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

[Faolyn]

I appreciated @robertsconley walking through way he evaluated the decision space around the noblewomen reacting to possibilities. Arraying the set of outcomes the players would expect based on what they knew of her, what the reasonable outcomes were, and then picking the one of those that if I remember correctly he felt would be the most interesting for further play. It showed how at least for him it’s a combination of heuristics, not just “what does the world demand” but “of the most reasonable and consistent actions based on my setting and the NPC - let me pick the one that will further an interesting table experience.”

I think that contrasts well with the heuristic I’d use for my play which is “what choice would most challenge what the characters hold dear” or something similar. Same starting point of “what makes sense for this NPC to do” but as I narrow it, the focus circles back to those espoused “flags” on the character sheets. I think that’s a good example of the same starting point in abstract encountering a different creative direction / mechanical trigger and resulting in potentially different GM choices.

Oh, sure. It's really what I meant--PC actions, NPC actions, and yes, even what's fun for everyone (especially if all else is equal); all those things are how most of us decide what's going to happen next in the world. It's just not how Hussar and some others are saying, that we believe this fantasy world actually exists.

 

[zakael19]

But that's just a general approach that can be applied to other systems as well if you want.

You asked for an example, I gave one that tries to put limits on the GM’s actions. I’m not sure there’s anything out there that’s not applicable to some extent, yet other systems don’t place that explicit limit on expectations - if the GM brings that to the table that’s on them.

Edit: 8 posts until 8k in this thread!

 

[AlViking]

PbtA games' GM Principles seem to me to be a explicit codification of what has generally been considered GM best practices. They're like the GMing equivalent of painting by numbers - that's not meant to be disparaging; paint by numbers kits exist for reason. People often think that creative endeavours are born of talent, but in actuality they require skill, honed and developed through practice. Talent as an innate quality certainly helps, but it only acts as a baseline for learned skills, not a ceiling. Codification allows for learning and teaching creative skills and once a person has mastered the fundamentals, they can push the bounds through experimentation, like jazz.

And of course, the irony is that those GM best practices that PbtA games codify as rules were cultivated through practice by old guard GMs like @robertsconley

There are many different GM best practices depending on what works for the people at the table. I don't think how I run my games is best for everyone. So when you say that a game codifies best practices I just disagree. Great if it works for you but that doesn't mean it's a better approach.

 

[AlViking]

You asked for an example, I gave one that tries to put limits on the GM’s actions. I’m not sure there’s anything out there that’s not applicable to some extent, yet other systems don’t place that explicit limit on expectations - if the GM brings that to the table that’s on them.

Edit: 8 posts until 8k in this thread!

I guess I didn't consider running a sandbox a restriction, it's more of a stylistic approach to running games.

 

[hawkeyefan]

And in addition to commenting on @Enrahim's post, this should answer @hawkeyefan question on why first person roleplaying is such a big deal. Because it is one of the primary ways that the characters are interacting with the setting.

It doesn’t really shed any light on it for me, no. I mean, I get that you want players to essentially always interact with the setting as the character… but I don’t know if that will always be the case, or that it particularly enhanced the session of play.

In the transcript you shared, I didn’t get a sense of the characters much at all. I didn't feel that there was anything about them that mattered to play, except perhaps the knight’s decision to charge. Everything else would have went pretty much the same if other characters had been played.

Nor do I think that players RPing in third person would have hampered anything about play. Having the players speak in character often and describe things in first person is an aesthetic choice, and I can see that it may help some folks feel more like their character. I don’t see how it drove play, though.

I also feel more sure of my assessment that the setting is very much the focus of play. You say as much above about the focus of play being the characters interacting with the setting, and how players don’t need well-developed characters… that they can just play a version of themselves.

Also, to clarify another point that @hawkeyefan brought up about my XP system being neutral in regard to what the player chooses to do as their character.

I don’t think it’s neutral, though I’m basing that mostly off the old notes you shared… which I believe you said was an early version of your XP system, so perhaps it’s changed. But I think the rewards your system seems to offer is incentivizing player behavior. And to be clear, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that at all. I just don’t think it’s neutral.

 

[Thomas Shey]

If I remember right you were the one going on about guardrails to safeguard the game, but I have yet to see how any safeguards would work or what it would add to the game.

It would add predictability to resolution for players in cases where the GM isn't as good at being consistent in his decisions as he thinks he is.

But I expect you to say its not necessary or is some sort of unacceptable impediment on your GMing, so I haven't bothered for a while and I'm not sure why I am now.

I get that there are different approaches to what is important to a game, there are games that are more collaborative. We all have different preferences but if you have one it should not be that difficult to come up with a simple explanation and example.

This isn't about collaboration per se, though a more collaborative approach can make it less necessary.

Also, that last sentence makes no sense with all the negatives ... reversing the negatives a bit I get "we should have rules so ad-hoc decisions occur regularly"? Which mean much of anything. But then again apparently I can't understand how other games are structured to prevent ... something that I wouldn't understand.

Replace the "isn't" with an "is". Basically, my view is that the more a game system requires me to make ad-hoc decisions, the less its doing its job. There's some diminishing returns there, but that doesn't mean I don't think a far number of them are more lightweight than is desirable in this area.

 

[thefutilist]

Things to Consider
If those reading this don’t believe this is a distinct style of play with its own methodology, one that uses familiar techniques in unique ways, then here are the questions will need answers:

• If this isn’t a distinct style, why are outcomes in my campaign determined by extrapolated world logic rather than by authored stakes or dramatic framing?
• If our techniques are “the same,” then why does first-person roleplaying in my games drive the fiction forward in the absence of resolution mechanics, while in your systems it often triggers Moves or Tests?
• If we’re both using clocks, fronts, or timelines, why does mine emerge from in-world causality and NPC agency, while for others it is oriented around pacing, dramatic tension, or spotlight balance?
• If our use of adjudication is similar, why do I intentionally avoid interpreting player action in terms of narrative intent, and instead weigh it against a simulated, consistent world state?
• If this is merely a difference in emphasis or timing, then why does the other framework assume a referee must interpret or guide story outcomes, while mine deliberately avoids doing so in favor of consequence-based play?

Until those questions are answered directly and without collapsing the distinctions I’ve laid out, then any claim that Living World sandbox play is “not really different” is simply a refusal to engage with the actual structure of the game I run. And while I highlighted my own particular take on sandbox campaigns. Many of these points apply to the other posters descriptions of their sandbox campaigns.

See we're similar in very broad strokes, I agree with a lot of that list, but there's undoubtedly a handful of very important differences as well. I'll talk a bit about character, in a very sweeping way, to highlight what may be one of them.


If I'm thinking about running a Narrativist game (very broadly defined here), then I think about the state of the relationships between characters. They're either stable or unstable.

So let's take two Barons, Baron Red and Baron Green. If Red and Green are both just happy running their Barony's, then their relationship is stable.

If Green is strong and Red is weak and Red has ambitions to take Greens land but can't find a way to do so. Their relationship is still stable.

If something suddenly changes the power dynamic (or perceived power dynamic), then it becomes unstable.

So let's say Greens army is decimated by plague. Now suddenly Red might not be too weak to attack and so attack he does. It's unstable because it's in motion, it needs to be resolved somehow back to Stable.

So it could be that Red kills Green and takes his land. Back to stable. Or Green thrashes Red and we enter a new unstable relationship because Green now sees the weakened Red as a threat. Or any number of other things.


Or one more example.

Carly is in love with Sarah but too afraid to ask her out. Someone gives Carly a pep talk and he fear vanishes. The relationship is unstable. She asks Sarah out and gets turned down. Back to stable.


So it's kind of similar to you but the framing is all about relationships because how the relationships change gives rise to theme. This also means that play will tend to gravitate quickly toward the moments when the characters bang into each other in such a way that the relationship 'may' change. So there are implications for pacing.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Narrativist games at least stridently yell at the GM to not prep plot and force directions of play on the players. I’ve seen OSR games explicitly state the same thing. Does that count?

You can also have the situation where the scope of the mechanics is such that how something is likely to be resolved is usually pretty clear going into it; though not a big fan, most PbtA games are like this (I find them overly schematic for my tastes, but you shouldn't see a lot of out-of-context mechanical application in the ones I've looked over. At most a player may expect one Move when the GM seems to think its clearly another one).

 

[JConstantine]

There are many different GM best practices depending on what works for the people at the table.

I don't disagree. One of my annoyances with the BitD community is the amount of fans who tell new players - particularly those coming from D&D5e - that they need to "unlearn bad habits". Habits and techniques picked up from running/playing D&D may not necessarily be conducive to running/playing BitD, but that doesn't necessarily make them bad.

So when you say that a game codifies best practices I just disagree.

What I mean is PbtA games literally codify certain practices/techniques as rules for the GM to follow. Some of them are GMing fundamentals like "soft moves" and "hard moves" basically being set up (i.e. telegraphing) and follow-through, respectively, or "make a move when XYZ" which is literally just do standard GM stuff, or "disclaim decision-making sometimes".
Now, some of them are specific to the game and cannot be applied wholesale. Like Masks has "describe like a comic book", which is something I did when I ran the Sentinels Comics quickstart, but I wouldn't even do that in any and all Superhero games, never mind any other.

Great if it works for you but that doesn't mean it's a better approach.

I never said it was a better approach. I implied it could be useful to new GMs starting out, and that once they've got their feet wet, they can experiment without the guardrails.

 

[Pedantic]

Replace the "isn't" with an "is". Basically, my view is that the more a game system requires me to make ad-hoc decisions, the less its doing its job. There's some diminishing returns there, but that doesn't mean I don't think a far number of them are more lightweight than is desirable in this area.

Right, I'm with you here in that I draw a hard line between content and action resolution. I want plenty of guidance from a game on what I should put in the fictional setting, and absolute (and player facing) clarity on what happens when those elements interact. The emergence should come from the interaction of created elements with PC elements invoking different parts of a broad resolution system.

Or to be more specific, I don't particularly care if the jumping rules are a good model of how jumping works in the real world, but I do care that they will output a parsable resolution for every attempted jump. To that end, I suppose I would put "can be achieved with function calls to the resolution systems" as a constraint on par with plausibility on GM content determinations.