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

[zakael19]

However, at no point when reading Blades did I see anything that suggested to me that if events in the game are not escalating out of control, then you're not meeting the definition of "Playing to Find Out." I don't see any reason not to think other elements of the game (downtime, lulls in play, a moment of friendly interplay with nothing really at stake, etc) aren't also covered by the general philosophy espoused by play to find out. If your definition does include that distinction and doesn't include such things, then so be it. I realise there may be respected game design philosophers in the PbtA community who have made that distinction and consider it fundamental to the definition, but that much narrower definition doesn't seem exist in the text of Blades in the Dark or, if it does, I completely missed it.

Yeah, so I think there's a "thing that's different" beyond what I posted previously that extends play to find out. I was reflecting yesterday on that while you're absolutely correct - the "dont steer the game towards outcomes/events and be curious" is doable and a strident feature of most sandbox play, but it's the and play to find out the answer to specific questions that might be different eg: the examples on p194 under "Create an atmosphere of inquiry at the table." Ask questions about the state of play, and explore them, and then "Be a curious explorer of the game in play" to dig in to the character's as well.

There's more stuff under Actions and Principles that take "Play to find out" and add some extra meat beyond the core - because they're what you do in the game to achieve the core Goals.

 

[AlViking]

The same can be said for implications that Narrativist play is not meaningful. Personal stakes, finding out who the character are under pressure and emotional heft are the central emphasis. Telling someone striving for narrativist play their play is not meaningful is about the worst thing you can say about their play.

Has anyone said it is not meaningful to the people actually playing the game and who prefer that type of game? Has anyone said that it cannot possibly be meaningful to others?

 

[pemerton]

I want my campaign world to feel like it's based on a real world with magic layered on top. What I find odd? That you give a hoot about how other people design their worlds.

Well, why do you have opinions about mechanics in a game you'll never play?

The point of a discussion board is to share our thoughts about RPGing. Isn't it?

 

[Bedrockgames]

I suspect that the overlap of “plausible” and “fun” are pretty close to perfect circles.

No I don't think they are. This is one of the things I was referring to earlier about sandbox circles in the discussions me and Rob were having online. It was actually one of the big debates. I tend to lean on fun myself, but there is a popular approach to sandbox that is so naturalistic, that overlap isn't there (don't get me wrong, they would label what they are doing as fun and they enjoy it, but they are choosing naturalistic over fun in terms of plausibility). This is the specific reason I call mine drama+sandbox

 

[Bedrockgames]

Sure but the GM has a good idea was the part I was responding too. My experience I that I have an idea what may happen but never a good idea.

Keep in mind at this time I ran my Scourge of the Demon Wolf sandbox adventure nearly 20 times with random people across the the country and while there are patterns that allowed me to write the book I sold. The reality no one group did the adventure in the same way. Not little differences but completely different choices led to very different adventures.

So like I said I have an idea just not an good idea of what may happen.

Yeah and Scourge of the Demon Wolf is an adventure so in that situation I would suspect if you are thinking more in terms of if the players do X. But a lot of NPCs, you have no idea why the players are going to meet them in the first place. You just have some important ward official in town for example. Sure you can preload him for an obvious adventure or an obvious conflict.

This is one of the NPCs from my Sons of Lady 87 campaign. He is pretty typical, and basically a type of wuxia stock character. There are things in here that can be obvious hooks for something (becoming his disciple, becoming his victim, etc). But there is also a lot of space to extrapolate during play for me. He has come up again and again in campaigns because he is a notable physician in a big town, so players tend to seek him out. Which means I have had several different parties with different players interact with him, and even had many of the same parties interacion with him in different campaigns. Most of the interactions have not involved any of the aforementioned obvious things, but some have. The point is I am not putting this character here because I want or desire any particular adventure to arise. Like Rob said, I may have an idea of what will happen, but players are truly surprising and Sima Hao has been their friend, enemy, an important information resource, been on the receiving end of blackmail, been forced physically to hand over information about his techniques, been negotiated with for all kinds of arrangements, etc. You can have a concrete character. That character can even have arrows pointing in certain directions if you want. But you do not know what the players will do, and you are often surprised by your own reaction when you are playing an NPC (because you are kind of immersed in their personality the way a player is in their character in that moment and your are very much going by feel, so even Sima Hao can surprise you sometimes)

 

[SableWyvern]

Yeah, so I think there's a "thing that's different" beyond what I posted previously that extends play to find out. I was reflecting yesterday on that while you're absolutely correct - the "dont steer the game towards outcomes/events and be curious" is doable and a strident feature of most sandbox play,

Looking at that specific section (Create an atmosphere of enquiry) I'm not seeing anything that isn't widely applicable. To me, it's simply saying when a question arises, let the results fall as they may. All of the questions listed are ones that I would seem entirely reasonable whether I'm running Blades, Mythras, D&D, Rolemaster or anything else.

To me, the key point is summarised in the last sentence: Don't decide outcomes ahead of time and manipulate play to bring them about.

To me, that is completely aligned with everything Rob is saying about how he runs his games, and is the kind of thing I'm usually looking for in my games.

but it's the and play to find out the answer to specific questions that might be different eg: the examples on p194 under "Create an atmosphere of inquiry at the table." Ask questions about the state of play, and explore them, and then "Be a curious explorer of the game in play" to dig in to the character's as well.

There's more stuff under Actions and Principles that take "Play to find out" and add some extra meat beyond the core - because they're what you do in the game to achieve the core Goals.

To my mind, this section here isn't about playing to find out at all. Asking the player, "Does your character really mean what they said or is this just an attempt at manipulation?" isn't playing to find out, it's asking a question of the player about their character's intent (it's also something that I might ask in any game, not just Blades, because it's fairly important as GM to understand that intent).

Harper goes on to say that these questions "often lead to goals, approaches and rolls," which suggests they can result in some playing so we can find out. But equally, they might not, or the ongoing play might have occurred whether the question was asked or not.

I can fully get on board with someone saying, "Blades has a very specific processes such that, when you are playing to find out, certain things are encouraged and events are guided in particular directions by the mechanical structures (mostly, towards high-paced action and crazy hijinks and away from extended amounts of plotting, planning and preparing).

I can also accept that some people read the surrounding details of Blades -- processes that are used and encouraged -- and consider some of them part of a wider philosophy on playing to find out. This seems to be the position you're coming from. At a guess, I'd say it's a result of a wider, pre-existing grounding in the concepts behind PbtA, as opposed to coming in blind and reading Blades without any outside advice or assistance (beyond watching two or three of Harper's sessions).

But I stand by my original assertion that core principle of "Play To Find Out" is not particular novel and is not what makes Blades stand out from other games I play. Many of the actual processes of play that I engage in when I Play to Find Out in Blades are different to the processes of play that I'm likely to engage in with a RM or Mythras, but the underlying concept of play to find out remains the same.

 

[AlViking]

...

So when we see how the GM decides, given that he’s determined nearly all the things that matter, I think it’s silly to diminish the role the GM is playing in all this.

It has nothing to do with diminishing the role of the GM exactly, it's just an explanation of one option for how the GM decides what is happening in the wider world. It's about thinking about how the world will respond to the action or inaction of the characters. Sometimes that may be in response to the PCs kill the emperor and adopting his dog. Sometimes it may be that they didn't investigate the rumors of icky things from the swamp because they didn't want to get their new boots dirty and now there's an invasion of icky things from the swamp that could have been nipped in the bud.

The PCs have impact on the world around them, large and small. The DM does their best to decide logical chain of events from their actions.

 

[zakael19]

can also accept that some people read the surrounding details of Blades -- processes that are used and encouraged -- and consider some of them part of a wider philosophy on playing to find out. This seems to be the position you're coming from. At a guess, I'd say it's a result of a wider, pre-existing grounding in the concepts behind PbtA, as opposed to coming in blind and reading Blades without any outside advice or assistance (beyond watching two or three of Harper's sessions).

Right, so note this statement at the bottom of page 187:

"To achieve your goals, use GM Actions guided by your GM Principles (detailed on the following pages)."

There are 3 goals: Play to find out what happens, Convey the fictional world honestly, Bring Doskvol to life. Everything under Actions and Principles that's not tied to techniques for conveying the world and bringing the city to life is meant to be "here's the fullness of how you run the game such that you're playing to find out." As he notes under "Ask questions" some of this absolutely just part of good GMing in most systems (eg: running a classic - D&D style game using Dungeon Turns you're asking what people are doing to ensure you can address it within the turn); but spelling out ask provocative questions to make the players think/express their characters ties back to playing to find out who these scoundrels are. Telegraph Trouble & Follow Through prompt for explicit actions, and follow through when things go sideways (FAFO, lol) - sometimes you get that in a conventional game, but I think it tends to be more situational (eg: the guard at the gate demanding a bribe or something) - here its putting the players in a spot over and over and seeing what they do.

Honestly, one of the biggest formatting mistakes of the game is sticking the Actions / Principles / Best Practices way back there after the mechanics. A lot of folks show up to reddit or the BITD discord with questions on how they should approach running the game that are answered by those entries, especially the Best Practices that try and contrast how running this game should look compared with a more DM curated direction of play.

 

[zakael19]

But I stand by my original assertion that core principle of "Play To Find Out" is not particular novel and is not what makes Blades stand out from other games I play. Many of the actual processes of play that I engage in when I Play to Find Out in Blades are different to the processes of play that I'm likely to engage in with a RM or Mythras, but the underlying concept of play to find out remains the same.

Btw, this is more or less what @pemerton (I think?) and @AbdulAlhazred and @prabe often say - they were running games in a manner not dissimilar to "play to find out" in older systems for many years. You don't need a PBTA ruleset or whatever to do it, they just tend to force your hand through intentional design whereas running a game like that in say 3.5e took a bunch of deliberate effort and technique on the behalf of the GM plus active work from the players.

 

[AlViking]

Well, why do you have opinions about mechanics in a game you'll never play?

The point of a discussion board is to share our thoughts about RPGing. Isn't it?

Having a discussion includes how I would react to the rules and processes of the game to explain preferences. I was explaining why I wouldn't play the game, I was making no comment on what other people may enjoy. I don't see a point of telling others that the way they run their games doesn't work or that they're deluding themselves.