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

[Faolyn]

As someone who has suffered under terrible GMing - from a variety of people, none malicious, and some very experienced and capable RPGers - I can't agree.

What you say is true, perhaps, if my aspirations for my RPGing are to present my PC in a thespian fashion and then find out from the GM what happens next. But that has never been my goal for RPGing, except in the very occasional one-shot.

Ah, so unless we adhere strictly to what you think is the most important part, we are only capable of monologuing and responding to the GM's plot.

 

[Campbell]

No one can really speak to individual games but Burning Wheel games will tend to be more personal and more intimate because the game centers personal and intimate stakes, it makes them the focus. Individual tables might vary - we can only speak to tendencies.

I have played in some personal, intimate games of Vampire - The Masquerade but Vampire - The Requiem, Second Edition tends to be the more personal, intimate game because it centers the characters aspirations, rewards players for testing their characters' humanity, requires you to play out feeding scenes and makes mortal touchstones a core part of play. It also focuses more on groups you choose to join and does not have nearly as much focus on things like metaplot and setting. Masquerade tends to be about conspiracy and Requiem tends to be about being a vampire. We can focus more on one or the other in each, but what the game will reinforce is different.

 

[Campbell]

There are all sorts of things that fly in one game that would not fly in another. Creating a normative standard around what would fly in general is not really helpful. Almost every game on my shelf has stuff that would not fly under other contexts:

• Self-Control rolls in Vampire to not eat someone or to not fly into a murderous frenzy
• In Dune 2d20 players may introduce and take control of a minor support character who is part of their house at any time - the only cost is threat/momentum. Likewise, a GM may pay threat to introduce a member of one of their rival houses into a scene they were not in.
• In Apocalypse Keys you might gain a Playbook specific condition like Lovelorn or gain Ruin as a result of getting a 10+ on Unleash the Dark as they toss the omen level threat their fighting into a crowd of people. The player of the Summoned might use the None Stand Before Me Ruin move to declare an NPC that would be vulnerable to them is just dead without going to the dice at the cost of Ruin.
• In Apocalypse World harm is established just happens because a player does not immediately address the threat of a sniper.
• Just like introducing stuff not related to the characters does not fly in Burning Wheel.

 

[TwoSix]

Ah, so unless we adhere strictly to what you think is the most important part, we are only capable of monologuing and responding to the GM's plot.

Since I think the "most important part" from that chain of replies is "play being organized around principles and focus, not tone and theme", then I would probably say yes. Unprincipled play is most likely to be thespian-oriented, casual, "let's hang out and see what happens" play.

I have several tables like that, it's pretty common.

 

[Old Fezziwig]

The first of those examples is @pemerton comparing BW to another game that they continually advocate for on these boards (TB2).

And, of course, TB is also a design by Crane and his collaborator, Thor Olavsrud. They use similar tech to very different ends, and I think the comparison is fruitful. If TB2 were as intimate as BW, it wouldn't pay off the promised play style -- it needs to make those changes to feel like B/X.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Because, IME, "what effect following these principles has" tends to not actually matter all that much in the long run in comparison to the game's tone and what the game allows the players to do.

But, that focus on the peripheral aspects of play and failing to understand what is central is exactly what leads us to doubt the nature and depth of that experience you claim. Like if we were talking about the elements needed to be a successful Tour de France competitor and someone focused on tire color and chain tension as key elements, we'd question the nature of their experience in competitive bicycling, right?

 

[Faolyn]

And all the other examples? Like the legendary Warlord creature which can be any humanoid? The adventure NPC who can cause fear? Etc., etc.?

I would have to see their statblocks to judge. If they're in 5.24, I'm likely to not be able to see it. But it's quite likely that the warlord, being a legendary creature, is scary enough to get a pass on being able to cause fear.

And the nice thing about 5.14 is that it's so vague at times that you can reskin things like a battlemaster's Goad into being at least semi-mystical.

There's a reason I gave a lengthy list of examples, ranging from strictly absolutely mundane (lions, dinosaurs), to the mildly supernatural (dragons, shapeshifters), to the literally "an NPC built like a PC".

All of which starts to sound rather like ad hoc explaining away of how the originally hard stance--that it's agency-destroying to have a rule which says that if your character fails a roll, they must feel fear and behave as such--is actually as holey as swiss cheese.

I'll also point out that, unless 5.24 changed things quite a bit, the frightened condition doesn't cause someone to lose multiple actions, and only on rare occasions does it cause targets to run away. The frightened creature simply has disad on some rolls and can't go closer to whatever it is that frightened them. And most of the time--maybe even all of the time--the frightened condition only lasts until the end of the next turn or allows for a save at the end of each turn.

 

[Bedrockgames]

There are all sorts of things that fly in one game that would not fly in another. Creating a normative standard around what would fly in general is not really helpful. Almost every game on my shelf has stuff that would not fly under other contexts:

• Self-Control rolls in Vampire to not eat someone or to not fly into a murderous frenzy
• In Dune 2d20 players may introduce and take control of a minor support character who is part of their house at any time - the only cost is threat/momentum. Likewise, a GM may pay threat to introduce a member of one of their rival houses into a scene they were not in.
• In Apocalypse Keys you might gain a Playbook specific condition like Lovelorn or gain Ruin as a result of getting a 10+ on Unleash the Dark as they toss the omen level threat their fighting into a crowd of people. The player of the Summoned might use the None Stand Before Me Ruin move to declare an NPC that would be vulnerable to them is just dead without going to the dice at the cost of Ruin.
• In Apocalypse World harm is established just happens because a player does not immediately address the threat of a sniper.
• Just like introducing stuff not related to the characters does not fly in Burning Wheel.

Keep in mind we are talking a normal understanding of agency. That doesn’t mean rules that disrupt agency are non-normative. Vampire is a classic example as you point out (I am more familiar with masquerade than requiem but still had those kinds of things going on). CoC, Ravenloft, even stuff in standard D&D like dragonlance awe, disrupt agency but aren’t unusual

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Were Gygax's specific choices made to relate to the goals, drives and feelings of specific PCs? Did Gygax "frame scenes" always with those specific PC concerns in mind, with plausibility a secondary concern?

Read the first few sections of the 1e DMG! He talks a lot about the GM's responsibilities to the players in terms of providing them with enjoyable play. No, he never approached the game from a perspective of characters developed to the level of really having significant goals or personality beyond being 'pogs'. But that does mean he was pretty clear in what he envisaged as good GMing. I think if you extrapolate that to modern Narrativist play, you get principled play. Not that Gary would especially be interested in that style, but he'd at least recognize it.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Read the first few sections of the 1e DMG! He talks a lot about the GM's responsibilities to the players in terms of providing them with enjoyable play. No, he never approached the game from a perspective of characters developed to the level of really having significant goals or personality beyond being 'pogs'. But that does mean he was pretty clear in what he envisaged as good GMing. I think if you extrapolate that to modern Narrativist play, you get principled play. Not that Gary would especially be interested in that style, but he'd at least recognize it.

I recognize it too, even if I'm not interested in it. But if he "framed scenes" in the setting with the highest priority being specific character goals and drives, he was engaging in what I would call meta player-agency.