D&D General A glimpse at WoTC's current view of Rule 0

[TwoSix]

This isn't really a situation that I have experience dealing with in BitD since I usually give players the same advice that John Harper gives (and I am paraphrasing here): "play your characters like stolen cars in GTA."

I love that line. It codified a lot of the impulses I have towards play into a simple metaphor.

 

[Manbearcat]

Not really, at least not from what others have said or what my actual play example was about. It's a player saying "I want to learn more about giants" and following up wit "I know there's a settlement of giants in the hills to the east."

Yes, exactly this!

There is a trivial system that answers this (a) while avoiding alienation for a player around the inner workings of their character's accumulated knowledge and while (b) still maintaining challenge-based priorities. So lets go with that exact exchange between GM and player with the player stipulating "I know there's a settlement of giants in the hills to the east."

GM: That sounds like you're consulting your accumulated knowledge on giant settlements? Cool. Also, there being a settlement of giants in the hills to the east only sounds interesting. It's still on you to endure the perilous journey there and brave the giants to actually make that info useful. So roll +Int and on a 7-9 your memory is fully intact and correct, but it is on you to make that useful and actionable. On a 10+, I'll give you something else about that settlement to make that lore useful and immediately actionable. On a 6-, your memory is somewhat intact, but faulty in a bad way.

Player: <Rolls +Int> 6! Crap!

GM: Alright, mark xp. So yeah...there is a settlement of giants in the hills to the east. That much of your recollection is true. But recall The Tale of Winter's Ill March. The tribe endured a terrible famine centuries ago which led to a fell spirit tempting some of their numbers into cannibalism of their fallen. Now cursed, every winter when forage and game in those east hills falter, the descendants of those cursed go mad and a purge begins...as insatiable hunger causes them to give chase of their non-cursed kin westward down the escarpment...toward here...your village.

Hunters of the east hills returned this morning with a grave declaration...neither fish nor fowl nor belly-filling beast of any kind could be found...

---

The player retains ownership of the inner workings of their character, in this case their memories and accumulated knowledge, and doesn't feel alienated from a setting that should be lived-in for them.

The player has significant agency to drive the gamestate forward in a desirable, interesting way, but that agency isn't remotely unchecked or without risk.

The situation-state of play moves forward in an exciting, dangerous, dynamic way.

Easy peasey lemon squeezy.

 

[hawkeyefan]

So is "I pick a big bag of gold that I see lying on the ground unattended" but unless presence of such bag has been announced, that seems pretty questionable.

This makes as much sense to you as expecting a patron in a tavern?

I think it is pretty sensible inference. Whilst I agree that the players should be able to assume minor details based on the context, this is actually just for speeding up the play, not them actually having framing authority like the GM does. If the players assume things the GM did not intend to be there, it is perfectly fair for the GM to ask the player to amend their action declaration.

Sure, I think that’s fine. But when he does that, we can also look at why. What he is doing in those moments is he is placing higher priority on his own ideas over the player’s. He may have reason to do so… but that’s still what he’s doing.

I as well. But I think this is actually an interesting topic, around which there is sometimes some genuine tension. I often play my characters "suboptimally," doing "stupid things" because "that's what my character would do." And if this leads to adverse consequences just for my character, then that's fine. But when it leads to significant trouble for other characters as well, there might be some tension.

Sure. I think that a game like Blades assumes some potential tension between player characters. They’re a bunch of scoundrels, after all. And the game is designed for generating conflict, so it’s not necessarily surprising or problematic when it happens amongst PCs.

With D&D, there is a much stronger sense of the party as a tactical unit. If the fighter isn’t standing at the front line, the cleric isn’t healing, and the wizard isn’t casting spells, then the unit is not performing. So that often takes priority for many folks over doing whatever may make sense for the characters under the circumstances.

I have to say this has not been experience, though I have not played "non-traditional" games that much. But what I said is very much a concern in Blades in the Dark game I'm playing in (I might be second guessing how much of a drug addict lacking social graces my character can be in situations it might get us into trouble) and there was (a mild and now resolved) conflict between some players due these sort of issues (my character was not involved in this.)

And I am not sure if Blades offering XP for some of this is good or bad. On one had it communicates that this is supposed to be part of the game, but on the other had getting others into trouble so that I can get more XP (especially as I already accidentally optimised my character on that front) seems even more selfish than just doing so for creative reasons.

Also, In D&D the characters are action-adventure heroes that are super hard to kill and there are not much other systematised fail conditions, so the amount of bad stuff that can befall on them seems more limited than in a game like Blades, where there is a ton of systematised adverse effects that can cripple you or your team rather severely.

It took my longtime D&D players some time to adjust to this and to embrace Blades for what it’s trying to do. The player principles really help.

You have to embrace the idea that there will be adversity and you won’t be able to address it all. Get into danger… make things messy. Give your fellow players things to react to.

 

[Aldarc]

That, however, is something that is super hard to do for some people.

I agree, but I also think that one thing that makes it super hard for some people to do so stems not knowing in the first place that they can or should approach some games with this mindset and then approaching the game with the same mindset as they would D&D. This, in general, was one of my biggest hurdles when I was learning about game families like PbtA and Fate. At first, I tended to read about them as if they worked or should work like D&D without me having to change anything about how I mentally approached playing them.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

What spider presence table is this?!? Did you make a house rule?!?? Aaaaagh!

It's called realism. There are on average about sixty spiders in a typical modern house. In the room you are sitting right now, there almost certainly are several spiders keeping you company, even if you might not see them. It is exceedingly unlikely that a large orcish stone hall would not have quite a few spiders in it.

No, I don’t.

Could have fooled me!

But how does a player know what exists in the setting’s lore? How do they know that there isn’t a note on page 426 of the DM’s note that says “Odin is different from the other gods…” or some similar thing? What the player knows is that he’s a cleric of Odin. He gets aid from Odin routinely. He’s supposed to just assume he can’t reach out for aid except in certain specific ways?

Whether they know of it or not doesn't affect whether it can be done (though I feel this is the sort of thing a cleric should have at least some sort of rudimentary understanding of.) Players of course can declare actions that are impossible. Then the GM tells them that they do not succeed.

As for the giant example, maybe it’s not as similar as I thought. Your initial comment made it sound like the giant stuff was all happening spontaneously. But now you’re stating that this lore existed beforehand.

So what exactly did you mean when you saod that this “storyline” was only happening because of your player’s interest in giants? Did you mean that the DM took that as a prompt to go that way? Or so you mean that the giant was introduced to pique someone’s interest so the DM could then deploy his giant storyline?

Giant was introduced because I needed a level five filler encounter. But the place of the giants in the setting and their lore (well some of it) existed before and how the giant behaved, what they were carrying etc reflected that. The player got interested in the giants due this, and decided to pursue investigating them. As a result, they had plenty of giant-related adventures. Did I "intend" this to happen, was it a "plot hook?" I did not intend nor not intend this to happen. It was just thing that exist in the setting, for players to engage with or leave alone. I try to make my settings feel alive and deep, so there are a lot of little throwaway details that hint at existence of hidden layers and stuff being going on, and most are just flavour, but the players are free to pick up any thread and foreground the stuff like they did here with the giants. And yes, as this is rather new setting, and was even more so when this first happened, some of the giants stuff I had was a bit sketchy, and the player desire to engage with made me to design it in more detail.

Then what are you arguing for?

What you mean? I just told you...

 

[Micah Sweet]

GM: "Yes, you have heard numerous rumours of a band of giants in the hills to the east. The last story you heard was 2 weeks ago, after they pillaged a farm on the outskirts of the hills. The hills are a day's ride from town, would you like to investigate?"

No one is saying you can't do what you're saying, but you don't have to, and doing so is not always better than saying no.

 

[Micah Sweet]

What spider presence table is this?!? Did you make a house rule?!?? Aaaaagh!



No, I don’t.



But how does a player know what exists in the setting’s lore? How do they know that there isn’t a note on page 426 of the DM’s note that says “Odin is different from the other gods…” or some similar thing? What the player knows is that he’s a cleric of Odin. He gets aid from Odin routinely. He’s supposed to just assume he can’t reach out for aid except in certain specific ways?

As for the giant example, maybe it’s not as similar as I thought. Your initial comment made it sound like the giant stuff was all happening spontaneously. But now you’re stating that this lore existed beforehand.

So what exactly did you mean when you saod that this “storyline” was only happening because of your player’s interest in giants? Did you mean that the DM took that as a prompt to go that way? Or so you mean that the giant was introduced to pique someone’s interest so the DM could then deploy his giant storyline?



Then what are you arguing for?

I presumed that the giant culture was already built into the setting, but the player decided to have their PC pursue that part of the setting.

 

[Micah Sweet]

There is a trivial system that answers this (a) while avoiding alienation for a player around the inner workings of their character's accumulated knowledge and while (b) still maintaining challenge-based priorities. So lets go with that exact exchange between GM and player with the player stipulating "I know there's a settlement of giants in the hills to the east."

GM: That sounds like you're consulting your accumulated knowledge on giant settlements? Cool. Also, there being a settlement of giants in the hills to the east only sounds interesting. It's still on you to endure the perilous journey there and brave the giants to actually make that info useful. So roll +Int and on a 7-9 your memory is fully intact and correct, but it is on you to make that useful and actionable. On a 10+, I'll give you something else about that settlement to make that lore useful and immediately actionable. On a 6-, your memory is somewhat intact, but faulty in a bad way.

Player: <Rolls +Int> 6! Crap!

GM: Alright, mark xp. So yeah...there is a settlement of giants in the hills to the east. That much of your recollection is true. But recall The Tale of Winter's Ill March. The tribe endured a terrible famine centuries ago which led to a fell spirit tempting some of their numbers into cannibalism of their fallen. Now cursed, every winter when forage and game in those east hills falter, the descendants of those cursed go mad and a purge begins...as insatiable hunger causes them to give chase of their non-cursed kin westward down the escarpment...toward here...your village.

Hunters of the east hills returned this morning with a grave declaration...neither fish nor fowl nor belly-filling beast of any kind could be found...

---

The player retains ownership of the inner workings of their character, in this case their memories and accumulated knowledge, and doesn't feel alienated from a setting that should be lived-in for them.

The player has significant agency to drive the gamestate forward in a desirable, interesting way, but that agency isn't remotely unchecked or without risk.

The situation-state of play moves forward in an exciting, dangerous, dynamic way.

Easy peasey lemon squeezy.

What game are you assuming is being played here? "Mark xp"?

 

[TwoSix]

No one is saying you can't do what you're saying, but you don't have to, and doing so is not always better than saying no.

I never said you had to.

But ignoring the slippery slope argument ("if you let the player do that, he'll suggest the whole map!"), the only reason I see to NOT do it is to actively assert the presence of your pre-generated map.

Which I guess makes sense, since it seems there is a major aesthetic to assert the primacy of a pre-generated setting over the fiction just generated at the table. The primacy of the pre-generated notes helps with this particular style of "immersion".

 

[Crimson Longinus]

This makes as much sense to you as expecting a patron in a tavern?

Obviously not. But if it was the GM who framed the existence of the sack of gold, you would not think it was weird. Which to me rather implies that the game, nor you, expects players to have authority to frame significant new setting elements via their action declarations.

Sure, I think that’s fine. But when he does that, we can also look at why. What he is doing in those moments is he is placing higher priority on his own ideas over the player’s. He may have reason to do so… but that’s still what he’s doing.

I think people have rather extensively gone into the reasons, you just have hard time accepting them.

Sure. I think that a game like Blades assumes some potential tension between player characters. They’re a bunch of scoundrels, after all. And the game is designed for generating conflict, so it’s not necessarily surprising or problematic when it happens amongst PCs.

Well, it can become so. If overdone it might become exhaustive to the players and will raise a question why the characters would even continue to work together. It sorta was getting at that point in our Blades game, though thankfully it got resolved.

With D&D, there is a much stronger sense of the party as a tactical unit. If the fighter isn’t standing at the front line, the cleric isn’t healing, and the wizard isn’t casting spells, then the unit is not performing. So that often takes priority for many folks over doing whatever may make sense for the characters under the circumstances.

Not so sure about that. In Blades the actual rules reinforce the characters being a team. There is the crew sheet to which we all contribute together.

It took my longtime D&D players some time to adjust to this and to embrace Blades for what it’s trying to do. The player principles really help.

You have to embrace the idea that there will be adversity and you won’t be able to address it all. Get into danger… make things messy. Give your fellow players things to react to.

Sure. But it might be an issue if different players have different comfort levels with this. I might be fine with crashing my stolen car, but if I crash it into another player's beloved and carefully maintained automobile they might not be happy about it.