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

[pemerton]

Not if they lose the argument, according to the example I read. You lose the battle of wits, your choice to go against the winner's wishes is curtailed.

Hang on.

Upthread, you posted the Gimli could choose. And so, in BW, a player can choose.

Obviously, it's possible that someone (say, Legolas) might remonstrate with Gimli, and try to persuade him to refrain from acting on his preference. That can happen in BW too.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Do you mean like how failing in combat in D&D requires you to play your character as dead?

If you thinking losing an argument should restrict your PCs choices as much as dying would, I really don't know how to proceed.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I disagree. It's not that we sat down to tell a story, and then decided it would be more fun with rules. We sat down to play a game, and decided it would be more fun with some roleplaying.

I definitely see my play as more of a game than a story. But for me exploring the setting as your character is the core of the experience.

 

[pemerton]

If you thinking losing an argument should restrict your PCs choices as much as dying would, I really don't know how to proceed.

I didn't say "as much". Obviously, being dead precludes a wide range of action. Whereas being led, here and now, to do X, doesn't preclude as wide a range of action.

My point is that it is hardly a radical innovation in game play to have mechanical processes that can result in the player's freedom of action declaration being curtailed.

 

[pemerton]

I definitely see my play as more of a game than a story. But for me exploring the setting as your character is the core of the experience.

Whereas, interestingly, the sort of RPGing you do seems to me far more story than game.

 

[pemerton]

While my character is alive and functioning and capable of making its own decisions, however, player agency says those decisions are mine to make as its player.

<snip>

the decision to commit - or at least attempt - that in-fiction murder should be mine and mine alone assuming no-one else's character does something in the fiction to interpose and maybe stop me...or beat me to it!

You're just restating the rules of D&D, and similar games, as if they're universal.

They're not. As has already been posted upthread, Pendragon departed from them 40 years ago! Something that was done in RPGing in 1985 hardly counts, today, as some radical departure from tradition.

 

[Old Fezziwig]

They're not. As has already been posted upthread, Pendragon departed from them 40 years ago! Something that was done in RPGing in 1985 hardly counts, today, as some radical departure from tradition.

Pendragon is actually a little more hardcore than BW is: "In crises, individuals act according to character, not choice. At times, players will not want their characters to do something, but free choice is not always possible" and "Whever a character receives a failed personality trait roll his player must then attempt to roll the opposite trait. If that roll succeeds then the character acts accordingly" (both KAP 1e PB 53).

To paraphrase Luke Crane, whatever new ideas we think we have in gaming, Greg Stafford did it first.

 

[Micah Sweet]

That would be a more compelling argument if there was an engine on the other side that offered the same gameplay loop without that flaw.

If we have to adopt an entirely different structure of game to avoid it, then you haven't actually offered a solution. Maybe it's a cursed problem, but pointing that out doesn't do anything to actually persuade players or designers to abandon their play/design goals.

I really hope no one's trying to do that! Seems like a complete waste of time to try to get anyone here to change their mind after close to 5,000 posts!

 

[Old Fezziwig]

I really hope no one's trying to do that! Seems like a complete waste of time to try to get anyone here to change their mind after close to 5,000 posts!

Micah, I thought I was close to changing your mind. No?

 

[Micah Sweet]

Clear point of delineation between viewpoints, then. If the DM is the final arbiter, you’re playing the DM. That’s the point of the game.

I don't recall reading that in any of my DM-run games.