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

[pemerton]

I don't like this formulation at all. The GM is not an entertainer, a storyteller, etc - at least not in my experience of RPGing. The GM is a participant in a game, along with other participants. Whether the game is fun or not depends on the intersection between how it plays and the tastes of the participants - this is as true of any given RPG as it is true of bridge or football.

Oh I don't agree. The GM does not have a comparable role to a player in a conventional game, certainly not in trad play. If the GM is comparable to anything in bridge, it's the cards; they're a human filling in for the state of the game. Generally though, I don't think a lot of people play RPGs as games in the same sense bridge is played at all; they lack a fundamental end state and do not pursue a goal. The players are not doing the same kind of thing I do on my weekly card night. The GM might well be a variant of storyteller or entertainer in those cases.

Are you saying that you think I'm wrong about my experience of RPGing? Or that your experiences are different.

The first I don't accept. But in respect of the second, obviously I defer to your account of your experiences.

 

[pemerton]

I mean obviously I know that mice with swords are unrealistic and that you have to not avoid mice with swords if you want to a game where mice in fact have swords.

<snip>

You could if you want to, for some reason, have mice with swords and agree that you want to take sword fighting extremely seriously and avoid any swashbuckling shenanigans and try to stick to an approach to fencing which is as historically accurate as you can make it in this specific domain.

Even here, tensions can easily emerge. Part of what makes fencing what it is, is the nature of the human body. And also the nature of the sword.

The bodies of mice have different properties from the bodies of humans. "Swords" the size of sewing pins will have different properties from actual swords.

The same thing comes up in a sci-fir RPG. What happens if two PCs sit down to explain the special relativity thought experiments to one another, while travelling in their FTL space ship that accelerated from "stationary" to its current speed?

The notion of "its realistic until it isn't" won't serve as any guide here; it's just a post-hoc description. The authors of the fiction just make whatever calls they make that satisfy their aesthetic concerns.

And for the sake of clarity, I think this post puts me in broad agreement with you. But if I've misunderstood, I'm happy to discuss further!

 

[Pedantic]

Are you saying that you think I'm wrong about my experience of RPGing? Or that your experiences are different.

The first I don't accept. But in respect of the second, obviously I defer to your account of your experiences.

I'm sure you're the foremost expert on your opinion, but I sort of assumed you were making a general claim about the structure of RPGs. If that wasn't your point and you were simply relating your perception of them, then obviously I have no grounds.

 

[definiteFreakyFishGuy]

I would think that it's pretty much widely accepted, full stop because that's what simulationist systems are.

Again, as I just posted to @Lanefan, every single sim-leaning system in the history of the hobby says that the mechanics inform the narrative. The mechanics provide some (doesn't mean all or every or perfect, just some) kernel of information to the table about how the result was achieved.

Sorry, I am just not very familiar with the history. I'll try to take a look at those games you listed.

So am I correct in that your definition of "simulation" is based on your observation of games that came out in the past few decades, rather than some authority figure or academia?

The only exception to this so far has been FKR, which substitutes an expert in the field in lieu of mechanics.

I am not at all familiar with FKR (sorry for my ignorance). I did a search for "FKR TTRPG" and got Free Kriegsspiel Revolution. Is that the right one?

 

[Thomas Shey]

This seems to assume no responsibility on the players’ part. If PCs encounter and are killed by a red dragon at level 1, it’s certainly possible that the GM is being an a-hole, as you put it. But it could also happen because of poor decisions by the players.

Though I've got to say it probably requires the GM being awfully--casual--in how he sets things up, barring using the original OD&D outdoor encounter tables (and if he is, without thought, he's at least not looked at the implications of doing that).

 

[pemerton]

Essentially, you seem to deny that GM can be a means of simulation. (I assume this means you rule out the possibility of simulationist FKR play.)

<snip>

When I review D&D, I do so with a few things in mind that cause that gap in our analyses. I firstly assume the game is to be played according to all the instructions, not just some of them. Seeing as there are instructions appointing DM to a very high degree of curation of play, I interpret the rest with that in view. I commit myself to neutrality about the imaginary subjects: I don't worry whether or not D&D is like our real-world, I treat it instead as a work of fiction (or rather, instructions for creating works of fiction of a certain kind) and look at what it says. If it says high-level heroes can survive 100' falls from dragons, my first thought is not whether dragons are "realistic" in our or some specific imaginary world: I just take that as a fact about the kinds of imaginary worlds applying those 'instructions' will lead to. Dragons (and heroes surviving 100' falls) will be "realistic" in those worlds just because that is established in the fiction. And of course, I am comfortable with GM or players being a means for simulation.

TTRPG isn't played to the standard of scientific investigation, nor of expert consultation or testimony. Not all subjects matter equally. Lack of expertise in quantum mechanics is unlikely to make a difference to the experience of living in the Inmost Sea. Strong knowledge of the Earthsea texts will matter more. Secondly is that when the imaginary world is one created by people at the table, those people are its foremost experts.

'authorial-expertise' hypothesis, which says that an author of an imaginary world is de jure an expert in it (what they say is true in the fiction, just because they are the appointed person to say it)​

<snip>

So when Arthur Conan Doyle says that a certain kind of snake that cannot climb in the real world, climbed down a bell pull to poison the victim, it's true that this snake can climb down bell pulls in the imaginary world of Holmes just because Doyle said so.

The climbing snake example is interesting because apparently many readers, lacking much knowledge of snakes, just accepted Doyle's "mistake" as right. And in the story, Holmes was right to solve the mystery as he did because in Holmes' world the snake really could climb.

Generally, at least where knowledge is concerned, expertise can be judged against an external standard (even expertise in a skill - eg an expert pianist - can probably be judged against an external standard, but I put that case to one side in this post).

The fact that an author has authority over what they write doesn't make it appropriate, without more, to also describe them as an expert, except perhaps in some loose or somewhat metaphorical sense - they can't be wrong, but that's not because what they say is likely to be correct but rather because they enjoy a power of stipulation.

Free kriegsspiel works as a training tool - to the extent that it does - because the referee has expert knowledge and intuition about how events will unfold in a battle situation. That's what makes it different from mere storytelling.

There can be external standards other than reality, too. And if a RPG establishes or presupposes some external standard (real or fictional) that it is supposed to answer to, then - unlike the process that you, @clearstream, described - the people playing it will not simply construct their conceptions of what is possible or appropriate in the fiction by reference to the game rules. They might think, for instance, that it is silly that a warrior can easily survive a 100' fall from a dragon. Given that many RPGs have presented themselves as answerable to an external standard in this sense - typically, a list of inspirational media - I don't think RPGers who depart from your process in the way I've described are doing anything wrong.

Another issue that can come up arises from the fact that, as Tuovinen puts it, that some - perhaps much - RPGing involves "intensely detailed perspectives that sometimes surpass the means of traditional, non-interactive mediums." What will be experienced, in those perspectives, needs to be decided - if the game play is to work - but often can't be inferred from the reference material to which the game is supposed to be answerable. Particularly when that reference material departs from reality, so that the sorts of inferences that would work in real life don't work in the fiction.

For instance, to the best of my knowledge no episode of Star Trek shows us what happens when two character sit down together to work through the special relativity thought experiments as their ship accelerates to warp speed. But that can come up in a Star Trek RPG. What do those characters think and experience? The reference materials won't answer this question, and what the best answer should be is probably not uncontroversial, and is almost certainly not obvious.

The same thing will happen with the snake: in a RPG set in the world of Sherlock Holmes, what happens if the players have their PCs look up an encyclopaedia entry on the snake in question, or have their PCs go to the place where the snake comes from and try and find specimens of it?

A further issue is that most RPGing has a fairly definite structure, which establishes asymmetrical responsibility for introducing fiction but requires the participants to converge on the same fiction. So, whereas a group of friends sitting around making up new Earthsea stories can freely discuss among themselves what does or doesn't seem to fit with the reference fiction, the structure of RPGing does not foster this sort of discussion (as is illustrated by some posts in this thread), and too much of this sort of discussion can spoil the RPG experience (eg because the player loses the pleasures that come from occupying the player participant role).

Here's an example from my own actual play (of Classic Traveller - the scenario was my adaptation of Shadows):

First, there was a room from which vapour was gently flowing, which had an active electric field in its doorway. There was some description of how this might work from the player who is (in his real life) an electrical engineer; in response I read the module description, which talks about a field that does 4D damage if you go through it grounded; and he face-palmed and went quiet. The players decided that Xander - the toughest of the PCs present both in physical stats and because rather than an ordinary vacc suit he wears battle dress (= powered armour) - would go through. (It was he who spotted the electric field in the first place: I called for a roll based on INT with a bonus for the electronic sensory enhancements of the battle dress.)

He jumped through but, as per the module description, landed on a floor of frozen vapour. The module says that it will break under the weight of three people; Xander is 195 cm tall and weighs 110 kg, and is wearing battle dress, and had just jumped through; so I declared that the floor broke. I allowed a throw on DEX to get back to the edge of the room without triggering the electrical field, and that was successful. When Xander looked in the liquid under the frozen surface he could see pods from which "snakes" like those seen earlier were hatching - we checked the charts for their teeth attack and worked out they had no chance of biting through battle dress (the roll on two dice would have to be 14+) as they nibbled at Xander's feet and legs. I called for a morale check - normally 7+ but with a +1 because of his battle dress making him safe - and that was passed, and so he didn't recoil back through the electrical field in terror. Instead he drew his cutlass and hacked the "snakes" in two, which was basically automatic. He then jumped back through the field to report what he had found.

Outside the vapour-and-"snake" chamber, the killing of the "snakes" causes Alissa to take some more psychic feedback damage. And when the snakes were killed they dissolved very quickly, like the Aliens on the Annic Nova.

At this point it was settled by the players that the vapour was chlorine (green) and bromine (brown). The electrical engineer was Googling the freezing and boiling points of various gases, but we didn't push the chemistry too far.

Here's another example:

The PCs had travelled to the icy world of Zinion looking for the ruins or relics of an ancient alien civilisation. They knew that the aliens had lived on the world around 2 billion years ago, and had identified the site where they thought the ruins might be found.

<snip>

With the (fictional) context now fully clear, it was time to start the excavation. We did some Googling (of ice-melting with lasers) and decided that it would take 4 days to cut through 3 km of ice with a triple beam laser.

I think this sort of back-and-forth between participants, including compromises by experts (like my engineer friend) to permit the game to proceed, is in practice about the best that is possible.

But part of what makes it feasible, at my table, is that we are not playing in a "solve the mystery" or "beat the scenario" sort of way. If we were, that would put much more pressure on things. And I have had play experiences, in the past, where it was that sort of play, and where disagreements between players and GMs about what makes sense in the fiction did sour the play experience.

 

[pemerton]

I'm sure you're the foremost expert on your opinion, but I sort of assumed you were making a general claim about the structure of RPGs. If that wasn't your point and you were simply relating your perception of them, then obviously I have no grounds.

I was talking about the sort of RPGing that I experience. Even when I've played in "trad" games, the experience has been as I described. Sometimes that can cause power-struggle issues with a "trad" GM.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Because I am frustrated by being told that the play was wrong:
The runes examples was not wrong from the perspective of the play of MHRP or a variant thereof. Nor was it wrong in general. And as I said, it makes no sense to say that "It was wrong from the perspective of D&D".

If all you are asserting is that D&D as played by Micah Sweet is different from MHRP, then you could have said that. But you didn't. You went on about quantum runes and the like.

What does the "complaint" consist in, other than saying I prefer something different. I mean, from the extent of your complaining about the play of (say) Marvel Heroic RP, and you need to describe it as wrong from your perspective, what should I infer about your experiences with it?

So it's ok for me not to like something you like, but it's not ok for me to explain why I don't like it? That seems strange to me.

 

[Micah Sweet]

And who is doing that? Who are you remonstrating with?

Where have I ever suggested this? I don't even know what it would mean - as in, what would it mean for gaming culture to "suit me". What is an "unsuitable" gaming culture?

Never said you did either of those things. But not doing either is IMO required for people with different opinions about the same topic to get along in civil discourse.

 

[Thomas Shey]

So having that opinion making you "conservative" and "exhausting"?

I should have quoted his whole post, but including "Borders on not making it D&D"? Yeah, kind of .