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

[Faolyn]

I hadn't realised that this was still mysterious at this point.

Burning Wheel supports player-driven RPGing well, because (i) core components of the build of the PCs include priorities, which are chosen by the player, (ii) the GM's principle job is to present situations (= frame scenes) that speak to those priorities, (iii) if nothing is at stake (by reference to those priorities) in a situation then the player's action declarations just succeed (ie play moves on briskly until something is at stake), (iv) action declarations include intent as well as task, and success means that both intent and task are realised - in conjunction with (iii) that means that the players are able to "win" the stakes if they succeed on their checks, (v) failure on a declared action means that the GM narrates what happens, with the key requirement being to negate the player's intent, so failure always reframes the situation in terms of stakes that matter to the player in terms of the priorities that they have chosen for their PC.

Compared to some typical approaches to D&D:

*The GM does not establish situations primarily by reference to pre-authored fiction;​

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*The GM does not look to pre-authored fiction to decide if action declarations succeed or fail;​

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The GM does not need to decide if an action's success is uncertain - rather, the rules dictate that it is uncertain *if something that matters to the PC as authored by the player is at stake;​

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*If a player succeeds on a check, is it not just that the task was successful, but that they get their intent - so the GM can't use pre-authored fiction to take away or undercut the stakes that the player "won".​

There are other differences too; those are some of the more significant ones.

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 what the actual problem here is that you (and some others) think there is only one way to play D&D. Go on adventures, kill monsters, take their stuff. And while that is probably the most common way, it's certainly not the only way. In the D&D game I'm in, we rarely have combat--maybe once every 4-8 sessions. The rest of the time is mostly RP, and a lot of that is "very low stake." We had an session that took place almost entirely at a bardic performance--and that was player choice, since it was the player who sought the performance out. Likewise, in my Level Up game, one player, who was new to the city the game has thus far taken place in, decided she wanted to get an apartment. And thus she and another player or two--and I, the GM--went apartment-hunting.

Heck, I once ran a heavily-modified Curse of Strahd (I didn't like the actual presented adventure) and we spent the better part of a session once having tea. There was an attack by ghouls later on, but the session itself? Tea time.

Likewise, I'm sure that there are going to be chunks of violence or higher-stakes events in BW--that "The Sword" scenario proves that. (And, of course, that entire scenario is GM-driven, since the PCs are plunked down right in front of a quest object).

Now, I'm assuming that when you mean "pre-authored fiction" re: determining if an action fails or succeed, you mean things like target numbers, because that's literally the only thing I can think of. I'll be the first to say I'm no expert in the BW system, but it really seems like BW does that. First, it's clear that different tasks have different difficulties, and that failure means "the intent doesn't come to pass." And it seems like the GM is the one to set the difficulty, which is definitely the same as in D&D. It's just that in D&D, I could "pre-author" the DC by writing down "lock, DC 10 to pick" rather than coming up with the number on the fly and hoping my ADHD-addled brain can be at least vaguely consistent. There's definitely success and failures states, and the book even says "'you fail' should be heard often," which is a far higher amount of antagonism than I've heard from any game that isn't based on Gygaxian D&D.

Honestly, I had been expecting something like "the PC chooses either failure or success with major consequence," so I was surprised when, instead of that, the GM was just encouraged to rules-lawyer phrasing to have PCs succeed. ("But what if that’s changed a bit. Failure doesn’t have to mean the lock doesn’t open. Look at the intent: “before the guards come.” What if the character opens the lock just as the guards arrive? Suddenly, you have trouble—drama and action!")

(What's funny is that the 5.14 DMG actually has sections entitled "success at a cost" and "degrees of failure"--that's on page 242. It's just that people don't read the DMG and bring in their own preconceptions.)

You write "The GM does not need to decide if an action's success is uncertain - rather, the rules dictate that it is uncertain *if something that matters to the PC as authored by the player is at stake;"

I mean, that's literally how most games work, including D&D--again, the DMG even addresses this; some GMs have players roll for everything, some have them only roll during dramatic occasions like combat and leave everything else up to the players to RP out, and most GMs do something in the middle. It's just that D&D presents it as a choice for the GM to make, not as the game's rule.

The game even seems to goes so far as to have the GM decide what the PC should be thinking. While doing a search for how to do tests in BW, I came across this question on the Burning Wheel forum:

OP, asking for clarification on making Steel checks: Does it mean that the Obs to succeed a Steel test is the same for a small jump scare and having to kill your own mother - the scale provided only serves the advancement ?

One responder: When making a test, Hesitation gives you the base Ob, and is modified by the Advantages and Disadvantages for the circumstances. For instance, “being startled by something mundane” gives a +2D advantage, which will lower the relative difficulty of the test. “Committing Murder” gives +2 Ob and will increase the test’s difficult accordingly; if it’s your own mother you’re killing, I’d imagine an even higher penalty is in order!

From what I can tell, with a failed Steel check, the PC simply stops what they're doing--they may run away or stand their being horrified or whatever, but they're not going to continue their murder attempt. OK, sure, lots of games have fright checks or sanity checks, but those are nearly always done because of something supernatural (except in horror games, where merely seeing horrible yet mundane things can call for one). But with BW, it certainly seems as though the GM can arbitrarily decide that that emotionally, this NPC is harder for me to kill than that one.

As someone who runs a lot of horror games, I would assume that any PC who is, of their own volition, trying to kill their mom has a reason for it (mom's actually evil or was abusive, PCs a psychopath who wouldn't actually care about their mom--stuff like that). I may call for a fright or sanity check (depending on game), but only after doing the deed. If the PC was being magically controlled, well, I'd talk to the player about having them be used by their controller to kill people. If they're OK with the idea, then I can see about some sort of saving throw before making the attack to break out of the compulsion. But if a player said "hey, I want to go kill my character's mom," well, the difficulty of that is going to be no different than if she was completely unrelated. It's not up to me, the GM, to decide the PC would freak out when attempting to kill mommy dearest.

OK, I'm sure that "killing your mom" is an extreme example, but it's still an arbitrary penalty for "committing murder."

 

[SableWyvern]

Edit: You know, never mind. The discussion is going absolutely nowhere and there is no point in me perpetuating it.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

You quoted me before I added in my next line:

"Are you suggesting that it's not possible to be in the driver's seat unless the imaginary world has already been realised in every respect to the same degree of fidelity as the real world?"

It seems like you are, which is pretty silly bar, I think.

My point wasn't that it has to be as realized as the real world. My point was that if the GM is placing three or four points of interest...and those are the only meaningful places to go, with everything else being mostly pointless dithering...then there isn't really that much in the way of agency. The GM is still making you go various places.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Because that's wrong. There will be craptons of space on the map for things that the DM didn't create in advance. Like I said, even the Forgotten Realms only details about 1%(or less) of what is in the world. And it's far more detailed than the overwhelming majority of DM created settings.

...

I genuinely don't understand what we're arguing about here then.

You recognize that the only things that are getting details...are the ones the GM filter is allowing through. Everything else gets blocked out for, I cannot stress this enough, purely subjective reasons.

 

[SableWyvern]

My point wasn't that it has to be as realized as the real world. My point was that if the GM is placing three or four points of interest...and those are the only meaningful places to go, with everything else being mostly pointless dithering...then there isn't really that much in the way of agency. The GM is still making you go various places.

And yet, despite my last post, here I am again.

If there are literally only three four things the PCs can do, you don't have a sandbox by any definition I'm aware of. Certainly not the type that people like @Bedrockgames or @robertsconley are talking about.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

And yet, despite my last post, here I am again.

If there are literally only three four things the PCs can do, you don't have a sandbox by any definition I'm aware of. Certainly not the type that people like @Bedrockgames or @robertsconley are talking about.

But we have had several people in this very discussion give such examples--and that any time players go somewhere else, things are generated in response to player action, which has been explicitly held up as an unacceptable standard of the world only occurring because the players are playing!

 

[Maxperson]

...

I genuinely don't understand what we're arguing about here then.

You recognize that the only things that are getting details...are the ones the GM filter is allowing through. Everything else gets blocked out for, I cannot stress this enough, purely subjective reasons.

The players will cause the DM to be responsive and new content will come into being due to the player driven play. I still don't see point of bring up subjectivity. The player driven play is also subjective.

 

[SableWyvern]

But we have had several people in this very discussion give such examples--and that any time players go somewhere else, things are generated in response to player action, which has been explicitly held up as an unacceptable standard of the world only occurring because the players are playing!

I don't understand what you're saying. Who is advocating a living world sandbox where the world consists of three or four adventure sites and nothing else?

 

[EzekielRaiden]

I don't understand what you're saying. Who is advocating a living world sandbox where the world consists of three or four adventure sites and nothing else?

There only are four or five sites. When players look anywhere else, then and only then is something else produced. At which point, you have--as has been explicitly rejected by several posters in this thread--parts of the world being created in response to the PCs, rather than existing "independently" of them.

Things are created in order to make the things the players look into interesting.

 

[mamba]

Within a given scene? Sure, the DM is reacting back and forth. That's true regardless of any kind of RPG, generally. Granted it might be a bit more diffuse in other systems, but, in any system which has a DM/GM, that's how it works. But, when that scene ends, it's right back to the DM initiating and the players reacting.

how is the DM asking ‘where do you want to go next’ / ‘what do you want to do next’ the DM initiating?

Let’s assume the DM brought up 10 rumors and the players pick among those rather than deciding on their own based on what happened so far. You consider these 10 options to be the players reacting and the whole thing therefore being what, a fancy railroad?