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

[Faolyn]

I think you probably know the answer to that. A game in which we endlessly diced for every low-probability event would obviously be unplayable. We'd be rolling d1000000 all day to see if you suddenly died of a blood clot too. Narrativist systems focus on the questions which are important to them. This is neither more nor less realistic overall, it simply provides me with a more authentic seeming experience. It also helps insure that the gist of play is not wandering off in some uninteresting direction.

I didn't ask about "every" low-probability event. I asked about one event--falling in love or lust--that can cause just as much action and tension and interest and authenticity as being afraid does.

Does BW want to go in that direction?

 

[AlViking]

Wait. Have you like, never read a fantasy book that uses phrases like "his bowels turned to water / he was paralyzed with fear / she cringed away from ... / his blood boiled / she was filled with incredible melancholy from the... / his sword seemed to fly into his hand as he struck out in rage?"

Like, we way under use tests against Willpower or whatever you want to call it to avoid this stuff in the genre writ large; it's all over heroic and less so fiction.

I had to say goodbye to my cat last night, my eyes have been filling up with tears throughout the day today without me wanting that and I have to fight for control. The other day a piece of technology just wouldn't work and I got really frustrated at it. Yet we seem to never want our games to reflect stuff like this, except via emoting.

If I think my character would be afraid, sad or frustrated they are. But I am the author of my character, not the GM and not the rules of the game.

I get frustrated all the time that doesn't mean I throw my laptop out the window.

 

[zakael19]

I didn't ask about "every" low-probability event. I asked about one event--falling in love or lust--that can cause just as much action and tension and interest and authenticity as being afraid does.

Does BW want to go in that direction?

Is it a conflict? If they have a Belief that can be tested, sounds good! I spoke at length in a couple other threads here recently about struggling with uncertainty around romance within games, because I don't want to envision that inside Conflict Resolution; but generally mechanics to resolve uncertainty are in that space. I Can see a belief of a knightly sort being like "I must win Adelia's true love!" as a belief and that generating a ton of play.

 

[zakael19]

If I think my character would be afraid, sad or frustrated they are. But I am the author of my character, not the GM and not the rules of the game.

I get frustrated all the time that doesn't mean I throw my laptop out the window.

So you distain all effects that say you're stunned/frightened/etc? You treat your character like a rational Econ, never asking yourself "huh, let's see how they'll react here?" Very neotrad/OC I guess.

 

[Bedrockgames]

So you distain all effects that say you're stunned/frightened/etc? You treat your character like a rational Econ, never asking yourself "huh, let's see how they'll react here?" Very neotrad/OC I guess.

It is just a different approach. He is just saying he wants control over how his character reacts. And sometimes that might mean he thinks a given character would be more fearful, but another more brave. Again both approaches can work. There isn't one right or better way here.

 

[zakael19]

It is just a different approach. He is just saying he wants control over how his character reacts. And sometimes that might mean he thinks a given character would be more fearful, but another more brave. Again both approaches can work. There isn't one right or better way here.

Sure, ok. It's just seems to be such a contradiction to want the GM to be in total control of a living "realistic" (genre conforming in the conversation) world, but never stop to question that being in total control of your character with the ever present exception of spells/combat abilities doesn't fit that model.

I would understand it more in a neotrad narrative play space, where you're out to tell a grand heroic story that circles around the characters-as-protagonists in a world centered around them.

 

[Maxperson]

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.

Yeah. I agree with all of that.

 

[Faolyn]

Wait. Have you like, never read a fantasy book that uses phrases like "his bowels turned to water / he was paralyzed with fear / she cringed away from ... / his blood boiled / she was filled with incredible melancholy from the... / his sword seemed to fly into his hand as he struck out in rage?"

Like, we way under use tests against Willpower or whatever you want to call it to avoid this stuff in the TTRPG space writ large; it's all over heroic and less so fiction.

I had to say goodbye to my cat last night, my eyes have been filling up with tears throughout the day today without me wanting that and I have to fight for control. The other day a piece of technology just wouldn't work and I got really frustrated at it. Yet we seem to never want our games to reflect stuff like this, except via emoting.

I'm very sorry about your kitty.

But don't forget: Burning Wheel not only causes your character to feel afraid based on an on-the-fly decision by the GM, but also causes your character to be unable to perform actions for a length of time, without any apparent way to snap out of that state. In other words, the GM's arbitrary decision and a poor die roll means you're out of action for multiple rounds.

In the example that @pemerton gave, Player 1 "put on their GM hat and insisted" (their words) that Player 2 have to make a Steel check in order to kill an NPC because she felt that he should hesitate--even though Player 2 had the Instinct "a hurt for a hurt" and the Belief "I will never admit I was wrong"--and then Player 1 used the time when Player 2 was out of commission to cast a mind-control spell on him.

For a game that's supposedly player-driven, this seems quite ready to ignore player agency.

To me, there's a big difference between "this bad thing happened and you feel sad, so you should RP that" and "this thing happened and because of it, I've decided you can't use any of your abilities."

 

[Faolyn]

Is it a conflict? If they have a Belief that can be tested, sounds good! I spoke at length in a couple other threads here recently about struggling with uncertainty around romance within games, because I don't want to envision that inside Conflict Resolution; but generally mechanics to resolve uncertainty are in that space. I Can see a belief of a knightly sort being like "I must win Adelia's true love!" as a belief and that generating a ton of play.

No, not as a particular conflict or belief, but built into the actual game's mechanics, in the way that Burning Wheel has decided that people should hesitate before killing someone.

 

[thefutilist]

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'd also expect a good chunk of Narrativist leaning people to be put off by personality mechanics as well, for the exact same type of reason. Declaring your characters priorities and declaring what changes them and in response to what, is pretty much the avenue of expression in a lot of rpg's.