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

[pemerton]

The two biggest and easiest-to-see red flags:

Inconsistencies in rulings e.g. when the same situation comes up twice, making a different ruling the second time and ignoring the precedent set by the ruling he made the first time.

Inconsistencies in setting details e.g. this village had a good blacksmith when we were here a week ago but not only is there no blacksmith here now, the villagers claim there's never been one here and they've always had to go over to Dhaskati (another village) for their smithing. Done once, this can sometimes represent an adventure hook or a mystery to solve; done repeatedly it's just an inconsistent DM.

Isn't it fairly clear that these don't really speak to @hawkeyefan's concern and question?

I mean, avoiding these sorts of errors is GMing 101. But what @hawkeyefan is asking about is consistency as a constraint on framing and on consequence narration, such that players can take advantage of it to declare actions that allow them to control the unfolding fiction.

 

[Lanefan]

Doesn't this conflict with stuff you have said to me in the past, where you want characters that grow organically over time and which aren't pre-planned perfectly from the beginning?

If you already know truly everything there is to know about your character, how can that happen? It seems like you want to have your cake and eat it too. The story of the character can only arise out of the actions they take--a reflection-back, never in-the-moment and definitely not in advance--but everything that could ever affect those actions must be perfectly nailed down, by you, in advance!

Fair comment.

What I've been trying to skate around is having to get into just how much I detest and revile the sort of introspective angsty self-reflection that some see as "character development" or "learning about one's character" and that some of these games seem to expect the players to engage in within the fiction.

I'll stop there, because if I go on I'll use lots of blue words leading to red text.

Can it, though? Like do we actually expect every player to perfectly produce every social behavior they engage in, at the table, every single time?

No, but I expect the game to get out of the way and give them the opportunity to do so if they can; and of course nobody expects perfection when good enough will do.

I sure as hell don't, and I would find it more than a little funny to be told "no no no, you have to actually sing an actual song of inspiration every single time you inspire an ally, and it has to be actually inspirational too, or else it doesn't count." I would be extremely unamused if that were not revealed to be a ridiculous joke, and were instead the literal requirement.

I'd do it, just for kicks! Besides, having to listen to me sing a few times would be more than enough encouragement to drop that rule like a hot potato.

But isn't it already the case that social/mental mechanics apply to PCs the same as NPCs? Both can lie to one another, using Deception vs Insight. There has been no huge wave of antagonism against this. Similarly with Intimidate; there are frequently mechanical consequences for failing to resist Intimidation, and (for example) a Battle Master Fighter NPC who uses Goading Attack or Menacing Attack on a PC unquestionably affects that PC's actions if the PC fails a Wisdom saving throw, even though all Battle Master maneuvers are perfectly mundane.

As far as I know, in D&D the "social skills" such as intimidation, persuasion, etc. are intended for PC use only, against NPCs or monsters. It was certainly that way in 3.xe and I don't think it has changed since. Players retain the right to decide if such things work against their PCs.

Some of the combat stuff does work both ways, agreed.

 

[SableWyvern]

Consider even a relatively trivial interaction: frustrated with the village blacksmith, my PC berates them. This could result in the blacksmith relenting and giving my PC what they want. Or it could result in the blacksmith bristling, and freezing my PC out. Either is possible. If the GM is at liberty to choose which (or whether some other reaction I haven't thought of in this post) occurs, how is the player to know which will occur?

If you, @pemerton, berate a local mechanic, this could result in the mechanic relenting and giving you what you want. Or, it could result in the mechanic bristling, and refusing to do further business with you. Either is possible. If the mechanic is at liberty to react in either fashion (or in some other way you haven't thought of), how are you to know which will occur?

This is not in any way intended to be a smart-alec response. I genuinely don't understand why you expect that, in this hypothetical sandbox where the interaction with the blacksmith is taking place, you should always know what the exact outcome of your actions are before the outcomes occur, any more than in my real-world restatement of the scenario. Just like in the real world, consequences follow actions, they don't precede them.

If you know the blacksmith well, or the character makes an effort to gather information about the blacksmith's demeanour, or picks up on some kind of cues during the conversation, you may be able to predict the reaction. But if you just launch into a berating, you won't know how they will react. You (as a player) have chosen to throw caution to the wind and accept consequences you can't predict.

As GM, I will take whatever information I know about the blacksmith, consider the the way you go about berating thenm, contemplate possible responses and, quite probably implement some kind of mechanic to guide my decisions (whether an old school style reaction roll, an intimidate skill check or what-have-you) and combine those to make a call and then roleplay the blacksmith's response.

If you're a tough guy and you know that blacksmith is easily intimidated and you've got something specific and embarassing to throw at them, they'll probably back down. In such a situation, the player can be confident of such a response -- they know the blacksmith is likely to back down for the same reason their character knows it (although there is always a very small chance the blacksmith chooses this day to grow a spine; if you go around antagonising people, you have to consider that at some point someone might bite back).

But, again, if you go in blind and berate someone you know nothing about, you probably won't be able to predict the response, and that is the game functioning as intended.

 

[Lanefan]

Isn't it fairly clear that these don't really speak to @hawkeyefan's concern and question?

No. Hawkeyefan asked what seemed like a straightforward question and even though I wasn't who was asked, I answered it anyway.

I mean, avoiding these sorts of errors is GMing 101.

You'd think so, right? And yet those errors keep being made.

But what @hawkeyefan is asking about is consistency as a constraint on framing and on consequence narration, such that players can take advantage of it to declare actions that allow them to control the unfolding fiction.

I'd say there it's more a question of, even if the players can't connect the dots in the here and now, the DM is able to explain later how the dots in fact connect and have it be consistent with the already-established fiction. A warning sign that this might not be the case is if I-as-player am too often asking "How did action A produce consequence R without us noticing it go through at least some of the intervening letters of the alphabet?"

 

[Umbran]

Most players don't want their characters to be mind controlled by an NPC or other PC, especially when it's not magical in origin.

The point is that players don't typically actively want any particular negative outcome. But, they exist as part of games, in general. Some are more traditional, and we accept them more easily, but in base principle, there's not a whole lot of difference between them.

Also, you're probably aware that in many games, death is something that needs to be agreed upon by the player--and D&D 5e itself makes death notoriously easy to avoid because more and more players nowadays aren't cool with their characters getting killed because of a random die roll.

Sure. I play some of them - Fate, Sentinels Comics RPG, and some others.
But, I used death merely as a common example, such that your focus on it misses the general point.

 

[Old Fezziwig]

Is he allowed to come and (try to) steal the horse back later that night?

It's not impossible, but it runs the risk of undermining the successful haggle, so it'd really depend on what's at stake in the game and what the character's beliefs are. Because getting your intent on a successful roll is sacrosanct in BW, I'd personally be disinclined to have this happen that night and save it as an option for later (maybe as a result of a failed roll).

 

[TwoSix]

Yeah, this entire branch of gaming chose to move beyond "mutual agreement" for resolving player vs player conflict; and welcome the unwelcome (the idea that most people will very rarely willingly choose to make things worse for themselves/their characters) intruding into play via neutral mandatory mechanics.

I think few other games focus on a character's internal beliefs and drives being the premise of play and the core thing you're always resting stakes on though? I think it's very cool to have that idea of giving that character some life and space of their own from where you sit as a player - letting them be more then just an extension of your imagination.

I like a more flowing novel-esque narrative play from my moment to moment conversation, which is why DW-esques are my Vibe rn, but I can see how Burning Wheel would lead to some really intense character moments where the suspense is around what will the cost be to follow your beliefs, or how will they change.

Agreed. And I think if you're playing a game derived from a wargame/dungeon-solving background, where the goal of play is solve the dungeon and level up, then rules that limit your character's agency to complete that solve with expediency would be problematic for the play experience. Like, I wouldn't want to do an escape room where I also have to check every 10 minutes if I get too bored to continue!

I think communication breaks down a little bit because some players simply haven't experienced a game where the gameplay isn't oriented around either solving, and others are familiar but simply find the concept to be no good. Their orientation of not just play, but their experience of fantasy fiction as a whole, is oriented around protagonist suffers but eventually triumphs as opposed to "protagonist only has a partial victory or fails entirely*.

 

[TwoSix]

Even suppose that the player (and their PC) know the blacksmith to be proud (of their skill, of their work, of their status, etc): does this mean that they are more likely to bristle? Or that, if I point out how on this occasion they are falling short of their standards (shoddy work, slow work, whatever it is that is frustrating my PC), then they will step up their effort in order to conform to their self-imposed standards? Either seems possible, and realistic. But if the GM is allowed to choose either, then what sort of control am I, as a player, exercising over the fiction?

Or to attempt to make this super-pithy. *Play to find out is not agency. Deciding or directly influencing what happens next is agency."

 

[Umbran]

It's not like I haven't played them. I played a couple of PBtA games at least. And I've spent a lot of time on this forum on threads full of Narrativist enthusiasts. I just don't like the playstyle associated with those kinds of games.

Remembering that I noted - you get to like what you like.

But, it isn't like my friend hadn't tried cheese dishes before either. It took his not knowing it was a cheese dish for him to give it a fair shake and like it. And even then, when he learned the thing he didn't like was involved, he changed his opinion! The dish he'd just told us was tasty suddenly became unpleasant to him. Nothing about the dish or it's flavor changed. Only his perspective.

This is a pretty common effect - once one has formed an opinion, later examples will tend to be interpreted to conform to that opinion. I can go into the neurology of it, if you like.

 

[TwoSix]

Two thoughts --

(1) I find it's something that's taken me a while to get used to, and I'm still learning. It's not something that's come naturally to me.

(2) I tend to avoid thinking of story during the course of play. It comes after play. I think thinking of it too much during play leads to artificial play, if that makes sense. However we're playing, there'll be a story afterwards. In the meantime, there's a game.

It's a bit of a transition, for sure. But I did find my trad/neotrad oriented games flowed much more smoothly when I started to think of myself as a "scene director" rather than a reality arbiter. Let's fast-forward to the next place, and use metagame framing consciously to keep player oriented around what's happening.

For OSR/NSR type games, I'm much more strict about enforcing a sense of place and sense of time, and letting conflict only be a result of derived processes.