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

I can't help but notice you ignored the other question here. The book very clearly says the audience thinks the winner of the argument is correct and all awesome and stuff for having presented such an amazing argument. If two PCs are presenting their argument to a third PC, is the third PC required to think the winner is correct?
From a practical standpoint, my experience has been that one of two things happen in a DoW where two of three PCs are involved: (1) the third PC throws in with one of the principals, adding Helping Dice to their actions or even taking the lead on some volleys, or (2) the third PC is completely unconcerned with the stakes of the DoW and lets it take its course. If the former, they have a dog in the hunt, and they're bound by the same rules as everyone else (e.g., they don't have to agree, but the matter is settled for the time being). If the latter, I can't imagine haven't seen their them suddenly caring after all the shouting's done (they can think whatever they want, but they don't have the ability to override the results).

Edit: fixed the last sentence, kept redlines.
 
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(1) The loser is not forced to agree with a viewpoint. They're obliged to go along with whatever they agreed to. (This is a small point, but @Faolyn is very concerned about it, so I thought I had better mention it.)
Hard to see a difference. If you use a Duel of Wits to convince me to agree to do whatever you say going forward, how long does that effect last? (corollary question, of course, is what prevents DoW from being used as a pseudo-charm like this; 'cause as a player I'd be using this trick constantly if I could!)
(2) The result is binding like any other outcome in BW. It can be changed when circumstances drastically change.
That makes sense if it's something that can, in the fiction, drastically change. But if it can't?
 

@Faolyn, you're just wrong.

I'm not "houseruling" the Duel of Wits. I'm playing it as per the rulebook and designer commentary.

From Gold Revised p 389: "Though the Duel of Wits cannot make a character like or believe anything, it can force him to agree to something" - such as mending armour.

From p 388 - "The Duel of Wits is an extended conflict mechanics used to resolve debate and argument in the game (and at the table)."

From p 398 - "The losing side must then abide by the terms the winning side set forth at the outset of the duel. The winning sie has won this test, and like any other test in Burning Wheel, their intent is made manifest."

Why you are trying to "educate" me on a RPG that I've been playing for years, whose rulebooks I know back the front to an almost obsessive extent, I don't know. What are you trying to achieve?

Total non-sequitur. I wasn't talking about using the duel of wits as mind-control here. I was talking about how the rules say the duel of wits isn't designed for one-on-one arguments, even if they can technically be used that way. And then I said you had a very bad habit of refusing to reveal pertinent information even after being asked about it. So I don't know why you decided to talk about mind-control.
 


Hard to see a difference. If you use a Duel of Wits to convince me to agree to do whatever you say going forward, how long does that effect last? (corollary question, of course, is what prevents DoW from being used as a pseudo-charm like this; 'cause as a player I'd be using this trick constantly if I could!)

That makes sense if it's something that can, in the fiction, drastically change. But if it can't?
Duel of Wits is subject to Let it Ride, the same as the rest of BW, so it'd last until there's a meaningful change in circumstances. I'm not sure of a useful example of something in the fiction being unchangeable such that there'd never be a meaningful change in circumstances that'd be useful. If you have something you want to propose, I can take a hack at suggesting something?
 



Constructivism is a view that has its origins in the philosophy of mathematics. Roughly, it's the idea that there are no "external" mathematical entities that provide truth conditions, or correctness conditions, for mathematical propositions. (So it contrasts with standard approaches in physics and engineering, which treat the external world as providing truth/correctness-conditions for scientific models and theories.)

Adherents of constructivism in its stronger form reject the validity of certain types of indirect proof, on the grounds that unless you have a direct proof that "constructs" the relevant proposition, it's invalid to infer to it's existence - because that would be positing a type of externality to mathematical entities that constructivism denies. The most famous strong constructivist of this sort was Wittgenstein.

More generally (ie beyond phil of maths), constructivism is (roughly) the idea that certain procedures or processes are validating of their outcomes without there being any independent correctness conditions for those outcomes. What makes this more than just a defence of the arbitrary is that the "certain procedures or processes" have to be specified in a manner that makes it plausible to regard them as sufficient to validate their outcomes. In constructivist accounts of scientific method, it is the account of how scientific method renders observations and experience tractable, and amenable to theorising in a way that has problem-solving power, that explains why the outcomes of scientific investigation should be treated as knowledge rather than mere arbitrary conjecture. But this idea is not obviously applicable to RPGing.

But there is a simple application of the constructivist idea - that is, that certain procedures validate their outcomes without the need for independent correctness conditions - that does have relevance for RPGing. This is the example of a fair bet: if the bet is fair, and participation truly voluntary (and if we ignore bigger contextual questions like where did the participants get their money from to make the bet in the first place), then (i) there is no correctness condition, independent of the process, that tells us who should own the stakes after the bet is resolved, and (ii) once the bet is resolved, the resulting distribution of the ownership of the stakes is validated *simply by the fact that it is the outcome of a fair bet.

The example of betting generalises to a lot of game play, including RPGs. One frequent use that RPGs make of dice rolls is to produce outcomes - changes to the shared fiction - that are accepted as valid by everyone because they follow from the roll and with no independent correctness condition. The best known example is combat: thus, even if the PCs eke out an unlikely win against the giants, we don't say normally say "Hang on, that makes no sense - we'd better ignore the dice rolls and substitute our independent judgement as to how this should have worked out." Rather, we treat the dice rolls as sufficient to validate the outcome.

The extension of this sort process-based/constructivist approach beyond combat is a recurring issue of disagreement. But there are a number of RPGs that make it pretty crucial across the board - some mainstream ones like 4e D&D, and some "indie" ones like Apocalypse World and many of its offshoots, Burning Wheel and its associated family of games, etc.

The idea of process-validated outcomes can also extend beyond dice rolls. For instance, in standard D&D play if a player correctly follows the rules for writing down a memorised spell on their PC sheet; and then correctly follows the action declaration rules for making it true that, in the fiction, their PC casts the spell, then the spell takes effect in accordance with its rules. The same thing happens in Prince Valiant when a player spends a "storyteller certificate" that they have earned in accordance with the rules - for instance, when Sir Morgath's player spent a certificate to Kill a Foe in Combat then it meant that he bested Sir Lionheart (the greatest knight in Britain) and then when he did it again he bested the giant crocodile while swimming in his armour in the Black Sea. The fact that the procedure validates the outcome means it's not open at the table for anyone to say "Hang on, Sir Morgath only has so many combat dice, whereas Sir Lionheart and the crocodile have many more, so he couldn't have beaten them!" Rather, just as in the case of combat resolution via dice rolls, the fiction needs to accommodate the outcome. (In the case of Sir Lionheart, for instance, Sir Morgath's player narrated it thus: As my lance splinters on his shield, a small bit of wood flies through his visor into this eye and brain, killing him.)

One recurrent source of disagreement among RPGers is the extent to which the GM is entitled to suspend procedures, or to ignore their outcomes, in order to make sure that the correct outcome is arrived at. This includes debates about "fudging", but goes beyond it: for instance, can a GM veto a player's attempted spend of a stortyteller certificate, or a player's declaration that their PC casts a spell? Those who are inclined to say yes - who see the procedures as sometimes, even often, useful heuristics but don't regard the outcomes as being validated by the procedures alone - are not constructivists (at least in the domain of RPGing).


(Internal realism is a view in philosophy of science that was advocated for a while by Hilary Putnam. It's not far wrong to regard it as a version of constructivism: though it is a bit less concerned with process than constructivism in the strictest sense, it has a similarly close connections to Kantian ideas. I don't think it helps us much in understanding RPGing.)

Yes! I’m sure the ensuing arguments will get us to 8k!

(What is it about AW’s dice resolution mechanic that makes it fit the process-validated outcomes for you? Is it merely the openness, or something more I’m not quite grasping? There’s a lot of GM adjudication and interpretation happening around partial hits / Hard Moves. Clarity of stakes is hoped for but not always given on the negative side, which is part of why I think Harper has been refining his explicit stating of position/effect over the years.)
 


No. I mean what I said: the GM has a vision of the setting that they wish to affirm via play.

Can you tell me what you think the difference is between affirming a vision of the setting and fidelity to the pre-existing fiction of the setting? I can't see one, but apparently you can.
Affirming a vision sounds arbitrary and without logical basis, neither of which are the case.
 

Into the Woods

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