Why do RPGs have rules?

[FormerlyHemlock]

I think the way things are likely to go in DW is more specific. So, if you have a high STR you probably want to Hack & Slash, and with a high DEX you probably want to Volley, as a general rule. A high CON character can probably handle Defend more readily (as they're tougher). More armor can be advantageous, but can also clearly cause you issues. Beyond that, advantages and disadvantages are much more likely to play out in terms of danger avoided or not. If you get the drop on your opponent, then you can unleash damage on them without even needing to make a move (IE the enemy is helpless, just damage them). If OTOH you foolishly find yourself needing to advance against a prepared opponent, then you probably need to Defy Danger just to get near them. Frankly 'cover' and such are not concepts that are specifically covered by some sort of modifier. They could come into play via the explanation of a DD check "I go prone, the arrows miss" or in terms of 'hold' gained through a Discern Realities check "what is useful here to me?" or Spout Lore "It is advantageous to seek cover!" etc. Notice these are much more focused on what the character DOES vs simply the nature/geometry of the situation.

It's not completely clear but to me that sounds like "no, taking actions to set things up and shift probability curves in your favor is not a thing in Dungeon World." If so that's an example of the cost you pay in lost detail.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

If you're looking at Dungeon World to do this you're looking completely in the wrong direction. It doesn't play at this level tactically at all.

The entire mindset evidenced in the quoted post is polar opposite of the intent of DW.

Yeah, that's what I suspected. Thanks for confirming.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

It's not completely clear but to me that sounds like "no, taking actions to set things up and shift probability curves in your favor is not a thing in Dungeon World." If so that's an example of the cost you pay in lost detail.

As I said in my note to @innerdude there isn't necessarily a fixed 'reality' where all the details are set. So, maybe the GM describes a bunch of terrain when he frames the scene in which combat is happening. OTOH a player could now say Discern Realities, what here is useful to me? Or even push it a bit further and Spout Lore "What do I know about the value of that pillar on the left as hard cover?" (making up said pillar on the spot).

My point is, it isn't a set piece, You would get an advantage by acting on those moves, and you could also get tactical advantages by means of playing out the fiction in ways that work for you, like by hiding and attacking with surprise, or maybe using fire. There's tons of ways. A LOT of tactics aren't even mechanical at all, like focusing fire on a certain enemy. There's plenty of scope for tactics.

 

[Maxperson]

You are totally missing the point. Nobody said goblins were not as 'realistic' as orcs, we question why it is possible to even posit that one is MORE realistic than the other.

Has anyone even done that? I don't recall seeing someone say that orcs are more realistic than goblins. There could be in-fiction circumstances that dictate one is more realistic than the other, such as the party wandering through a large orc territory and no goblins are anywhere nearby, but absent that sort circumstance, they are equally plausible.

Beyond that, even if one IS more realistic (we'll ignore whether realism is even a cogent idea here) the GM is the one who determined all the factors that he then evaluated to make that determination, so it is still just an arbitrary ruling!

You can't call it arbitrary, because you cannot possibly know if the DM picked one on a whim(arbitrary) or had a reason for it. Absent that certainty, you're belittling what simulationist DMs do by calling it arbitrary. Someone really running a simulationist game has reasons for everything he's doing, so nothing is arbitrary.

 

[Maxperson]

What makes that world more realistic?

The closer the game holds to reality(and nobody is expecting the game to mirror reality), the more realistic it is. There isn't a person alive who has every circumstance they encounter meet some sort of personal dramatic need. Games that are all about meeting dramatic needs, while fun for those who play they, are inherently less realistic on that aspect of RPGing than simulationist games where sometimes a dramatic need is met, and sometimes it's something else.

 

[clearstream]

What makes that world more realistic?

For me the intuition is that the real world contains events and objects that give no regard to my involvement or interest in them; that don't follow a dramatic pattern. How I feel about those things, whether I would or would not they were as they are, whether they rise action toward a climax, does not impinge on them.

I wouldn't say it was necessarily the case that a game world constructed around dramatic needs couldn't be more realistic in respects than some other game world. Still it would be less realistic to the extent that it lacks truths that are independent of the characters.

This is in a sense to do with feelings about what "real" means. I won't dive into that... you're probably aware of some of the predominant takes on it. Only summarise by saying that what I take @Maxperson to be getting at is that there would be world-truths that are independent of or external to character-related dramatic needs.

One way for such truths to exist is for a non-player referee to adopt them from a game text, another way is they architect them, another could be they run through a procedure for generating them. This last is interesting to me - and of course has appeared in many "sim" games - because it makes some truths independent of every single person at the table. I'm also interested in setups where truths external to one player are just those controlled by another player.

Anyway, whether I've explained it successfully above or not, I have in mind a definition of "real", and that definition requires that for a world fact to be a realistic fact from the point of view of a character it must be external to and capable of being disinterested in that character. I'm agnostic on how those external facts are produced and controlled. As I imply above, some "realistic" facts could well be ones driving dramatic play: the emergence of dramatic moments in uncaring worlds is often described as a specific joy of these modes of play.

 

[clearstream]

To answer look at the steps I outlined and what I highlighted

1. The referee describes a setting
2. The players describe some character they want to play in the setting.
3. The referee describes the circumstances in which the characters find themselves.
4. The players describe what they do as their characters.
5. The referee adjudicates what the players do as their characters and then loops back to #3.

You (and @pemerton ) are assuming, likely based on my reputation, that all of what I highlighted are handled more or less the same way that Dungeons & Dragons and other similar RPGs campaigns are handled.

Is it right then that what you would agree with would be

1. describe a setting
2. describe some characters
3. describe some circumstances
4. describe what characters do
5. adjudicate those descriptions; loop to #3

That is, stripping out any assumptions about who is doing what? (It's missing the metagame arc, which either is or isn't distinctive of RPG depending on how you define it.)

 

[clearstream]

The closer the game holds to reality(and nobody is expecting the game to mirror reality), the more realistic it is. There isn't a person alive who has every circumstance they encounter meet some sort of personal dramatic need. Games that are all about meeting dramatic needs, while fun for those who play they, are inherently less realistic on that aspect of RPGing than simulationist games where sometimes a dramatic need is met, and sometimes it's something else.

Per my email just above, I feel there are two definitions of "real" in play here.

Under one definition the real it encompasses the sets of those facts that map to our experiences and knowledge of the actual Earth in the actual Universe, i.e. the one that we as players, referees etc (and not our characters) live in. That is what is often meant by simulation, for example to simulate a bronze age economy is to map it to what we know about say the historical Mediterranean bronze age economies on Earth.

Another definition of real is the metaphysical. I won't characterise that as having any simple definition, but for the purposes at hand I believe it includes that real facts be facts that are external to and independent of the person or simulated person perceiving or impacted by those facts. The real facts are not dependent on the person or simulated person. They can stand alone. They stand even where never perceived and never impacting the person or simulated person.

 

[innerdude]

Because the game is not a dichotomy of meet a dramatic need or don't. Important dramatic things can happen to the PCs sometimes and not others, as befits a more realistic world where everything encountered doesn't have to meet a dramatic need.

Sure. Of course. It doesn't HAVE to meet a dramatic need.

But what's the arbitrary line between "unrealistic" and "realistic"? Can only 10% of the GM's preauthored content meet a dramatic need to still be considered realistic? 20%?

My experience with "trad sim" historically hits the Pareto principle dead on --- "80% of the fun happens in 20% of the gameplay." I want both of those numbers to be higher and as equal as possible.

As a player I am BORED OUT OF MY MIND waiting for character dramatic needs to be addressed in play by "trad sim" GM-ing. The "trad sim" GM ethos of excising character dramatic need from play is unnecessary and lessens the fun, especially if "realism" is the only criteria for doing so.

I'd bet the trad GMs represented here could triple the amount of "character dramatic need" content in their games and see zero change in their players' perception of "how realistic the game world is."

But none of them will do it. Even if I triple-dog-dare them (no erasies, no takebacks).

 

[innerdude]

Has anyone even done that? I don't recall seeing someone say that orcs are more realistic than goblins. There could be in-fiction circumstances that dictate one is more realistic than the other, such as the party wandering through a large orc territory and no goblins are anywhere nearby, but absent that sort circumstance, they are equally plausible.

You can't call it arbitrary, because you cannot possibly know if the DM picked one on a whim(arbitrary) or had a reason for it. Absent that certainty, you're belittling what simulationist DMs do by calling it arbitrary. Someone really running a simulationist game has reasons for everything he's doing, so nothing is arbitrary.

Wrong.

The thing that I finally grasped about "trad sim" GM-ing is that literally all of it is arbitrary.

Whatever reasons the GM chooses for inserting one bit of fiction or another is only based on some other bits of fiction the GM made up yesterday.

Or last week. Or 20 years ago when (s)he created the campaign world.

But somehow the fact it was made up 20 years ago somehow makes it less arbitrary than making it up 20 seconds ago . . . .