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

[Bedrockgames]

I think this is why @Campbell said that plausibility doesn't really tell us much on its own. I mean... if there's one thing in this thread that it seems that we'd all agree on is that we want some amount of plausibility or logic to be considered when a GM determines outcomes or other elements of play.

It tells you a lot about what the GM is trying to do if that is one of their main priorities. Again, it is what distinguishes it from a game where the GM is doing something because it is cool or exciting as a choice: the latter is perfectly fine and probably more entertaining for most people but that is a difference in helping guide what the GM thinks should happen

Then why not just let the dice fall where they may?

You do. But there are also places in the game where aren't using dice. For example in a lot of games, you just decide what an NPC does or says, and you base that on what you think they would do.

When can something implausible happen? Or less plausible than many other possibilities? When does/can/may the GM decide that's what happens?

Whoever you want. You are not bound to this every single time. There may be moments where you think something implausible should happen and that is okay. The sky isn't going to fall. But I think for purposes of play, in this style, the GM generally selecting what is most plausible to them, creates a sense of a real and consistent world that has value

I mean... really bonkers stuff happens in real life all the time. How can that happen when plausibility is THE priority?

I mean, I've seen plenty of bonkers stuff happen just from following a chain of plausibility because you have this ongoing interaction between the players, the NPCs, the setting, etc. That can build to truly outlandish stuff when you aren't even trying to be outlandish.

Again you can do what you want Hawkeye. But I am honestly getting tired of constant interrogating questions of the style. Especially since I am defending something I don't even engage with most of the time (but I know it exists because I have seen it and done it). Again, we could turn these questions on you, but we aren't. I don't see what is being gained here by approaching what people like Rob and I are saying with such intense skepticism

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

The requirement of first person declaration is an aesthetic choice. I’m not sure why it seems so important to you… but it’s certainly fine as preferences go. I don’t demand that of players, and when I play, I freely slip from first to third and back. That’s not something I consider all that important… so it’s an interesting difference.

Just as an observation, AW and DW state as fundamental techniques the use of first person, addressing the characters, etc. along with naming every NPC. GMs also never announce their moves. Obviously they have to announce when and what move a PC has made, but it would be something like "Smirk, trying to slip past the guard in the shadows is Defy Danger (dex)!"

DW in particular puts great emphasis on bringing the scene and world to life. Actual play may or may not get there. I'd note though that since fiction is so central to resolution of actions, you CANNOT play DW in a mechanistic way like D&D combat often is!

 

[Bedrockgames]

Just as an observation, AW and DW state as fundamental techniques the use of first person, addressing the characters, etc. along with naming every NPC. GMs also never announce their moves. Obviously they have to announce when and what move a PC has made, but it would be something like "Smirk, trying to slip past the guard in the shadows is Defy Danger (dex)!"

DW in particular puts great emphasis on bringing the scene and world to life. Actual play may or may not get there. I'd note though that since fiction is so central to resolution of actions, you CANNOT play DW in a mechanistic way like D&D combat often is!

Talking in character definitely has a big impact impact on play in my experience. I don’t mind shifting but there are times where the game would be a different thing if we weren’t in first person

 

[Lanefan]

while similar in principal there is the fact the latter has much more of a history as a known stereotypical line of those who attempt to use 'the fiction' as a shield to justify hostile and antisocial character actions.

As long as the hostility and anti-sociality stays in character and doesn't spill over to the table, I'm fine with this.

If someone were to ask me how to roleplay, the first words out of my mouth would be something like "Just do what the character would do", with further explanation following if the questioner didn't yet have a grasp on what made the character tick.

Keep in mind also that in a typical D&D setting the characters are (or quickly become) violent people living in a violent world, to whom violence is the first (or at most, second) solution to most of life's problems. Given that overarching attitude, it should be no surprise that many parties would be or eventually become powderkegs were it not for the artificial game-play contrivance of having the PCs mostly get along with each other.

I'd rather eschew that contrivance and let 'em fight or split up or whatever, if that's what the characters would do. The only exception I'll make is if a player wants to get a new or returning character into a party then there'll be enough contrivance to let that happen unless it upends established fiction to do so.

On the flip side, I'd also prefer to eschew the contrivance that the game world only exists for the PCs and instead have it just do what it's gonna do - unless the PCs through their actions manage to put a wrench in proceedings.

 

[robertsconley]

Just as an observation, AW and DW state as fundamental techniques the use of first person, addressing the characters, etc. along with naming every NPC. GMs also never announce their moves. Obviously they have to announce when and what move a PC has made, but it would be something like "Smirk, trying to slip past the guard in the shadows is Defy Danger (dex)!"

DW in particular puts great emphasis on bringing the scene and world to life. Actual play may or may not get there. I'd note though that since fiction is so central to resolution of actions, you CANNOT play DW in a mechanistic way like D&D combat often is!

I would like to see an example of play like I posted. I tried searching, but all I came up with were videos that may or may not have a relevant example. And no I am not going to try to listen to them as I am partially deaf and it was hard enough with my own. In addition I can't find any official text-based example of play. And the other seem focused on conflict resolution rather than a session played out like mine.

 

[Lanefan]

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.

Which seems to suggest you'd like to give the players the ability to see into the fiction's future such that, in simple terms, they know "if we do X, Y will happen while if we don't do X, Z will happen".

That doesn't sound like playing to find out.

I'd have thought the whole point of playing to find out, in general terms, would be to do things in the fiction and then find out - out of a who-knows-how-big array of outcomes of varying degrees of likelihood and-or foreseeability - what happens next.

 

[Lanefan]

Yes. That's the point.

I mean, I've never heard of anyone resolving a D&D combat and then just having all the dead character just dust themselves off and stand up again, as if the resolution didn't mean anything!

Obviously you've never seen our Necromancers at work.

 

[Lanefan]

I agree with you 100% that there is definitely a different feel to BW, and I can understand where it causes some aesthetic discomfort. And that difference is that you, as a player, do not have full ownership of your character. You share your character with the fiction that is created and imposed during play, often by rolls.

If you have a concept of your character as a badass, and subsequent rolls reveal that when pressed, the character is hesitant and fearful, the rolls are right and your concept isn't. The point of play is to adapt your concept of the character and subsequent decision making taking into account these revealed truths.

How you accept this truth is up to the player; maybe the character subsequently dedicate themselves to training so they don't freeze in the next hard situation, maybe they cover their insecurity with bluster, or maybe their one-time weakness becomes a more craven streak. Maybe through the course of play they will eventually prove themselves a brave badass, with the moment of weakness being something to overcome. But you as a player don't get to pick if the character's conception of themselves is true.

This generally seems to take the old-school idea of "play what the dice give you" and simply move the "what the dice give you" piece out of the roll-up process and into the processes involved in play.

 

[Lanefan]

I mean, the focus of play in your game is still the character’s actions, right? The goals they set, how they influence the world, and how other elements of the world reveal themselves in turn?

Like, Blades emphasizes its setting and making it feel real extremely deeply as I’ve pointed out many times - including in one of the 3 core GM Goals of play. Factions have desires and goals they’re pursuing with or without player involvement. The framing of how play evolves from a mechanics and scene building perspective is different, but in play the moment to moment action doesn’t feel in a different world from 5e.

The whole "flashbacks" piece where things can be retconned, plus the ambiguous gear slots rather than actually preparing and listing your gear up front and maybe having the wrong stuff, is enough to put me off.

 

[zakael19]

The whole "flashbacks" piece where things can be retconned, plus the ambiguous gear slots rather than actually preparing and listing your gear up front and maybe having the wrong stuff, is enough to put me off.

Ok? Not sure how that relates to my post, but thanks for sharing your opinion I guess.