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

[zakael19]

This points to something else that might be a disconnect: in order to get not-obvious information and answers, how much in-character effort (if any) do the PCs have to exert?

Some, like me, want to see the characters' level of knowledge more or less match the degree of effort they put out in-game to obtain such knowledge. That means the players have to ask questions and-or have their characters do some research, and we have to play this through

Others, it seems, are willing to give the characters loads of information on any inquiries or even if no inquiries are made; either because they find the info-gathering process dull or because info-gathering is usually low-stakes stuff.

What this latter approach soft-prohibits are the sometimes very entertaining situations where PCs go roaring into an adventure without nearly enough information and things go completely sideways because of this.

OSR tells you to be generous with information, if not outright then in helping the players figure out how they can find it (sages, wise folk, whatever). It wants to see what the players do with that information, while encouraging players to step through the uhh, landmark-hidden-secret stuff.

Dungeon World games generally have a pair of moves, one of which is intended to give immediately actionable information about the environment (Ok, I search the shelves around the wizard's bed - surely the trinket we're looking for is here somewhere! Alright, seek insight? Yeah! [roll a 7-9 for one question] "ok, I ask: what here is useful or valuable to me?"), the other is one that is consulting your accumulated knowledge for something interesting or useful, although you need to say how you know that fact.

We do this because we want to see the character take actions from information, not the actions the characters do to find information so much! Now, an adventure to find information can be very interesting - it's a classic of novels and such. But it's usually fraught with danger or montages or like, summed up with "Zarbad spent the afternoon pouring over texts until, suddenly, he found what he was looking for!"

 

[robertsconley]

Yeah, I think the type of game I'm talking about... such as the Blades game I talked about... is a creative collaboration

My only problems with that phrase: one, is that it kind of applies to all RPGs... it's just a matter of to what part of play it's applied. Two, and more importantly, it often then gets described as some kind of shared storytelling or "writer's room" which I don't think is accurate.

You have a specific type of creative collaboration in mind, so I think it makes sense for you to create a term that best serves your goals. After all, we’re discussing your creative approach and its nuances.

 

[Lanefan]

Yeah, that's not true. I'm not saying that every moment of play is a 10 out of 10, but that's what I'm pushing for. The idea that there must be boring bits to have fun bits is... a bad take, I think. It seems an argument for mediocrity.

To me that's like saying an action movie has to be all full-blast action all the time, without any slowdowns for character development or plot development or (meta) to let the audience catch their breath after that last blast of light and sound. No sense of rise-and-fall pacing.

Think about @Faolyn 's example where her crew spent (most? all?) of a session engaged in roleplaying their characters talking over tea with, it seems, very limited if any stakes involved. From an external point of view that might not sound very exciting but in the there-and-then of that session it could have been (and by the sound of it, was) wonderful.

As DM, if-when these sort of moments arise from the run of play I'm not going to deny them from occurring just so we can "get on with it" (whatever "it" is); and I hold that denying them would show me to be DMing very poorly.

 

[Bedrockgames]

I mean ethics in the sense of a world view, an ethos. Both that characters have them and the players at the table can mutually comprehend and enjoy an ethos in action, in conflict with another ethos, and the consequences it has. (which to me, is Narrativism in a nutshell)

I am not 100% sure I follow, but this sounds much more deliberate than what happens in my games. My games are definitely built around grudges and conflict, but this sounds like you are going in a different direction

 

[Bedrockgames]

OSR tells you to be generous with information....

Which OSR do you have in mind here? There are tons of different schools of thought on this stuff even within the OSR

 

[Bedrockgames]

This points to something else that might be a disconnect: in order to get not-obvious information and answers, how much in-character effort (if any) do the PCs have to exert?

Some, like me, want to see the characters' level of knowledge more or less match the degree of effort they put out in-game to obtain such knowledge. That means the players have to ask questions and-or have their characters do some research, and we have to play this through

Others, it seems, are willing to give the characters loads of information on any inquiries or even if no inquiries are made; either because they find the info-gathering process dull or because info-gathering is usually low-stakes stuff.

What this latter approach soft-prohibits are the sometimes very entertaining situations where PCs go roaring into an adventure without nearly enough information and things go completely sideways because of this.

My approach is more they know what their characters would know, and they can learn what their characters would be able to learn. Sometimes that needs a random roll because the world is complicated and characters might be knowledgeable themselves.

If we are talking knowledge about the world, I like Knowledge Skills. They can be tricky and have all kinds of problems. But something that comes up in my games a lot is "what do I know about sect X" or "Is there a kung fu technique known to do Y or Z". I generally use ranks in Knowledge Sects here or Knowledge Martial Disciplines. If it is easy to know and they have a rank. Sure they know it. If it is more difficult to know, then a roll might be called for. And some information in a setting is you only know it if you get it (if it isn't generally knowledge for example, but something specific, like only Feast Beetle Li knows where their friend has been buried alive; or if it is secret knowledge). When it comes to stuff like exploration and investigations, I think direct interaction with the environment and people is the way to go

 

[Faolyn]

I don't see it as possible to disentangle the two.

Even if 2 GMs run the same published world, they will extremely rapidly become two separate entities.

It's the difference between:

GM: At the end of the corridor are two doors, one on the right and one on the left.

and

GM: At the end of the corridor are two doors. The one on the right is made of thick oak, carved with leering faces, and it has a sturdy looking lock on it. The once-fancy decorative hinges are tarnished from disuse, but still appear strong. The door's handle is strangely warm to the touch and almost seems to vibrate under your hand, and from behind the door wafts a foul, musky scent. You get a foreboding feel just looking at the door.

Player: What about the other door?

GM: It's just a door.

In other words, one is just there, and the PCs can go there or not, and the other clearly has the GM telling the PCs whether they should try to interact with it or should try to avoid it.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

To me that's like saying an action movie has to be all full-blast action all the time, without any slowdowns for character development or plot development or (meta) to let the audience catch their breath after that last blast of light and sound. No sense of rise-and-fall pacing.

Think about @Faolyn 's example where her crew spent (most? all?) of a session engaged in roleplaying their characters talking over tea with, it seems, very limited if any stakes involved. From an external point of view that might not sound very exciting but in the there-and-then of that session it could have been (and by the sound of it, was) wonderful.

As DM, if-when these sort of moments arise from the run of play I'm not going to deny them from occurring just so we can "get on with it" (whatever "it" is); and I hold that denying them would show me to be DMing very poorly.

There's nothing wrong with some exposition and interaction with low stakes. Narrativist games even directly invoke this sort of play. Stonetop literally has a move which describes it. So does TB2e IIRC. However, at a certain point it starts to detract from play, and IME that usually happens pretty soon! If people are literally preferring to spend entire sessions chatting without any stakes at all it makes me wonder about how engaging play actually is!

 

[pemerton]

you only know what's really good, because you know what bad sounds like.

I don't think there's much truth in this.

 

[Lanefan]

I've give my opinion on this before but if you're making decisions based on established fiction then by definition you aren't railroading.

My definition of railroading.

Railroading = ignoring the established fiction to get to a story outcome you want

I think for some (or even many?) the definition also includes "establishing the fiction to get to a story outcome you want", such as the ol' quantum Ogres problem where the DM wants you to meet Ogres and thus no matter which path you take you're gonna meet those damn Ogres.

A DM ignoring established fiction is usually pretty easy for halfway-attentive players to pick up on. Changing not-yet-established fiction that the players don't know about in order to get to a desired story or outcome is far more insidious, and often harder to detect.