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

[Bedrockgames]

I’m “hostile” if that’s the right word because it’s contradictory. We have lots of examples of putting interesting and fun first. But apparently we’re also supposed to buy into this notion of plausibility as well?

Its the notion that this is somehow special to sandboxing that I’m rejecting.

It isn't special to sandboxing. But it is common in sandboxing. And it can also appear in other styles of play. But I think when you encounter it at table, it is notable because it puts such heavy emphasis on plausibility

I am not sure I see the contradiction you are pointing to here.

 

[Hussar]

because when you have multiple equally plausible options competing you can defer the decision criteria to a secondary concern between those tied options like 'how fun will this option be for the players' or 'do i already have more prep detailed for executing one of these options' without compromising the fact that you're still picking 'what makes the most logical sense'.

if i'm calorie counting on a diet and my main priority is minimum calories in my dessert and the choice is between a strawberry cheesecake(700kcal) and a toffee sundae(950kcal) then the choice is pretty clear, but if there's also chocolate brownie(700kcal) available then my choice between the cheesecake and the brownie are both equally viable for 'the minimum calories' so i get to decide on a different factor other than calorie count like 'what flavour do i personally enjoy more', me making this one decision on flavour preference doesn't mean the priority notion of 'minimum calories' went out the window like you're trying to claim, it was just satisfied by either option.

Which is mostly smoke and mirrors.

It's funny how "most plausible" and "most fun for my players" will overlap so very, very often. Almost as if "most plausible" really isn't the criteria here but rather, "I want to run a good game that my players will enjoy" as the most credible criteria for most DM's running a game.

I find this whole "internal logic of the setting" thing to be so pretentious. It's trying to bury the lede by pretending that the decision process in somehow unique to this style of game.

Which, frankly, is pretty much in keeping with most of the descriptions of sandboxing. Pretentious presentiments pretending portentous play.

 

[pemerton]

I presume when you say it's not yielding a unique outcome, you're referring to the fact that that outcomes aren't unique to this specific process, as opposed to the idea that the process can only ever arrive at a single, inevitable outcome.

I'm saying that it is not a process that, when engaged in correctly and thoroughly, yields a unique outcome.

With alt history, for instance, there is a good discussion of this in Niall Ferguson's The Pity of War. He discusses what different scholars and authors have conjectured about how far back in time the counterfactual has to go to avoid the First World War. Churchill, for instance, goes all the way back to the US Civil War. Whereas Ferguson himself thinks that Britain could (and should) have avoided entering the war when it was breaking out.

There's no reason to think that both Churchill and Ferguson are not applying the plausibility heuristic correctly, but they reach very different conclusions as to what is a plausible judgement about what would be required to avoid World War One.

The same thought - that plausibility does not determine a unique outcome - applies in the case of RPGing. Two people could look at the same fictional situation, the same input from the players, and reach very different conclusions about what follows as a matter of plausibility.

[If you are suggesting that the problem is that the process might result in different outcomes at different times, I completely fail to see why that's a concern. Many things I do have different outcomes, to one extent or another, when done at different times.]

A process that yields a different outcome when undertaken by different competent people, or by the same competent person at different times, although there is no change in the inputs, is not an obviously objective process.

Particularly when it has far fewer correctness constraints than alt history seriously done, that variability tends to suggest a strong creative input from the person doing the reasoning.

 

[SableWyvern]

I'm saying that it is not a process that, when engaged in correctly and thoroughly, yields a unique outcome.

With alt history, for instance, there is a good discussion of this in Niall Ferguson's The Pity of War. He discusses what different scholars and authors have conjectured about how far back in time the counterfactual has to go to avoid the First World War. Churchill, for instance, goes all the way back to the US Civil War. Whereas Ferguson himself thinks that Britain could (and should) have avoided entering the war when it was breaking out.

There's no reason to think that both Churchill and Ferguson are not applying the plausibility heuristic correctly, but they reach very different conclusions as to what is a plausible judgement about what would be required to avoid World War One.

The same thought - that plausibility does not determine a unique outcome - applies in the case of RPGing. Two people could look at the same fictional situation, the same input from the players, and reach very different conclusions about what follows as a matter of plausibility.

Oh, then I fall back to my bracketed closing statement: who cares?

Arriving at a singular, unique outcome which was always the only possible result, was never the intent.

This line of argument just a rehashing of the, "If you're not 100% objective, 100% realistic, 100% perfect, why do you even bother?" argument that I thought we were done with a couple thousand posts ago.

 

[Campbell]

I personally do not think that plausibility alone can result in a unique judgement over what happens aside from extremely constrained environments. I think that's why attempting to limit the impact of anything improvised can be so important to high prep gameplay. The same can be said to gameplay-oriented constraints. I think there are creative decisions that are made through the course of play. Often ones that call back and highlight established game history.

This is something we might need to agree to disagree on and move on from.

I think there are very good reasons to bother in all sorts of gameplay experiences with both plausibility and gameplay concerns.

As an addendum I also do not think that speculative science fiction or alternative histories are pure extrapolation. I believe they involve all sorts of creative decisions.

 

[pemerton]

I wonder if it's because some of you are focused only on the outcomes, and really don't care how you get there.

I'm not sure what you mean by this.

The "you" you appear to be addressing would seem to be me, @hawkeyefan, @AbdulAlhazred, maybe @EzekielRaiden?

I don't know about the last poster in that list. But I, hawkeyefan and AbdulAlhazred have contributed to this discussion mostly drawing on experience with what could be called "play to find out" or "story now" RPGs - AW, DW, BW and BitD have loomed large, although hawkeyefan has referred to Spire also, which I don't know as well myself.

These are not games that foreground outcomes. As the slogans indicate.

 

[SableWyvern]

A process that yields a different outcome when undertaken by different competent people, or by the same competent person at different times, although there is no change in the inputs, is not an obviously objective process.

Particularly when it has far fewer correctness constraints than alt history seriously done, that variability tends to suggest a strong creative input from the person doing the reasoning.

Well, it's clearly not objective enough for you.

It is objective enough for us, though.

 

[SableWyvern]

I'm not sure what you mean by this.

The "you" you appear to be addressing would seem to be me, @hawkeyefan, @AbdulAlhazred, maybe @EzekielRaiden?

I don't know about the last poster in that list. But I, hawkeyefan and AbdulAlhazred have contributed to this discussion mostly drawing on experience with what could be called "play to find out" or "story now" RPGs - AW, DW, BW and BitD have loomed large, although hawkeyefan has referred to Spire also, which I don't know as well myself.

These are not games that foreground outcomes. As the slogans indicate.

Never mind, you clarified that what I thought you were saying wasn't the point you were trying to make, so that part of my response was not relevant.

 

[pemerton]

Oh, then I fall back to my bracketed closing statement: who cares?

I care. Because processes with non-unique outcomes are apt to generate unknowable outcomes - though that may depend on the nature of the variation of the outcomes (eg contrast variation within a knowable range, to the unknowable variations that can come out of @thefutilist's situation of the ruler whose daughter is inadvertently killed in the botched assassination attempt).

And the knowability, or not, of outcomes significantly affect the capacity of the players to make non-blind action declarations. And that is something that I care about.

EDITed because otherwise there will be misunderstanding:

I don't care because I'm thinking about anyone else's game. I care in the context of thinking about my game, and the sorts of processes that I wish to use.

 

[robertsconley]

As I have followed the course of the thread, it seems to me that no one is denying that someone can set out to use plausibility as a heuristic.
I think the concern is more along the lines of it not yielding a unique outcome.

Sometimes the analysis yields a unique outcome, and sometimes it doesn’t. It depends on the circumstances, the character’s capabilities, and what is being attempted. That’s the nature of thinking about possible futures, even when that future is just the next moment. In my experience, outcomes fall into three levels:

• What is most likely?
• What is probable?
• What is possible but not likely?

For example:
A few sessions ago, the players sent a letter to the Baron of Westtower asking for permission to speak on behalf of a merchant guild. The Baron never replied. Now the players are returning to Westtower and want to know how their request was received.

This is where I look at the three levels of possible futures:

• Most Likely: The letter was filed away and ignored. The Baron receives dozens of similar requests and had no reason to prioritize this one. This reflects the normal, indifferent function of a noble’s staff.
• Probable: The letter reached the Baron’s steward, who remembered the party from a previous visit. He passed it along with a note vouching for them, which means they’re now on a list of names known to the Baron’s court, even if no formal response was given.
• Probable: The letter was received but misfiled or delayed due to a backlog in the Baron’s scribal office. A lower-ranked scribe recently rediscovered it and added it to the next batch of matters for review.
• Probable: The Baron sent word to the local guildmaster to ask for his opinion of the group.
• Possible: The Baron read the letter personally and found it curious. He’s been watching their movements through informants ever since, considering how he might use them. That’s a deeper, more dramatic thread, but still grounded in earlier interactions and Westtower’s political logic.
• Possible: The letter never reached the Baron because it was intercepted by a rival faction within his court.
• Possible: The Baron saw the letter as an opportunity to pressure the merchant guild. He never responded, but summoned the guildmaster and used the letter as leverage.

I’d appreciate if we didn’t debate the exact definitions of “likely,” “probable,” and “possible.” The precise terminology isn’t important. What matters is that, in a given situation, there’s often (but not always) an outcome that stands out as most likely. Then there are alternatives that have a reasonable chance of occurring. And finally, there are the less likely but still possible outcomes. Those are what I’m weighing when I consider plausibility.

The above scenario is deliberately simple to illustrate the point, any number of permutations could be developed. But regardless of the complexity, you can still identify tiers of plausibility and make decisions accordingly.

And I don't think your examples really speak to that concern. Counterfactual history, for instance, generates multiple inconsistent conjectures.

Regarding counterfactuals: alternate history writers have dealt with the problem of multiple plausible outcomes for decades. The key isn’t whether there’s only one valid outcome, it’s that any outcome chosen follows a plausible chain of cause and effect from the point of divergence. That’s the same principle I apply in my campaigns. I work within a bounded range of plausible results, constrained by what’s already true in the world, not just what’s dramatic or interesting. When several outcomes are plausible, I may consider what best aligns with the goals or motivations of the characters involved.

As I stated earlier, relying solely on dice rolls, or solely on judgment calls, hasn’t created the sense of a living world in my games. Based on player feedback, a mix of both does.

And JRRT himself, when adding bits to Middle Earth, kept changing his mind.

I wasn’t referring to Tolkien’s evolving drafts. I was talking about the designers of Adventures in Middle-earth and The One Ring. They work within the logic and tone of Middle-earth to produce new material that still feels like it belongs. That’s what I mean by plausibility in an RPG context, it’s not about inventing the world as you go, it’s about extending what’s already there in a consistent way.