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

[Maxperson]

But, that misses the point though. I've told that anecdote before and been told, by multiple people, that I was 100% in the wrong here that I should absolutely trust in the DM and that there was nothing wrong with what the DM did.

Those people were wrong.

 

[Maxperson]

About 5,000 or so posts ago.

 

[robertsconley]

So, instead of arguing with me for pointing out an easily falsifiable statement - "All RPG'S MUST have combat rules that are more complex than social rules" - why don't you argue with the original false statement?

Thinking it might be back further, I did a thread search using the phrase. The only post where that phrase appears is your reply to me.

Search results for query: All RPG'S MUST have combat rules that are more complex

www.enworld.org

But, again, this is another example of why these conversations are so exhausting. The constantly shifting goalposts.

Perhaps your frustration with these conversations is for a reason other than shifting goalposts.

I would recommend that your frustration would be reduced by treating conversations like this one involving combat system and social system as learning opportunities to understand why people make the creative choices they do. Rather than feeling the need to defend when someone makes an assertion you disagree with.

Why?
First off, anybody using MUST as part of a statement about creative choices is engaging in an obvious rhetorical fallacy.
Second, if it could be shown beyond a shadow of a doubt that RPGs are more widely shared or more commercially successful if their combat system is more complex than their social system. It DOES NOT MATTER to your system. It is an average, a mean, it says nothing about the success or failure of any individual system. It is an after-the-fact observation of the creative choices of thousands of hobbyists.

Go back 30 years, then yes, it may matter because we had limited warehouse space, limited store shelf space, with products requiring a large amount of capital to realize. So the risk tolerance was much lower, and those with interesting ideas, like having an RPG with a complex social system but a simple combat, were stillborn.

But that was then; now we live in a post-scarcity economy when it comes to the sale, promotion, and distribution of RPG products. Where the efficiencies of distribution are such that a system and its designer can prosper with an audience in the hundreds.

So I submit there is no need to defend your preferences. The better course is to seek understanding, because there may be a creative insight worth borrowing, regardless of what the source focuses on, or what your preferences focus on.

 

[robertsconley]

So the quote was apparently from Maxperson in reply to @hawkeyefan and went as follows:

And I'm about 95% sure that they were talking solely about D&D, not all games. Also, it appears they were talking about trust between player and DM, not about rules for combat versus rules for social engagement like @Hussar claimed. The rules are needed (or not needed) because of how much trust is between the player and DM, not because combat is inherently more complex than social engagement.

Thank You, and noted. I didn't see your post when I wrote the post previous to this.

 

[Maxperson]

Thank You, and noted. I didn't see your post when I wrote the post previous to this.

Yeah. I certainly never said that you can't or even shouldn't have complex social rules. They aren't needed in my opinion, but you can certainly have them.

 

[Zardnaar]

If a player wants to grind a game to a halt to address an issue, they can, whether or not the GM or the other players want that. It's actually pretty easy.

Unspoken rule my table is rights of the many outweigh the rights of the few.

Players liked that get warned then booted.

They're rare maybe 10% last ten years.

I've got 1 plater he sucked at 5E he's doing reasonably well in 2E.

 

[pemerton]

sometimes, players simply don't do what the GM was hoping they would do

Again, this is a thing I just don't get. It's sounds like a dysfunctional game set up.

Why is the GM hoping for the players to do X rather than Y, if the premise of the game is that the players can do any of X, Y, Z, . . . etc.

Or, to put it another way, if the GM's hope is supposed to be determinative, then why not communicate it up front? Or if it's not - if there is meant to be coordination among participants - then why not actually coordinate?

 

[pemerton]

The vessel

finding a vessel is not, in itself, all that interesting because there doesn't seem to be much of a time crunch or any other threat involved that would make finding or not finding a vessel to be interesting

Huh? As I posted, play had shifted to detailed melee combat resolution: the assassin Halika was still in the room, and the PC Jobe was trying to tackle him.

And what makes it interesting is that the other PC, Tru-leigh the shaman, needs the blood for his Dark Naga master - so if it can't be caught, then he will have failed in his mission. This is an illustration of what is at stake being a function of player-determined priorities for their PC.

chances are at least average that one of the players has a waterskin on them that could be dumped out and used as a vessel.

Burning Wheel PCs are more like people going about their ordinary lives, than "adventurers" decked out with adventuring gear.

In a roundabout way, this does answer my question, which was: who gets to decide if a thing exists? The answer is "nobody." You apparently have to have the dice tell you if it exists. You can't just make it up. Even though Joachim was recuperating in a room in a wizard's tower, which strongly suggests the presence of cups, bowls, vials, and the like, so basic sense tells you should have at least one vessel in it.

The rules of the game are: roll the dice or say "yes". Based on whether or not something is at stake.

If the vessel had been part of the framing, then the roll would have been for something different - because the declared action, hence the task, would have been different.

The armour

Oh, well, in that case you took what could have been an interesting argument about one person wanting to strike off on her own without someone else to protect her and made it into a dull and pointless request to mend armor (pointless because I'm sure there were other smiths he could go to). Awesome.

I am a bit puzzled by your confident pronouncements about others' play that you weren't part of. I don't see why you think an argument about mending armour can't be interesting - I already explained how it spoke to Beliefs of both characters. I also don't know why you think it is pointless. And I don't know on what basis you are conjuring up imaginary smiths, on the frontier between Ulek and the Pomarj.

The argument about trying to prevent someone from going where she wants to go until she satisfies his conditions

There was no such argument. If we're going to do <this thing>, can we first do <this other preparatory thing> isn't preventing anyone from doing something unless they satisfy conditions.

He tried to stop her from doing what she wanted to do without (what he felt was) the proper equipment. This is literally about trying to control where she went.

No it isn't. Telling someone if we're going to go to this place, let's first do <these preparatory things> isn't stopping them from going to that place. It's actually cooperating with them to go to that place.

The attempted murder

You're still ignoring that the player is choosing for her character to Read The Situation, whereas in your BW example, a different player forced the first one to make a Steel test because that other player thought he would balk at killing someone.

No. In my Burning Wheel, game, the GM called for a Steel test because killing in cold blood is the sort of thing that the rules of the game identify as requiring a Steel test, if the other conditions for rolling the dice are met.

Alicia "insisted" he roll it.

Alicia didn't insist on any rolls. She is an imaginary person in a fantasy world; and BW is not a 4th-wall breaking game.

Here is what actually happened:

My group had a session scheduled for today, but due to various vicissitudes only two of us could make it. The other attendee suggested we start a BW game with the two of us making PCs and "round robinning" the GMing.

<snip>

Aedhros entered the room at this point, with Heart-seeker drawn and ready for it to live up to its name. But Alicia thought that killing the innkeeper was a bit much. So first, she used her advantageous position to render the innkeeper unconscious (no check required, given the outcome of the Bloody Versus). Then her player, wearing the GM hat, insisted that I make a Steel check to commit cold-blooded murder.

It was my friend in his capacity as GM, not as the player of Alicia, who insisted on the Steel test. Correctly.

This would be analogous to the MC, in AW, calling for a player to roll to Act Under Fire if they have their PC try and do something contrary to what a successful manipulating PC has tried to get them to do.

I don't know how many times I have to say this, the player is making the choice in AW, and in BW, someone else made the choice for the player.

This is not making any sense to me.

In AW, a character can be manipulated by another character, and as a result end up having to make a roll to act under fire to do a thing they want to do. On a 7 to 9 hit, this can result in faltering or hesitating. On a 6 or less, the GM can make as hard and direct a move as they like.

In Burning Wheel, certain actions - as set out in the rules for Steel - permit the GM to call for a Steel test, if the general conditions for rolling the dice are met. On a failed test, the player chooses a hesitation reaction, one of which is "stand and drool" - ie the PC falters or hesitates.

The minutiae are different. The basic structure is not.

So is this test required every single time a player wants to do something violent?

No. The GM calls for a Steel test when the general rules of the game call for a roll, and when the task the character is attempting is the sort of task that triggers a Steel test. I've already posted the general rules four or five times in this thread; you can find them in the free download of Hubs and Spokes if you are interested.

Also, "You're looking out your window" isn't even remotely the same as "the PC is standing and drooling for four actions." Everything that happens in the AW example you're giving happens at basically the same time.

How long is four action, on the in-fiction clock in Burning Wheel?

(Answer: 4 heart beats; 3 to 4 seconds. How long is Marie looking out her barred window, wishing it were an escape route? Long enough for Plover et al to shove a cooked-off grenade through her door. Probably 3 to 4 seconds.)

What did it cost me in actual play? Nothing! (Other than that my attempt to have Aedhros murder the innkeeper was thwarted.) Aedhros was the centre of the action the whole time. It was Aedhros who carried the unconscious Alicia out of the room and down to the docks.

General principles

Then they're useless. If my belief is that I'm never wrong, then I'm not going to suddenly think maybe I shouldn't kill this person.

You can see how Beliefs work too, if you like, in the free download of Hub and Spokes. I've given multiple examples in this thread too.

They're not useless. Just as one (among many) examples of their utility, they allow avoiding both the issues you've mentioned in this thread (the Changeling game and the Ravenloft game). as well as @Hussar's issue with KotB. Because they coordinate between players and GM as to what play is actually going to be about.

That's far too self-centered for my tastes. How do the players know that the kobold fighting ring won't be something that interests or angers them? How do they know that it won't tie into their interests further down the line?

The point of BW play is not to focus on things that the GM hopes will be interesting. It's for the GM to frame scenes that speak to the priorities that the players have established for their PCs. The game isn't confused about this - it comes out and states it in the opening pages of the rulebook.

If you want to play a GM-driven game, where the GM introduces things with the hope that the players will find them interesting, and the player are expected to engage with that stuff with the thope that, down the track, it will connect to some aspiration they have for their PC, then BW is not the game for you!

 

[AnotherGuy]

Now, I've told this story before on these boards and had multiple people say that the DM is not, in any way, railroading here. This was just the "objective" results of the campaign. The group quit on the spot. We all, as a group, thanked the DM politely and walked. The DM continued to have quite successful games with other groups that swore up and down that she wasn't railroading.

I tend to look at a possible silver-lining in all this where you say she ran successful games after that...perhaps having a table walk out on her was a teachable moment. I mean I imagine that is quite significant to experience as a DM.

So we all have horror stories were we were the villains, in this case it looks like something good came of it.
Hopefully we learn from our mistakes (and maybe she did too in that instance).

 

[Hussar]

It does appear that I have had a reading fail. So...

Yeah, it's time for me to walk away from this thread. Y'all have a good one.