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

[robertsconley]

Note that "conflict" doesn't inherently mean "fighting another person with words or deeds." I haven't played Burning Wheel, but Mouse Guard (which is a lite/tweaked version that gave rise to Torchbearer) has exploration/discovery/social interaction/etc as core "conflicts" of play. Mouse Guard in particular is a very "can you make it through the wilds" sort of game, if you're familiar with the graphic novels at all - the characters are all mouse-size mice, just fully sapient and with a vaguely medieval society and tech base. The wild is innately dangerous to navigate (especially thanks to weather) for something of that size.

Thanks for the clarification. One of the reasons I posted the excerpts from the books was to make sure folks were on the same page about what conflict meant in my post. And to stress I wasn't talking about in the sense of conflict = combat. But in the sense that BW/TB and the above mean it.

 

[AlViking]

I think you've misread me. I'm not saying the resulting world or narrative feels less realistic. I'm saying that what is important as a player, to me, is feeling that the setting exists prior to me sitting down at the table. I want to know that what I'm being presented with has its own verisimilitude that is independent of me.


Yes, this is a fine way to phrase it. To restate my point--when I've played these games, I find it unsatisfying to be asked "what do I hate about venturing deep into the Great Forest". It implies to me that the Great Forest wasn't defined before I sat down, and by extension many aspects of the world weren't defined either. That makes my decisions feel less meaningful, because the world is shifting beneath my feet.

In part because I DM a lot, it's just nice to experience and explore someone else's world. For me, it lets me focus more on who my character is and I can view the world through my character's eyes and react appropriately. Of course it's not the same for everyone so saying it's more immersive has no impact on how other people experience their games.

 

[zakael19]

I think you've misread me. I'm not saying the resulting world or narrative feels less realistic. I'm saying that what is important as a player, to me, is feeling that the setting exists prior to me sitting down at the table. I want to know that what I'm being presented with has its own verisimilitude that is independent of me.


Yes, this is a fine way to phrase it. To restate my point--when I've played these games, I find it unsatisfying to be asked "what do I hate about venturing deep into the Great Forest". It implies to me that the Great Forest wasn't defined before I sat down, and by extension many aspects of the world weren't defined either. That makes my decisions feel less meaningful, because the world is shifting beneath my feet.

But you use such loaded language when you say stuff like this. For instance: verisimilitude doesn’t exist until your imagination / mind receives what the GM says and validates it and goes “yeah that fits what I think makes sense here,” it’s not something inherent. To give an example of what it looks like when you or @Micah Sweet use assertive terms that spill over into judgement from a different perspective:

“I find the examples of ‘Living World’ play that @robertsconley to sound utterly boring and old school in style compared to what I find engaging. That means that said sort of game is clearly unsatisfying to its players and lesser then newer conflict focused systems and all of his players would be happier running a DM story game in D&D 2024.”

(Apologies Robert - I assume your players find your games excellent and deeply engaging)

 

[robertsconley]

In part because I DM a lot, it's just nice to experience and explore someone else's world. For me, it lets me focus more on who my character is and I can view the world through my character's eyes and react appropriately. Of course it's not the same for everyone so saying it's more immersive has no impact on how other people experience their games.

One of the side effects of how I run my sandbox campaign is that the campaign works out fine for players who don't have any goals or strong beliefs for their characters. They are mostly reactive in how they handle things. They generally pursue straightforward objectives like asking where the nearest dungeon or ruin is, then heading out.

In a groups where some players are goal-oriented they come along for the ride, especially if they are friends of the goal-oriented players.

A subset of these players will tell me, I don't want any backstory, I am just here to hang and see where things take me.

If the campaign goes long enough, usually something happens where they get invested in something and become slightly more proactive in seeking out conflict (as TB/BW defines it). Often, after roleplaying with an NPC, and they really like that character.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

No, 90-95% of everyone is a potential important character.

Which is exactly the same thing! Color, or whatever, depending on how the game goes. You can try to cut this any way you want, but the premise of the argument is BS.

 

[robertsconley]

(Apologies Robert - I assume your players find your games excellent and deeply engaging)

Understood and all good here!

But you use such loaded language when you say stuff like this. For instance: verisimilitude doesn’t exist until your imagination / mind receives what the GM says and validates it and goes “yeah that fits what I think makes sense here,” it’s not something inherent. To give an example of what it looks like when you or @Micah Sweet use assertive terms that spill over into judgement from a different perspective:

I understand what you are saying and the emotion behind it. But consider this.

My day job is developing motion control software at a company that manufactures metal cutting machine. Often, they can run into the six figures making it a major investment for our customers. We are a small company manpower wise so while I am not the one to answer the phone, often I am tapped in to handle the most difficult support problems.

As a consequence, I had to deal with my share of angry customers over the years, upset that their machine broke, or there is a bug, or didn't do something the way they wanted it to. Small subset of these are unreasonably angry for the problem they are having. However unreasonable they are the problem remains and it has to be fixed and at my pay grade I don't have the option to hang up the phone. Moreover, the main reason we have the market share we do is that we are famed for our level of support. So I can't jeopardize that nor I want to as I am one of the people responsible for that.

So I learned to dig past the emotion, find the problem, get the answer I need to fix the problem despite the customer's emotion and eventually resolve the problem.

As a result, my instinct when seeing the below

“I find the examples of ‘Living World’ play that @robertsconley to sound utterly boring and old school in style compared to what I find engaging. That means that said sort of game is clearly unsatisfying to its players and lesser then newer conflict focused systems and all of his players would be happier running a DM story game in D&D 2024.”

"What does the poster think is boring, not engaging, and unsatisfying?"

Then dig into it.

If it results from a fundamentally different preference, then that resolves it for me. That is a preference issue, and not a good topic for debate or the type of discussion we are having in this thread.

If it is another reason, then there is likely something I can profitably learn. The goal is not whether they change their mind as a result of the conversation; the goal is learning why they think they do.

I am aware that comments like this can be touchy for people to read; however, I am pointing out another way that ignores the emotion and advances the discussion.

One last example from my support experience. Occasionally, we get complaints that are, in effect, the customer is angry that we are not a clone of our competitor software. A subset of these is a result of the operator's unhappiness at learning new software by the owner of the company. But most, after you dig into it, are because our competitor software had a feature we dont. So I collect the information and add it to the to-do list to implement it in a way that is consistent with our software.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Just wanted to highlight this because I think it accurately characterizes some of the responses.

If it were exactly the same then BW wouldn't need a bunch of jargon and rules for the GM to follow. It being different is part of the point.

I think Micah is right about how they differ. You may not characterize 100% of things in complete detail. But in a certain sense that is the ideal; the only barrier is how practical it is, and the more true to the world the DM can be, the better.

Whereas the ideal in BW seems to keep things diffuse, and to not define things until they are relevant. Indeed, if they were too defined beforehand, they may not pressure the characters in the appropriate way.

No, things are perfectly well-defined in BW, at the time they need to be well-defined. That is to say, this is true in games like Dungeon World, I also expect it is true in BW, though I have only really played TB2. Prep exists in these games, it is simply shaped by a need to center on what is happening with the characters and where that is going. This is the fundamental difference, setting is imposed on character in trad play, whereas character is imposed on setting, supervenes over it, in Narrativist play. In neither case is setting 'real', nor is it particularly bound to be more 'realistic' (whatever that means in an FRPG) or 'detailed' or whatever in one over the other.

I get it, this all invalidates a major part of grognard ideology, but sadly I hold such in little regard (despite being one of the eldest players around here outside the Lake Geneva crowd).

 

[The Firebird]

But you use such loaded language when you say stuff like this. For instance: verisimilitude doesn’t exist until your imagination / mind receives what the GM says and validates it and goes “yeah that fits what I think makes sense here,” it’s not something inherent. To give an example of what it looks like when you or @Micah Sweet use assertive terms that spill over into judgement from a different perspective:

“I find the examples of ‘Living World’ play that @robertsconley to sound utterly boring and old school in style compared to what I find engaging. That means that said sort of game is clearly unsatisfying to its players and lesser then newer conflict focused systems and all of his players would be happier running a DM story game in D&D 2024.”

I apologize, sincerely, that, it has come across poorly. That said, I don't think I've said anything like "that sort of game is clearly unsatisfying to its players and lesser than other systems". I don't think that narrative games are lesser. Clearly people are satisfied by them. As I mentioned earlier, I found them satisfying for several years precisely because of their approach.

Any statements I make about being unsatisfying are purely an expression of my own preferences.

 

[The Firebird]

No, things are perfectly well-defined in BW, at the time they need to be well-defined.

My statement is saying they should be well-defined before they need to be.

This is the fundamental difference, setting is imposed on character in trad play, whereas character is imposed on setting, supervenes over it, in Narrativist play.

This is a great summary. At present, I do not want my characters to supervene the setting; I find more verisimilitude when the setting is imposed on them.

In neither case is setting 'real', nor is it particularly bound to be more 'realistic' (whatever that means in an FRPG) or 'detailed' or whatever in one over the other.

Right, the important thing is not the realism of the resulting setting, but the way that the player approaches it. Does it feel like it exists independently of the player? Would it operate if they weren't there?

 

[Micah Sweet]

But you use such loaded language when you say stuff like this. For instance: verisimilitude doesn’t exist until your imagination / mind receives what the GM says and validates it and goes “yeah that fits what I think makes sense here,” it’s not something inherent. To give an example of what it looks like when you or @Micah Sweet use assertive terms that spill over into judgement from a different perspective:

“I find the examples of ‘Living World’ play that @robertsconley to sound utterly boring and old school in style compared to what I find engaging. That means that said sort of game is clearly unsatisfying to its players and lesser then newer conflict focused systems and all of his players would be happier running a DM story game in D&D 2024.”

(Apologies Robert - I assume your players find your games excellent and deeply engaging)

Who exactly claimed that Narrativist games are boring and/or unsatisfying in anything other than a personal "I don't like this" sort of way? I haven't seen anyone extrapolating their personal negative feelings to all players of such games, or suggest they'd be happier playing something else.

It is all personal (as in, just the poster posting) preference. Your "let's see how you like it" example makes no sense to me in the context of this thread.