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

[FrozenNorth]

I take it you haven't climbed a lot of rocks? Because unless you have information about a rockface there are plenty of times you don't know if it's solid granite or shale that will break off or an unpredictable aggregate. I don't see a reason it should be any different in a game. I'll let people know if they can't tell how easy the climb is and then it's up to them. No guts no glory.

And if you roll a 1 on your Climb check, that is what happens.

But most cases, it seems to me that a character that is trained in Climbing has a pretty good idea of how difficult a climb is.

 

[Bedrockgames]

It also says "Don't mind the fourth wall"... meaning don't worry about separating what the players know and what the characters know.

I am looking at this section now and to me that reads more like OSR thinking of not worrying about what characters know versus their player in the sense of if the player knows something the character can. But that doesn't mean there isn't a POV going on as you say, explore the dungeon. You are still supposed to be limited to what you could perceive if you are in your character's shoes (I am not saying this is the intent of the PA as I am just looking at that one section now, but I think there is a very different interpretation of this aspect to of old school going on). Here is an example, in some OSR games, if players know vampires can be staked or burned by sunlight, you don't have to be coy because you are challenging the skill of the player not their characters (this isn't necessarily so in all sandboxes but it is something you might see in old school play for sure). But by the same token to up teh challenge, the GM could give a vampire a different weakness, make them immune to sunlight and stakes and the players would have to test their skil by obtaining that information in play

 

[thefutilist]

This is what some of us were saying upthread. Those moments stand out so much, because they are uncommon to rare. The huge moments are fantastic. When those moments are commonplace, none of them stand out from the rest of the game.

It's also not as if we don't have a ton of fun and enjoyment with the normal flow of the game, so it's not like we're bored out of our minds until a huge moment comes up. We're just trucking along have a grand time and when one of those pivotal moments happens, it gets talked about sometimes for years, because it was truly special.

Sure but there probably are people who do want far more of those moments but don't understand how to get them.

And note that it goes both ways. Both Ben Milton and Sandrasan (two people heavily involved in the OSR space), both started off with Narrativist games and then realised they weren't providing them with what they were looking for.

And in this particular instance I didn't mean to imply that Angry GM longed for Narrativism. What was interesting was his inability to situate that moment within context of the Narrativist games he usually derides.

 

[Campbell]

I don't think anyone is wrong about what they would prefer, but I do think people who lack experience say some pretty phenomenal wild things about modes of play that do not have much experience with. I think often what we see is that a lot of folks experience games like Apocalypse World for the first time in the hands of MCs who are not really taking the text seriously or who assume too much skill transfer. Then they are comparing novice level play and GMing to decades of experience running and playing in a way that they are used to. They are not comparing it to what it felt like to first fumble through D&D.

Now I don't think anyone needs to spend years acquiring the skills I have acquired running Apocalypse World but I would ask them to think about it in terms of a craft one gets much better with over time.

That there is also a very big difference between extended play and 1-2 shot vacation games.

 

[AlViking]

It is a good point about freely sharing information. I’m running « Beyond the Crystal Cave » - a fun module that I’ve run several times in the past. The inciting incident is a tribe of elves on the brink of war with a town of human. The elves believe that the humans kidnapped an elf and the humans believe the contrary.

The truth is that the pair eloped but in finding this information out, the party gets involved in Feywild shenanigans. In game, three days have passed. Out of game, it’s been two months, and the players all have jobs and lives and families.

Once the Feywild matters have been resolved, and prior to the party leaving the Feywild, I will remind the party that the elves and the humans are on the brink of war.

A more « living world » stance may be not to remind them and let the chips fall where they may, but such a stance would not be realistic: from the perspective of the characters, it doesn’t make sense that they would forget what they were doing in the Feywild after 3 days.

I regularly remind players of things their characters should remember that they don't. If it's been 2 hours for a character but 3 weeks for a player? Yeah, we all have busy lives and as much as I like to think that my games are so engaging that people never forget a moment of time spent playing, it just doesn't make sense to me to rely on players remembering things that are super important to the characters.

 

[hawkeyefan]

There seems a pretty clear distinction. Go back to the play loop: "the players describe how their characters act, the GM describes how the world responds". All your examples are breaking that line and saying "the system describes how the character acts, the GM describes how the world responds".

Likewise, death or a charm spell is something external that happens to your character. A lack of courage is something internal.

But the lack of courage is caused by something external. And it may be an involuntary response.

Now... some people don't want that in a game. That's fine. I get it. I don't think it belongs in every game. But it makes appeals to how the real world works less convincing.

I'll be honest, if my character is climbing a cliff, I 100% expect to get enough information to know the odds. "You failed a Perception check, so you have a secret -10 penalty to successfully climb the cliff because you didn't notice the rock is crumbling" is play that can get right out of here.

I agree. The uncertainty is present in the result of a die roll.

The GM doesn't choose to withhold information. They decide what information the characters should reasonably have.

These two sentences seem to be contradictory, no?

But what about when it's not so clear cut? I'm not saying that you have to give players information their characters clearly wouldn't have. I'm talking about information the characters could possibly have. How that is determined is the big factor here.

If there is information the characters (and therefore the players) could potentially have, the GM can often choose to provide that information or not.

In D&D if there's uncertainty on whether they know something it's time to roll the dice.

But what's uncertain is kind of up in the air in some cases, no?

But that tension of making decisions occasionally with incomplete information? That's part of the fun of the game for me.

Sure, and I'm not arguing against that.

I take it you haven't climbed a lot of rocks? Because unless you have information about a rockface there are plenty of times you don't know if it's solid granite or shale that will break off or an unpredictable aggregate. I don't see a reason it should be any different in a game. I'll let people know if they can't tell how easy the climb is and then it's up to them. No guts no glory.

So then how does the GM determine how a specific climb needs to be handled? Do you typically determine the type of rock ahead of play? As the GM, you can choose to provide the information, or you can choose to not provide it.

What is your reason for choosing it? Aside from "because that's how the real-world works" because that applies in either case.

 

[Bedrockgames]

But the lack of courage is caused by something external. And it may be an involuntary response.

Now... some people don't want that in a game. That's fine. I get it. I don't think it belongs in every game. But it makes appeals to how the real world works less convincing.

While I was making the point about strong characterization as I think it pertains to agency, I do want to say I don't disagree with what you are saying here. I think this purely preference. And some games are better for including these kinds of things. Especially around something like courage. Because there is a big difference between "this is what I would do if facing a horde of zombies" and how somehow would really behave when their body is flooded with adrenaline and they realize one wrong move means a fate worse than death. I think both approaches can handle this: players just deciding their character is heroic is fine, but I also think there is value in mechanics, even in old school or open sandbox systems, where fear could have an impact on behavior. It boils down to whether you want to explore the reality and/or drama of being courageous or not

 

[The Firebird]

But the lack of courage is caused by something external. And it may be an involuntary response.

Now... some people don't want that in a game. That's fine. I get it. I don't think it belongs in every game. But it makes appeals to how the real world works less convincing.

The stimulus is external. But the mental state is internal. You're letting the system, rather than the player, dictate how the character responds.

In this case it's not about realism. It's about the core gameplay loop; the players describe their characters actions, the GM describes how the world responds.

 

[Micah Sweet]

We don't have to assume it, but we should consider it, especially since exposure to non-trad play isn't particularly common, as I said in an earlier post.

I understand where you're coming from, but that attitude to me feels like saying your preferences are more important than mine in some objective sense. I don't go around imagining that you only like Narrativist play because you haven't played enough classic or traditional.

 

[Campbell]

The stimulus is external. But the mental state is internal. You're letting the system, rather than the player, dictate how the character responds.

In this case it's not about realism. It's about the core gameplay loop; the players describe their characters actions, the GM describes how the world responds.

Right. That is the core gameplay loop for D&D and most conventional RPGs. It's not for a number of games. Including fairly conventional ones like Vampire - The Masquerade, Most 2d20 games, Legend of the Five Rings (Fifth Edition) or Pendragon. It certainly is not the gameplay loop for Apocalypse World.