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

[Paul Farquhar]

To be fair, even quicksand isn't particularly deadly. It's denser than the human body so you don't actually sink.

Morecambe Bay has plenty of fatalities.

 

[AlViking]

Morecambe Bay has plenty of fatalities.

If you're stuck when the tide comes in it can be deadly. But you still aren't sinking into the quicksand like they do in the movies.

 

[thefutilist]

How many actual gamers really care about player-authored rising conflict across a moral line,

Gamers can be weird but if we're talking the human population as a whole, maybe half of them. I don't think they'd describe it in precisely those terms though.

 

[Faolyn]

Finally managed to compose a complete reply.

So useless?

No. They're guidelines, goals, and the most common things you'll do. That's far from useless. That's far more useful information than you'll get in, say, the 5.14 DMG.

Well, if you want to water it down to that level..

Nope. No maps whatsoever except 3rd party modules. But then I do not make dungeon crawls.

OK. Do you understand that most gamers make at least a very minimal map?

Well, if you want to water it down to "sometimes" do this. Let us then say I don't care being conscious about this, and I am sure I quite a few times adress the player.

Personally, I found my games to be a lot more immersive and interesting once I started doing this--which I did before PbtA was a thing, by the way. It may be something you want to be more conscious about.

"Embrace the fantastic" levels. Coupled with an agenda.

This one is tricky, as moves are not a thing in D&D. I think I accurately described the intention in DW context, transfered to D&D terminology.

This isn't specifically a move thing. It's literally what I said: The PCs do X, you respond with Y. I mean, I assume that, as GM, you take on the role of NPCs, right?

Yes. Generic zombie 13 do not get that treatment. ("More zombies in this room"). Nor do screaming goblin raider nr 7. ("Another ambush, roll initiative")

Do the first zombies or goblins get that treatment?

Yes. I know. That doesn't help. Dragging out a generator is even more pain than throwing out some random syllables on the fly. Still need to be noted and remembered at least for the duration of the scene.

Do your players not take notes?

I wonder why they would feel this was worth a full paragraph under principles..

Probably because DW was, like, the second PbtA game created and was addressing a potentially very different audience (D&D players) than AW was, and so they felt that they had to explain it.

Ok, I guess I am doing some cheering and condolences if you water it down that far. But I am also for instance doing some theatrical gloating on minor misfortune, which I guess isn't really according to then principle?

No, but I personally have to wonder why you feel the need to gloat at someone who fails in some way. That sounds bizarrely petty.

Yes, and that is not following the principle as described.

Again, see guidelines above.

Handing out an inspiration point is an act the GM does in D&D. It does not need to begin in fiction. It might end in fiction when used.

DW doesn't use Inspiration.

Situations might change, but not as a move. Ofscreen updates typically take place off-session. This would from my understanding be prep, not moves in DW parlance.

In case you don't understand, a move is something that moves the game along. You generally don't use a move to do something off-screen, because that doesn't move the active game along.

You'll also notice that "think offscreen" is a principle, not a move.

Exactly. Which was my point. I am not following this.

Yes? And as I said, I am in general not doing any of these. I want to focus on the party.

Well, you might want to give it a shot. Your players may have extra fun if they get to show off their abilities every once in a while.

Nope. Read them. And see above.

You clearly do not know my game. You do pure guesswork. D&D is 1000s of different games. You read Ravenloft, and somehow think I play according to what stands there when I have never read the module?

What module? The original Ravenloft module? Never read it. It was in one of the boxed books, or maybe the MCA. But one doesn't need to read that module to think to address characters, not people. That's the first place I read it, but it's an idea that's been used many times since--and probably before--that as well.

 

[Faolyn]

@AlViking, you wanted an example of fail forward from an actual D&D game, so here goes, from last night's game.

Preface: I have no idea if the GM adheres to fail-forward principles or not. I know they've run 5e, but I'm not sure they've run anything else, or even fully read any PbtA material other than the playbooks from the two games they're in.

Anyway, we've been fighting this eldritch god-dragon thing that had a third eye and an icy breath. Fighter was on its head, 15-20 feet above the ground, hacking away, and remembered that he had a magical fire opal that contained something (a fragment? a blessing? can't remember) from the fire god. He got the idea to jam the opal into the third eye socket. The GM had him make an attack without proficiency (improvised weapon). I know that the player didn't quite hit, but I don't know how badly he failed. The GM decided that he jammed the opal in, but not cleanly. The opal broke (mostly the fighter's goal) and it pretty much centered a smallish fireball on that area, so the dragon, the fighter, and the other PC who was also on the dragon's head were all affected and took damage. The GM said afterwards that if it had been a successful attack, only the dragon would have taken damage, but since it wasn't a success, the blast wasn't fully contained.

So there you have it: success = dragon takes damage; partial success/success with a cost = dragon and everyone in a certain radius takes damage.

 

[Thomas Shey]

I think the majority of people who play TTRPGs don't really care what label you attach to the game.

That doesn't matter. What I'm talking about is how many people playing RPGs, especially fantasy ones, are mostly concerned with good a simulation of reality they are in areas outside their dedicated fantasy elements. I don't have any sign that was ever huge, and all signs I've seen is that these days its pretty small. You can call that group whatever suits you; the term is irrelevant.

 

[Faolyn]

Please stop trying to trick people into liking narrative games. Is that kind of recruiting really necessary? Why can't you just accept people's personal feelings as they're stated?

I'm not trying to trick anyone into anything. I'm pointing out that the things you're complaining about are things you're already doing.

 

[Faolyn]

Think dangerous doesn't describe what to do, it describe what to *think *. Yes the actual text, not just the heading.

And this is a pretty standard GMing tactic.

You know what? I want to know what the structure of one of your games is like. How do you set up conflicts and threats? Do you set up conflicts and threats?

Because this thread has a whole lot of heavily-narrative folks going into detail about their games and heavily-trad folks not actually talking about their games much at all other than to say "I don't do that." So lets hear how you do do it.

 

[Faolyn]

Actually not. There is the middleman of the DM. This might seem like a formality, but it is indeed essential to the experience. If the thief picks the lock it is not the rules that say a thief tools check should be used. It is the DM that looks at the situation, and decides that in this case they want a thief tools check to be used to resolve the situation.

There might be groups that effectively bind the DM to call the roll DW style. But I think it is more common to happily accept the DM handwaving the thief tools roll because it will succeed eventually, or call for a stealth roll instead as that seem more important concern, or call for a reflex save to avoid the trap triggered by touching the lock, or call for a sleight of hand as that is more approperiate for the spesific type of lock.

This is different from fictional trigger.

So when the players decide they want to attack, you look at the situation and decide that they don't have to enter combat?

 

[hawkeyefan]

It’s possible to read “simulation” from the inkblot that is modern D&D. But it’s an interpretation, at most.