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

[Thomas Shey]

Cinematic implies genre reinforcing which does reflect Monster of the Week but it is not reflective of the sort of choices Apocalypse World puts forward through its moves. This is the problem with being far too general and lumping things together to make declarative statements about whole categories of things. Powered by the Apocalypse doesn't describe a single structure or arrangement of play - there are at least 3 diverging branches that have very different play expectations and even within a single branch the play expectations often differ significantly. It's dramatic but not cinematic.

The focus on Complication as a virtue seemed present in both Monster of the Week and Monsterhearts to my reading, and if I understood your post you indicate these are in two different branches. Did I misread here?

 

[zakael19]

In novels, I see plenty of narrative space where all that's happening is people investigating things or talking to people without things getting worse. If you don't, I'd have to reflect your statement back to you "I don't know what stories you're reading".

They’re getting good rolls, or there’s no need for one .

Most heroic/action fantasy I read consistently hits the same sort of beats (or the other way around maybe, because they’re my influences) as 2d6 with partial success style play. I’ve actually stopped to reflect a few times on how many twists and turns in a chapter or scene in some of the books I read recently were entirely 6- now it’s worse -> partial success-> full success, but the GM is making a soft move -> partial… etc.

You can see the intentional design from Baker’s understanding of narrative tension and suspense coming through. Cool stuff.

 

[pemerton]

I have a problem with them if I'm running a more grounded game, with the Living World precepts we've talked about in this thread.

"Even if I fail, the story moves forward" is (to me) at odds with a world that doesn't care about the PCs. "If I fail, I've made no progress, and I might have to consider completely abandoning this whole course of action, for now at least," needs to be a viable option in some cases.

The "fail forward" or "no whiffing" idea was coined, to the best of my knowledge, by Ron Edwards and Luke Crane. Burning Wheel certainly exemplifies it.

And I would say that Burning Wheel tends to produce far more grounded RPGing than most D&D play that I am familiar with. For a host of reasons, but some of those are because BW is closer to RuneQuest than D&D in the way that PCs are expressed and actions are resolved.

And it is eminently possible, in BW play, to make no progress and have to abandon one's course of action. But that won't be because nothing happened.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Well, the simple answer there is that to most people its simply a waste of time; it ties up attention and handling for something that could have simply been bypassed.

Since this is the system in use in most traditional RPGs, including D&D, I'm not sure how you can legitimately claim "most" people see it as a waste of time.

 

[pemerton]

If there are no lows, the highs have no meaning.

But it's not true that, if a game is never boring, than it is never interesting either. I can get my full share of tedium from (eg) waiting at traffic lights, or standing in line at the supermarket.

 

[Campbell]

The focus on Complication as a virtue seemed present in both Monster of the Week and Monsterhearts to my reading, and if I understood your post you indicate these are in two different branches. Did I misread here?

I was disagreeing with the cinematic label being applied to all Powered by the Apocalypse games. Not with moves snowballing being a thing that happens. I do think that snowballing serves very different purposes from game to game.

I do not think it's a general virtue. I would not want it in Into the Odd, Chronicles of Darkness or a lot of play experiences. I don't consider it virtuous, just enabling games to pace themselves and allowing GMs to focus on other things.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I would have thought that "cinematic fiction" is supposed to contrast with other forms of fiction.

But fiction where interesting and emotionally resonant things happen frequently to the protagonists is not especially distinctive of cinema. It's pretty common in most sorts of stories.

I'm not sure what stories you are reading. Most stories I read, especially genre stories of the sort that RPGs draw from, have interesting and/or emotionally resonant things happening to the protagonists pretty frequently.

But...games and stories are not the same, and dramatic storytelling is not a universal priority for all RPGs. I love stories, and I really love coming up with mechanics to explain what happened in them. That doesn't mean games and stories are the same, or that I want my game to mechanically incentivize or manipulate events to make those stories more likely to happen. The story is one way it could have happened. That's all.

 

[Thomas Shey]

They’re getting good rolls, or there’s no need for one .

I saw the smiley, but the effect is still the same: things do not constantly get worse. That's very much an artifact of cinematic action fiction because of limited time to work with. As such, I maintain its a strong influence on the constant-accumulation-of-complications in the PbtA games I'm familiar with (which is admittedly a narrow set, but comments PbtA fans have made does not suggest most of them swing far from this). I understand what its doing, but I think it only serves the user when they're playing from certain stances. For others it simply countermotivates them to doing anything that would evoke a roll.

 

[pemerton]

In novels, I see plenty of narrative space where all that's happening is people investigating things or talking to people without things getting worse.

Likewise in Apocalypse World - if no player-side move is triggered, then the GM makes a move, by default a soft one.

But eventually a player will declare an action that triggers a player-side move, if for no other reason than because that is how players can try and seize control and achieve finality.

Much as how protagonists in fiction - especially genre fiction - end up doing things that generate higher-stakes results.

 

[Thomas Shey]

I was disagreeing with the cinematic label being applied to all Powered by the Apocalypse games. Not with moves snowballing being a thing that happens. I do think that snowballing serves very different purposes from game to game.

All right, that's fair. I'm not sure I entirely understand the distinction you're making, but I'm willing to accept I may have applied that overly broadly. It wasn't central to my point anyway.

I do not think it's a general virtue. I would not want it in Into the Odd, Chronicles of Darkness or a lot of play experiences. I don't consider it virtuous, just enabling games to pace themselves and allowing GMs to focus on other things.

Well, I'm not trying to speak to individual posters, but what the design ethic seems to be there, which is that at least within the games that seem to use it it does seem like its considered a general virtue. That doesn't mean everyone playing a PbtA game considers it that way. My point was that for many, possibly a majority of RPG players it isn't a virtue at all, because they don't consider accumulating trouble a positive.

(I think I could engage with it myself because I play from a variety of stances in a variety of campaigns and situations, but not everyone does).