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

[Faolyn]

I have no experience with BW, but this just sounds like a roundabout way of saying, "I don't want to play Burning Wheel, but if I did play anyway, I'd do it without buying into the premise and actively trying to subvert it."

If the game is about creating a character with beliefs that will cause problems, trying to design a character who doesn't experience problems is akin to making a bloodthirsty, angry, rude, blunt, psychopath who only solves problems with brute force, when the GM pitches a game about careful plotting and subtle political intrigue.

If you don't like the premise, don't play. Much as I've been saying to people who don't want to give authority over the world to the GM in a game where the GM will have authority over the world. It's OK to just say, "That's not for me, but you have fun with it."

In this case, "finding a cup in a room that, by all logic, should have several in it" isn't a problem.

Take a look at the scenario pemerton brought up: A PC is in thrall to a dark naga, who is demanding blood sacrifice, and there's an assassin on the loose.

Those are great problems! The PC has to deal with the ramifications of having a naga master and how it affects his everyday life while keeping it a secret from everyone--I am assuming that this sort of thing is, at the least frowned upon by society, and it may even be so that he would be executed if this was discovered, even by close associates. What will happen if he tries to cut ties with the naga? What will happen if he tries to demand more power from the naga? And why was the assassin after the wounded guy? Are they after anyone else? Who hired the assassin? Why did the assassin cut off their target's head instead of slitting his throat or poisoning his pain meds? Was it to send a message?

There is so much drama here. So much possibility for intense roleplay between the other PCs as they uncover his secrets and as they learn about the assassination. And this is just in two plot points--I imagine that every PC is bringing in just as much, if not more. It sounds potentially amazing.

And the PC has to roll to see a cup.

 

[AlViking]

Y'know the funny this is is that I've played relatively little D&D in my life. My first game was a con game held by TSR, but my first gaming groups focused on Star Wars d6, World of Darkness, and GURPS, and I'd only played the very occasional session of AD&D. Prior to 5e, I'd only played in one D&D campaign, for 3e (not even 3x) and we skipped 4e entirely. And now we have several PbtA games going on, and will hopefully be starting another one as a PbB. Plus, I've played in or run tons of other games as well of a variety of system types.

So no, I'm not defaulting to (A)D&D. I'm defaulting to the idea presented in nearly every game I've ever read, including bits you've posted about Burning Wheel: Don't have players roll for trivial things.

Having a player roll to see something that is out in the open--particularly since you said you gave it a especially low target number--is trivial. Especially since there are more interesting uncertainties to roll for.

To me another big issue is whether or not the player could have prepared for the scenario, something that's never been answered. They know they need to collect blood at some point, why would they not bring a vessel to do just that wherever they went? If it's just not part of the game, that's fine. To me the approach is so different from the loose simulation approach of D&D that there really is no comparison.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I think the sticking point is "the world around them is doing stuff". I think that's really a critical difference between the orientations of play.

What the "world around them is doing stuff" means, from my perspective (and from reading various sandbox games oriented books, like Kevin Crawford's X without Number series), is this.

The GM has created a model of a setting. This model is mostly mental, but often supported by physical notes and tools (campaign wikis, encounter tables, gazetteers, maps, etc.). This model is generally focused on important factions, nations, NPCs, etc.

The living world GM is taking this model and then running an objective (although there are differences in opinion in how much objectivity is possible) SimCity/Paradox strategy style set of mental heuristics, possibly supplemented by physical tools, to determine what these various factions and NPCs are doing, how they're interacting, and crucially, what impact the PC actions will have on these interactions and how these interactions will possibly impact the fictional space the PCs currently inhabit.

What this means at the table is that this process will result in new encounters or scenes, and critically these encounters/scenes are NOT generated as a direct result of PC's desires or actions. They can of course be an indirect result, but they are not being generated as directly pursuant/focused on PC goals.

They are the needs of the setting to invoke its own agency on the shared narrative. Because if the setting doesn't have its own demonstrated agency, then how else do you demonstrate at the table that the world is really living and operating under its own heuristics?

Hard to argue with that, to be fair. But I don't see what that has to do with the ability of the players to do what they want in the setting through their PCs. If anything that gives them more stuff to do, with the awesome added benefit of the world not feeling like it exists solely as a backdrop for player action.

 

[AlViking]

...

Why?

If a player does not have control over the action their character takes [they must succeed on a steel roll in order to murder someone], I view that as abdicating agency to the rules of the game. The player therefore has no agency.

 

[robertsconley]

There are many folks for whom those are not different things.

That doesn’t change the fact that I use specific techniques to run a World in Motion campaign. Those techniques fundamentally differ from a referee saying, “I’m deciding this because I feel like it,” without any justification.

Nor does it mean that someone like yourself must appreciate my approach because it’s procedural rather than arbitrary. You have your own creative goals that need to be met for a campaign to be enjoyable, and my World in Motion techniques clearly don’t serve those goals. In some ways, they may even work against what you find important and fun.

And, as I’ve been saying lately, that’s OK. There’s room in this hobby for incompatible creative visions.

 

[Micah Sweet]

But there is an absolute scale of agency. That was my point. We, as limited humans, often tend to ignore larger scales when we're focused on a limited subset of activity.

If your focus is on trad-style DM-arbitrated gaming, then sure, sandboxes are high agency.

Well, it is a D&D thread, so focusing on D&D-like games seems reasonable.

 

[Micah Sweet]

It is true, man. Don't know what to tell you.

The point of rules isn't to limit agency, it's to codify who has the agency.

And yet a lot of rules bandied about on this thread explicitly serve to limit DM agency.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Well, it is a D&D thread, so focusing on D&D-like games seems reasonable.

But don't forget its also a thread talking about resistance to change within D&D fans, so what its done in the past is not really responding to the question of whether that's all it should do.

I mean, I don't want to put words in @Reynard 's mouth, but I think its legitimate to say that in the context of the thread start "That's what D&D has always done" can be legitimately responded to with "That's the problem."

 

[TwoSix]

I’ve mentioned it before, but V. baker is much taken with her Blorb principles (and likewise she notes in there that an AW game run per agenda and principles is likely hitting the Blorb concept of play).

Man, that's a really solid blog. Made me appreciate arguments for high-prep pregen play (i.e. "blorb" play) more than 6000+ posts here did.

 

[TwoSix]

Well, it is a D&D thread, so focusing on D&D-like games seems reasonable.

Yes, but the focus was on the conservatism of the player base. And one manifestation of that conservatism is the lack of recognition of what exists in TTRPGs but outside of D&D.