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

[AlViking]

...seriously? You really need me to dig up the quotes? Fine.


I stand corrected. You, personally, have not done so nearly as often as I thought. But you have in fact used it, yourself, to refer to something. For your consideration, all bold added for emphasis:






Five different participants who have all used this description.

Using the word "objective" in a sentence doesn't mean we're claiming anything is objectively realistic.

 

[pemerton]

When I said more objective, I wasn't talking about sandbox. I was talking about mysteries and having an objective mystery being more objective than one that is in flux. The process of solving a crime with objective facts and georgraphy. In terms of sandbox, I think many sandboxes, mine included, aim for objectivity. I think we think more in terms of modeling a world than producing a narrative for example. But I don't think that takes anything away from other approaches (I am sure plenty of styles are aiming for objectivity).

The quote that @Ezekiel Raiden posted is from this thread, and doesn't seem to be saying anything in particular about mystery scenarios:

Yeah this gets at a style split around how agency is talked about. What sandbox is offering is agency inside an objective setting that they players themselves aren't going to be able to shape (everything they do in a typical sandbox will be through their characters: which can have considerable force but these are two entirely different approaches to agency).

 

[Bedrockgames]

The quote that @Ezekiel Raiden posted is from this thread, and doesn't seem to be saying anything in particular about mystery scenarios:

I know. But in that quote I wasn't saying it was more objective than other approaches. I was just saying that an objective setting was an aim of it.

 

[Bedrockgames]

Using the word "objective" in a sentence doesn't mean we're claiming anything is objectively realistic.

True, you can model a very unrealistic but objective feeling setting.

 

[Old Fezziwig]

The game also supports more "intimate" play than typical approaches to D&D, in at least two ways: it does not depend on a notion of "adventure" - as the examples I've already posted of Aedhros, Alicia and Thoth illustrate, play can unfold just by focusing on the PC's living their lives; the priorities can pertain to matters beyond adventuring and looting and solving problems and mysteries, and so the stakes of situations can be very personal, or low stakes from the point of view of other people in the setting. For instance, a scene in which one character tries to persuade another to mend his dented armour can have as much heft in play a a scene in which the two characters fight for their lives against some Orcs.

I think that it does toggling between personal/intimate play and epic play particularly well. Here are some two 1-on-1 APs that demonstrate this flexibility nicely:

1) Ölrun's Journey, which involves a young woman who has unleashed the dispossessed soul of the undying emperor of Constantinople into the world.

2) Master Si Juk, Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, in which Si Juk ties up some loose ends after saving the world. Luke Crane's running and writing up this one, and although BWHQ's standing position on it is that it's not au courant with the current rules or their current play, I still think it's useful. It does show how one might run a dungeon in BW, and I particularly like the way that engaging with the system can be held until the last possible moment in a scene.

 

[SableWyvern]

...seriously? You really need me to dig up the quotes? Fine.


I stand corrected. You, personally, have not done so nearly as often as I thought. But you have in fact used it, yourself, to refer to something. For your consideration, all bold added for emphasis:






Five different participants who have all used this description.

So, do you genuinely have a problem with anything I actually said in the post of mine you quoted? Or do you just have some problem with the word "objective", regardless the context it's used in?

As others have chimed in, we're not using the word to say our games are objectively better than others. We're talking about objectively assessing outcomes within the framework of the established facts of our individual, imaginary game worlds. And even within that context, I clearly stated that I'm not 100% objective.

 

[The Firebird]

I think, as a practical matter, it is impossible for a GM to actually detail all the resource, capabilities, constraints etc that apply to an organisation of (say) 100 members, that operates with a high degree of coordination across multiple locations, and with a high degree of capacity to generate its own materiel, obtain materiel and intelligence from others, etc.

This is a task on a par with trying to create an imaginary history/account of an organisation like (say) the Templars in the 12th century.

That is not what I am demanding of the GM. I suggested that it would be nice (not required) to have a list of magic items available to a faction in a low magic setting. I.e., where an entire faction may have 1-3 such items.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

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

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.

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?

Why would you assume that feeling doesn't exist in Narrativist play? I mean, for one thing, it is not the case that SETTING is all defined in relation to the characters. Blades in the Dark is set in Doskvol, a fully realized dark fantasy city situated in the ruins of a mostly dead world at the end of time, after a magical apocalypse. It is richly imagined and quite detailed in many respects.

Yet the SITUATIONS which confront the PCs are not drawn up beforehand by the GM. Circumstances are, in a general sense, established by the setting. The players then imagine the specifics as they relate to their crew, and the GM frames specific scenes and many of the associated details as required. The world of Doskvol seems quite real in play, nothing about it is less 'realistic' in any sense I can discern than Rob Conley's Wilderlands.

I think a lot of the problem that some of us with a lot of Narrativist experience have when we get into these discussions is that there seems to be this deeply entrenched set of misconceptions and mischaracterizations, and a sort of ideology that seems to have formed for, basically, the purpose of putting forth these rather empty objections. Outside of these discussions I find those objections non-existent. In all the time I've played I've yet to actually meet someone who sat down and played a game like Dungeon World and then had this sort of reaction.

I guess we could hypothesize that the population of posters here is highly selected for an unusual type of player. That may be true, but TBH I feel more like there's a kind of echo chamber going on.

 

[Maxperson]

Who decided that there were guards on the wall, to be insulted?

The general tenor of the posts from @Lanefan, @AlViking, @The Firebird, @Micah Sweet and @robertsconley is that the GM does: first, the GM authors the setting; then, the GM presents the setting to the players prompted by what the players have their PCs do. Eg the players say, "We ride up to the town" and so the GM responds "OK, as you come to the gate you see guards."

If you're talking about something different from this, you're going to have to spell it out for me.

It's only the initial description that the DM offers up first. After that, it's all in response to player actions and declarations. The DM is reactive, having to shift and weave at the desires of the group who can change direction or goals at any time.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

So you disagree that presentation and intention of design is the salient difference here?

Look, I'm saying that NPCs are NPCs in all sorts of play, and in none of them are a substantial percentage fleshed out beforehand. So to label the NPCs in, say, Dungeon World, as 'color', but the same non-descript NPCs in City State of the Invincible Overlord as somehow 'more realistic' or 'deeper characters' in some way seems absurd to me.