D&D General [rant]The conservatism of D&D fans is exhausting.

[AlViking]

Do you deny, then, that the near-absolute levels of power within the game permit the D&D-alike DM to do harm, even by accident, even while fully and absolutely intending to do the right thing for the right reasons?

I think anyone at the table can harm the game, I've seen my share of jerks at the table who make the game less fun for everyone else. The DM is no exception but they don't have near-absolute levels of power within the game because without players there is no DM.

 

[AlViking]

The problem isn’t that fantasy realistic doesn’t track actual reality. The problem is two-fold:
1. GMs that claim their actions are constrained by realism, when the broad nature of fantasy realism means that it isn’t a meaningful constraint on their actions; and

2. GMs that point to fantasy realism as a justification for actions they have taken, when it is essentially a non-falsifiable position, since anything can be justified in fantasy realism.

A good example of the second point is the NPC with the conviction that they refuse to drink alcohol. It started out as an example of an unshakeable conviction an NPC might have. When @soviet tested the conviction, pointing out that it would mean that the NPC would refuse to drink alcohol even if he or his family were tortured that’s when fantasy realism was invoked, creating lore to justify why an NPC would refuse to drink alcohol even if his family were tortured. This is the opposite of what traditional play is claimed to be: the trait is supposed to follow from the lore, the lore isn’t supposed to be created to justify the trait.

So you deny that people in the world right now are risking their lives and the lives of family and loved ones in order to stand up for what they believe in? I'm not going into real world politics here, just acknowledging what people do in service of their ideals.

 

[The Firebird]

But... what's the point? And, I don't mean this antagonistically. It's an honest question.

Why would the players care if the Dungeon of Nasty Badness is in Hex 1204 or Hex 1207? The point is to get to the Dungeon of Nasty Badness.

Exploring the world makes it feel more alive. It gives a sense of discovery and makes the world feel realistic before and after the dungeon.

Or, to put it another way. I'm running Out of the Abyss right now. The first half of OoTA is pretty sandboxy. You have a lot of options of what you can do and it's pretty wide open. But, since the goal of the characters is to get home, pretty much anything the players are going to choose is, in some way, related to getting home. Mapping out the Darklake, while a perfectly sandbox thing to do, in no way furthers that goal and I would never expect the players to do so.

Ime OotA is a pretty poor sandbox precisely because of the way it is setup. It gives the players a goal which is opposed to exploration and gives them time pressure to move as fast as possible.

And, considering the rather sternly worded response I just got about "onetruewayism", how is this post not onetruwayism? I'm apparently not a "sandbox enthusiast" because I don't want to play a sandbox the way you do? That the only way to be a "sandbox enthusiast" is to play this one particular way? How is this not staking out a specific playstyle for how the way a sandbox is truly played?

My apologies that it came off poorly. I didn't mean it that way. I just meant "people who enjoy this conception of sandbox".

 

[The Firebird]

To be honest, I'm not all that familiar with the specifics of Blades. But, in Ironsworn (sorry to go back to this chestnut), you could make a Secure Advantage move before you attempted to get past the guards which could very much be narrated as trying to be more cautious. Does Blades not also have some sort of move like this?

I don't know BitD all that well, but couldn't you have traded Effect for Position? In the fiction, being more cautious.

Yes, but it's not that the world was a certain way and you chose the wrong approach. The reason why the approach was poor didn't exist until after you failed the roll. To me that doesn't give the feeling "oh I should have made a different choice and then I would have succeeded". If I made a different choice and got the same roll, I still would have failed, just failed differently.

 

[Bedrockgames]

The problem isn’t that fantasy realistic doesn’t track actual reality. The problem is two-fold:
1. GMs that claim their actions are constrained by realism, when the broad nature of fantasy realism means that it isn’t a meaningful constraint on their actions; and

But these are still worlds where you have things like cause and effect, and it isn't like realism goes completely out the window. Magic just adds an interest twist to it, and plenty of GMs shooting for plausibility/realism try to incorporate how magic would impact things (and here I just think it is a question of how willing your players are to accept those changes: you do have to account for how this stuff will be received so even if you have some clever way you think magic would alter the world, if it feels off to the players, because real world causality is interfering with their disbelief, then that can be an issue. It is about expectations I think. This is why I always say establish what movie franchise you are in at the outset

2. GMs that point to fantasy realism as a justification for actions they have taken, when it is essentially a non-falsifiable position, since anything can be justified in fantasy realism.

It is a goal though. You can always have a principle and thwart that principle for other reasons. But if the the GM is trying to cleave to plausibly and not using plausibility as an excuse for what they want to happen, I think this kind of game can be a lot of fun, and it feels consistent over time.

A good example of the second point is the NPC with the conviction that they refuse to drink alcohol. It started out as an example of an unshakeable conviction an NPC might have. When @soviet tested the conviction, pointing out that it would mean that the NPC would refuse to drink alcohol even if he or his family were tortured that’s when fantasy realism was invoked, creating lore to justify why an NPC would refuse to drink alcohol even if his family were tortured. This is the opposite of what traditional play is claimed to be: the trait is supposed to follow from the lore, the lore isn’t supposed to be created to justify the trait.

This was not a very good example though. I think even the person who proposed it agreed the example was an attempt to explain after the fact. But that is very different form a situation where the deity and belief system already exist in the setting and the NPC believes that because that is their religion. There is always creativity and creation with NPCs, so it isn't like NPCs are products of pure logic or reason (I think NPCs made that way would be dull). I think the expectation here is simply that they fit into what is considered plausible in the setting, and they are the type of person the PCs could plausibly encounter. It is plausible you encounter a guard at some point with an implacable will. So a GM having them show up at a rate that feels reasonable, is totally fine by me in this sort of campaign. Where it goes off the rails is when it seems like the GM is doing that to steer the adventure in a particular direction. I think if there is trust here, it works well

 

[Micah Sweet]

I don't think what you say about "freedom to engage openly with the setting" is controversial. I do think it borders on truism. Likewise the importance of internal consistency: are there serious RPGers who don't care about this? I've not met them.

But it's not mischaracterisation for me to say that I don't regard your approaches as providing for the degree of player agency I am looking for in RPGing. It's a simple statement of the truth!

Yes, I am not confused about this. I simply don't regard this as sufficient player agency for my RPGing purposes. I regard it as an account of predominantly GM-driven RPGing, because ultimately, as you describe it, it is the GM who decides how the setting responds, what outcomes are natural, etc.

What can I tell you? Suppose that you decide, on this occasion, not to use the dice - eg because you've decided that, on this occasion, whatever it is that my PC is doing is not sufficient to move the NPC, given your conception of them.

As best I can infer from your posts, you have not ruled out the possibility that I just describe. And for me, were I to experience that possibility in play, I would experience it as a burden on agency and a drift towards railroading.

I am aware that your method draws on approaches that have a deep root in the hobby. As I've already stated, I don't agree with you as to its degree of similarity to Gygax's methods set out in his PHB. (It is closer to some of what Gygax says in his DMG, but Gygax's PHB and DMG are not entirely consistent with one another.)

The difficulty I face is that when I express my view about the degree of play agency inherent in your methods, you characterise me as misrepresenting you. That is what creates the impression that you expect deference - that I am obliged to share your standards as to what counts as sufficient player agency.

If you cannot agree on the definition of a term, you cannot discuss anything about that term. All you can do is argue about what the term means.

 

[Thomas Shey]

As I said, think there are some alternate definitions of "harm" that I'm not on board with.

That's your choice, but I'm not required to use yours. I can sympathize with your view that its too strong a term, but I suspect any other I used would likely not be one you like any better: if a GM's errors and resistance to fixing them is making a worse game experience for someone, I think referring to that as "harm" is perfectly legitimate; it may be one of the lower meanings but a quick search indicates it as a synonym for "cause an adverse effect on" and that's the context I'm using it in.

 

[robertsconley]

As a general note I think it is important when referring to player agency to indicate what kind of agency is being discussed.

There is the agency that the players has while roleplaying as a character in the campaign.
Then there is the agency the player has while using the system.

The two are not synonymous, and it is important to keep them straight, as two people can argue past each other if one is talking about a campaign featuring rules where the worldbuilding of the setting is shared among everyone in the group. And the other is talking about what players can do as their character.

To the individual who enjoys shared worldbuilding, a campaign that only focuses on the player can do as their character has more limited player agency. For the individual who focuses on what characters can do, a campaign using a system that limits what characters can do (but not players), as part of a focus on creating a specific types of narrative, will appear to have more limited player agency.

Context is crucial.

 

[Micah Sweet]

As a general note I think it is important when referring to player agency to indicate what kind of agency is being discussed.

There is the agency that the players has while roleplaying as a character in the campaign.
Then there is the agency the player has while using the system.

The two are not synonymous, and it is important to keep them straight, as two people can argue past each other if one is talking about a campaign featuring rules where the worldbuilding of the setting is shared among everyone in the group. And the other is talking about what players can do as their character.

To the individual who enjoys shared worldbuilding, a campaign that only focuses on the player can do as their character has more limited player agency. For the individual who focuses on what characters can do, a campaign using a system that limits what characters can do (but not players), as part of a focus on creating a specific types of narrative, will appear to have more limited player agency.

Context is crucial.

This entire thread seems to be people talking past each other about that definition.

 

[robertsconley]

This entire thread seems to be people talking past each other about that definition.

Yup, I should have realized it earlier, but people are starting to get more specific about what they do at the table, and it occurred to me today that might be an important issue to air out.

Additional note, I don't think the solution is to define player agency. Just make sure to supply the context when mentioning it so we can see what variation of player agency is being talked about.