and 10% chocolate, say.

I'm done discussing other games, it's not worth it. I like the way D&D works and so I was just clarifying of how things work in my games. It's not that a player ever directly dictates the fiction, especially not because of a high roll. It's just that I adjust things as I go along on a regular basis so the inspiration for those changes can come from any number of sources.

So no, I'm not looking for advice. I and my players, are happy with the way things works now so I see no reason to change when I think those changes would be detrimental to my enjoyment of the game. Fortunately there are other games out there for people with different preferences.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I don't really. I mean, I could try and state it in a way that I think makes sense, but that can be a fair bit of work, and I mightn't get things right.

I keep trying to talk about processes of play - things that people who are sitting around a table, playing a game together, do and say. I get confused when you and others think that we can obtain information about those things by focusing on what happens in the fiction. And vice versa.

The two are completely independent. From how the fiction is established at the table - via the processes of play - nothing follows about what is happening in the fiction.

Here's an example:

Suppose that the GM decides to describe Thurgon finding some letters from the child Xanthippe to Evard, because (i) Thurgon's player failed a check, and (ii) the rules of the game tell the GM that, in such circumstances, they are required to describe something happening which is contrary to the intention that Thurgon's player had in declaring Thurgon's action. In this situation, it is true that decisions made by Thurgon's player (ie to declare an action for Thurgon with a certain intent) and certain actions performed by Thurgon's player (rolling the dice and getting a fail result) cause the GM to describe the fictional event. But it is false to say that, in the fiction, Thurgon looking for some spellbooks caused letters from Xanthippe to Evard exist. In the fiction - as I would have thought is obvious - the letters, written by Thurgon's mother when she was a child, came into being before Thurgon was even born, and he played no role in causing them to exist.

Upthread, @CreamCloud0 appeared to assert that it is axiomatic that if things done by me, Thurgon's player, at the table cause the GM to establish certain fiction about (say) letters, then it must be that in the fiction Thurgon caused those letters to exist.

But in fact that is not axiomatic at all, and is in my view obviously false.

Here's an example from AD&D: at 10th level, the AD&D ranger is able to attract followers. Let's suppose that one of those followers is a 3rd level Dwarven fighter. In this case, the player of the 10th level ranger declaring I've reached 10th level - what sort of followers do I attract? causes the GM to roll on the followers table, and tell the player about the Dwarf who comes to serve with the ranger. It is now obviously true that, in the fiction, this Dwarf was born, learned to fight, and problem did various things to reach 3rd level. The only reason the GM is making all of this part of the fiction is because the ranger's player caused the GM to do so. But no one supposes, therefore, that in the fiction the ranger caused the Dwarf to be born, to learn to fight, to reach 3rd level, etc.

The difference between the AD&D situation I've just described, and a Burning Wheel Circles check, is simply that in BW every player's character has a Circles score, and can declare an action to look out for someone they know, at any time it makes sense in the fiction. And success in meeting such people is gated behind a dice roll rather than an auto-ability that can only be used once, upon gaining 10th level.

The difference between a Circles check, and rolling to find spellbooks, is simply that the former deals with the topic of "finding people you know" and the latter deals with the topic of finding spellbooks. But the process is the same.

It's true that BW uses the technique I've described in relation to 10th level AD&D rangers far more often during the game, and for many more purposes. But this greater use of the technique doesn't change it's structure. It doesn't make it true that it is the PC who is causing the people to exist, the spellbooks to exist, etc; any more than a 10th level ranger in AD&D causes 3rd level Dwarven fighters to exist.

The process and the structure are the whole problem I have with this. I know you don't see things you do as a player and things you have your PC do as the same, but they absolutely are from my point of view. That's the power I don't want, and I don't care where it comes from, what rules let me to do it, or whether or not its technically me and not the PC taking the action.

The fact that BW basically requires that you do this sort of thing a lot literally makes it worse for me.

And the follower rule in 1st ed isn't something the player or PC is doing. It's a setting reaction, adjudicated by the DM, in response to my PC reaching name level, and it does not remotely feel like me authoring the fiction.

 

[soviet]

I'm done discussing other games, it's not worth it. I like the way D&D works and so I was just clarifying of how things work in my games. It's not that a player ever directly dictates the fiction, especially not because of a high roll. It's just that I adjust things as I go along on a regular basis so the inspiration for those changes can come from any number of sources.

I didn't mention any other games. Everything I wrote is completely applicable to D&D.

So no, I'm not looking for advice. I and my players, are happy with the way things works now so I see no reason to change when I think those changes would be detrimental to my enjoyment of the game. Fortunately there are other games out there for people with different preferences.

It seems to me that if you don't want to discuss anything from other games, and you don't want to discuss any possible changes or improvements to your D&D play... why are you on a discussion forum?

 

[Oofta]

I didn't mention any other games. Everything I wrote is completely applicable to D&D.



It seems to me that if you don't want to discuss anything from other games, and you don't want to discuss any possible changes or improvements to your D&D play... why are you on a discussion forum?

Why do you feel the need to tell me that I can improve my game? And then tell me that I can't post when I wasn't asking for advice? I posted above that D&D is quite flexible on a lot of things but also that I've found a balance that works for me.

I was answering a separate issue and giving my perspective; I've given up on trying to have further conversation on this particular thread.

 

[soviet]

Why do you feel the need to tell me that I can improve my game?

I did no such thing. I pointed out how the difference between your game and other people's games might not be as big as you think.