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

[zakael19]

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.

This may be a side effect of online discussion, but the general belaboring of "there's no realism/verisimilitude unless maximal pre-definitions are happening" feels very assertive of reality. Like, I try hard not to go around saying that "conventional games are boring and slow" and stuff - I instead try very hard to draw a contrast with the specific elements of various narrativist systems I find engaging or that appealed to me. The constant refrain back is stuff like "well that's just not realistic, lol."

 

[The Firebird]

Who is authoring? I assume the GM.

How do the players constrain or guide? I guess by choosing to go to the Forest rather than the Glacier, they prompt the GM to tell them forest-y things rather than icy things. To me that seems a fairly modest degree of control or guidance. I imagine that you disagree.

If all they really know and all they can ever learn about the two locations is Ice vs Forest I suppose. But in a fixed world this stuff will be defined beforehand and they can ask about it, do research, cast spells, hear rumors, learn about possible points of interest and the inhabitants and the dungeons and treasures there.

I feel you are assuming the GM is withholding basically all information and not telling the players anything. I agree that can feel railroady. But it doesn't sound anything like the fixed world games I've played.

This is true in all RPGing, so does not shed light on degrees of player vs GM control over the shared fiction. . (Or is there a type of RPGing I don't know about, where the GM declares the PCs' actions?)

Well, this seems to be an example where the player knows what the consequence will be, and is exploiting that to guide/constrain what the GM is prompted to say.

I'm confused. First you say action declarations can be made in all RPGing, then say a pretty straightforward example of an action declaration is an example of them knowing consequences and exploiting them. I.e., exercising control over the shared fiction. So isn't it the case in all RPGs that players have meaningful control over the shared fiction?

In part I think you have. To me, it seems that you're not taking the comparison to chess or bridge seriously, that is, are not taking seriously the idea that it is possible, in game play, for one participant to constrain or guide another participant's moves, by exploiting (i) their knowledge of the overall position, and (ii) the rules of the game.

I understand what you mean by it. I think it's an odd way to look at how the game functions. In the same way describing "asking for the check" as "constraining another person's actions" would be. I guess it is true in some abstract sense but it feels very inhuman to me.

 

[pemerton]

Why wouldn't it be reasonably knowable to the players? They just use their PCs' capabilities to investigate and research. Just like real life. I don't understand where you're coming from.

Heaps of examples were given upthread.

But here's another: suppose that the GM is making up what seems reasonable, given a vast amount of secret backstory, then the outcomes won't be reasonably knowable to the players. For instance, @Lanefan once posted this example :

From the perspective of the here-and-now player at the table and PC in the gameworld, she's "pulled a string" and achieved some sort of result or reaction. All is good, and the game goes on. Her amount of agency here was, let's call it X.

From the perspective of the DM she's pulled a string that's not only achieved the immediate result observed by the PC and thus narrated, she's set dominoes falling all over the place behind the scenes that she may well never know about...but note this does not in any way change the value of X. She doesn't have any less agency, nor any more; she just did what she did and the game goes on. And while it's possible that ramifications of the falling dominoes may affect the PCs at some point now or later, it's also possible they won't.

Let me try an example.

There's skullduggery going on all over the city. The place is rife with rumours and plots and spies and gossip, and into all this prance the innocent naive low-level PCs looking to spend the spoils of their first real adventure. They take a room at an inn, and go out for a night on the town. At some point things go a bit sideways - there's some yelling and pushing and screaming and the party mage ends up having to discreetly charm a local harlot in order to calm the situation down; the charm works, well, like a charm. The mage now has a new friend, adventurers-plus-new-friend go about their merry evening, and a good time is had by all. The adventurers, including the mage, pass out around sunrise whereupon the harlot wanders off.

Player side: mage charms harlot who at his invitation joins mage and friends for a night of partying before slipping away a bit after sunrise. String pulled, result obtained.

DM side: harlot is actually an agent (who, depending on developments, the party may or may not have met later in this capacity) working for the local Duke. She realized the yelling and pushing was a distraction intended to mask something else, and joined the fray in order to get herself into the scene so she could try to determine what was being masked by the distraction. She managed to notice two men sneaking into an alley that she knew led to a hidden access to the Duke's manor house, just before being charmed by the mage and taken along for a night of revels. She didn't report this - in fact, she failed to report at all - and thus the two sneaks get where they're going and none the wiser. Meanwhile other agents who really can't be spared are sent out to search for the missing one, who none too sober comes in on her own not long after sunrise. String pulled, dominoes fall.

Ramifications: next morning word gets out of an attempt on the Duke's life during the night by two unknown men.

The PCs might never know of their unintentional involvement in this crime. Conversely, their mage might suddenly find himself arrested for treason and thrown in jail.

This is an example of an action declaration whose outcome is not reasonably knowable to the players.

I gave an actual play example, upthread, from my own play: the PCs oppose NPCs who belong to a particular, powerful faction; the upshot is a scry-teleport-fry attack which is a near-TPK. The players couldn't reasonably know what sorts of consequences might flow from the (completely reasonable, from the point of view of the dynamics of play) decision to make the interesting choice to oppose those NPCs.

The other possibility, that I also gave upthread, is that to get the information, the players have to, in effect, follow the GM's breadcrumbs. Although they are authoring their action declarations, they are doing so in a way that is guided/constrained by the GM. My own reading of blogs, accounts of play etc suggest that this sort of thing is pretty common in a lot of RPGing.

EDIT:

But this seems trivially possible in a fixed world sandbox, as I described. The players can learn what the Forest of Tears is like or the Glacier of the Worm is like. Then they can make meaningful choices.

I'm confused at how you're imagining a fixed world where the players don't have access to any relevant information, and indeed no way to learn relevant information. I thought previously you meant they had to have all the information, which is why I used 'precisely'. But if you mean just knowing some information about the world...that seems trivial?

This post (of mine) answers this question (of yours).

 

[Micah Sweet]

This may be a side effect of online discussion, but the general belaboring of "there's no realism/verisimilitude unless maximal pre-definitions are happening" feels very assertive of reality. Like, I try hard not to go around saying that "conventional games are boring and slow" and stuff - I instead try very hard to draw a contrast with the specific elements of various narrativist systems I find engaging or that appealed to me. The constant refrain back is stuff like "well that's just not realistic, lol."

Not realistic in a personal, subjective sense. "It doesn't feel realistic to me". Characterizing this statement as objective (and adding the dismissive lol) is your contribution, not mine.

 

[pemerton]

This may be a side effect of online discussion, but the general belaboring of "there's no realism/verisimilitude unless maximal pre-definitions are happening" feels very assertive of reality. Like, I try hard not to go around saying that "conventional games are boring and slow" and stuff - I instead try very hard to draw a contrast with the specific elements of various narrativist systems I find engaging or that appealed to me. The constant refrain back is stuff like "well that's just not realistic, lol."

My take is slightly different:

I read through dozens of posts telling me that <poster X> finds play that uses my preferred approaches unrealistic or artificial and lacking in verisimilitude or whatever. And the poster seems to think that I will find their preference unremarkable, even reasonable.f

But when I say that I find a certain approach too railroad-y, I get told that I'm being unreasonable and misunderstanding the approach and using jargon and . . . etc, etc, etc.

 

[Hussar]

@Hussar great step-by-step process for your sandbox. Just a question, the discussion amongst the group re monsters, playable races etc is that part of Ironsworn? Does the game come from a little to-know myth setting idea? Is there a monsters manual or is that your injection

That’s straight up from Ironsworn. The players would agree what playable races there could be. Although to be perfectly fair, there aren’t really any rules for that. Your character is not defined by species or class but by the resources of the character.

There is a monster section in the book but, again since monsters have no real mechanics attached to them specifically, it’s more about how you narrate the fight.

How much myth there is in a given campaign will vary depending on the initial settings the group chooses.

Quite honestly, it’s a fairly easy game to play without a GM at all.

 

[Maxperson]

I understand the ‘attempt to overcome’ as a die roll should have been used to determine this, but the DM just let it succeed because it was in the DM’s interest that it does, because it succeeding keeps the players on the rails.

If there was no challenge then it succeeding is not railroading, agreed, but then it again fails the premise of being a railroad

What I am saying is that it can be both a challenge and not a railroad if the adjudication of success would have happened even if no railroad was present. The DM can adjudicate it impartially, because success still keeps them on the rails. He doesn't need to railroad them for this event.

The challenge was overcome when the players came up with an idea that would also have resulted in automatic success in any game where there was an impartial DM looking at the same set of circumstances.

 

[pemerton]

I'm confused. First you say action declarations can be made in all RPGing, then say a pretty straightforward example of an action declaration is an example of them knowing consequences and exploiting them. I.e., exercising control over the shared fiction. So isn't it the case in all RPGs that players have meaningful control over the shared fiction?

"I walk across the rope 1' above the ground" - possible outcome in D&D is (say) 1 hp of damage; or in RM is (say) a roll on the A Crush crit table with a -20 modifier.

So the outcomes is reasonably knowable. It's not a blind choice.

Contrast the example I posted upthread, from @Lanefan. "I charm the NPC: is a blind choice, an action whose outcome - ie my PC is now partly responsible for the Duke's assassination - is not reasonably knowable.

I understand what you mean by it. I think it's an odd way to look at how the game functions. In the same way describing "asking for the check" as "constraining another person's actions" would be. I guess it is true in some abstract sense but it feels very inhuman to me.

When playing chess, the whole thing is to constrain (to some degree) what moves the other player can make - by positioning pieces, threatening pieces, threatening check, etc. That's what play consists in.

When playing bridge or that sort of game, we similarly talk about controlling the play - by exploiting one's own suit lengths and strengths, plus knowledge that play reveals about the suit lengths and strengths of the other players.

I'm not sure why it's "inhuman" to observe this.

 

[AlViking]

The word "precisely" is yours, not mine.

But anyway, the players aren't "interacting with a fixed world". That's metaphor. What they're actually doing is prompting the GM to say things. The GM is, obviously, the author of what they say. So if the players are controlling it, they must in some fashion be constraining or guiding what the GM says.

One way to do that, that I know of, is to have determined priorities for their PCs that the GM then responds to.

Another way is to have sufficient knowledge of what it is that the GM will refer to when deciding what to say that they can trade on that knowledge to prompt particular responses.

Maybe there are further ways, but I don't recall them having been suggested in this thread.

Consider the simple example that @TwoSix posted upthread: "You start in a room. There are doors to the north, east, and west. What do you do?" In this situation, the players know that, depending on which door they open, they can prompt the GM to say some or other thing. But they don't know what that will be; so opening a door would not involve the player exercising any control over the shared fiction.

This is why Gygax emphasises information and planning. If the players listen at a door, or use an ESP ability, or similar, then they can prompt the GM to tell them things about what is on the other side of the door. Now they are in a position to exercise control, because they can exploit that knowledge to control or guide what the GM says.

This doesn't stop the players, in Gygaxian play, from guiding or controlling what the GM says. That's the whole point of play! It's what Gygax talks about in Successful Adventuring - planning your expedition to first gather information, and then again to exploit that information by declaring actions whose outcomes, as much as possible, are known to the players (and hence can't catch them by surprise or derail their plans).

In my campaign the players add to world lore and impact the world only through their characters actions and words. The only direct influence they have on what I plan is when they decide priorities of what they're pursuing. If they want to investigate the murders on Ripper street, then I'll fill in details on what's really happening. If they chose to explore the Mountains of Mystery then I'll leave Ripper street as a line or two in my notes that may or may not impact future sessions or campaigns. They'll know basic information when they chose a direction but many things will require interaction before they know the result.

I'm not doing anything to guide, control or manipulate my players but I also can't fill in every detail of the world. Even if I throw a surprise session or encounter at them it's because I think it's fun to deal with the unexpected now and then. When I do that it will still fit into the broader fiction of the campaign, either someone from the past or a hint of things to come. Life and games are boring if they become too predictable.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Heaps of examples were given upthread.

But here's another: suppose that the GM is making up what seems reasonable, given a vast amount of secret backstory, then the outcomes won't be reasonably knowable to the players. For instance, @Lanefan once posted this example :
This is an example of an action declaration whose outcome is not reasonably knowable to the players.

I gave an actual play example, upthread, from my own play: the PCs oppose NPCs who belong to a particular, powerful faction; the upshot is a scry-teleport-fry attack which is a near-TPK. The players couldn't reasonably know what sorts of consequences might flow from the (completely reasonable, from the point of view of the dynamics of play) decision to make the interesting choice to oppose those NPCs.

The other possibility, that I also gave upthread, is that to get the information, the players have to, in effect, follow the GM's breadcrumbs. Although they are authoring their action declarations, they are doing so in a way that is guided/constrained by the GM. My own reading of blogs, accounts of play etc suggest that this sort of thing is pretty common in a lot of RPGing.

EDIT:
This post (of mine) answers this question (of yours).

Then we're back to preference. So long as the players are making their own decisions in the setting through their PCs, and the DM is being fair with the use of their prep (by which I mean, not changing the situation in play beyond setting logic), that's enough agency for me. And I would say the same as a player or GM.

As far as your "powerful faction TPKs the party" scenario, IME a GM almost always has choices in how to respond to PC action with NPCs, all of them meeting the setting logic test to some degree. I would choose one that doesn't result in the immediate and unavoidable death of the party with no way out. Games run by humans have that kind of wiggle room.