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

AbdulAlhazred said:

None of us are telling the players what their characters should be doing. But, if we're playing BitD and the players have decided their crew are all fashion hounds and their vice is shopping sprees, and they enjoy playing those out, fine. Still, the Blue Coats are going to show up, frame them for shop lifting and bust them, and then coerce them into stealing a shipment of fashion items from The Hive to please their bosses! You ARE playing BitD after all! And yes, I concocted that scenario, but when it turns out the owner of the stuff they just stole is the Spider's idol, well this is the stuff these games are made of!

The players picked the game, the subject matter, and through their connections, relationships, clocks, vices, etc. largely determined what things were on the table for me, the GM, to do. And this is where Narrativist play focuses is on the presentation of these elements. It is, as a GM, like being handed a canvas, paint, and brushes, and being told to paint a certain type of scene. Sure, you do have a lot of input, but the tools and subjects are not yours to choose. This takes skill to accomplish.

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I don't see it really being all that different in some ways than most other games, including traditional ones. If we're playing D&D, they know we're doing D&D fantasy and as a group we discuss general themes, things we're okay with or not, and then talk more specifics about the tone of play. But I see the GM as being just as much control of the game in your example as I have in my D&D game, perhaps more because the nature of the game is to have events like the Blue Coats showing up as a base assumption. Meanwhile if my D&D group is shopping unless I've hidden a Bolt of Smothering in the back (the carpets have to some from somewhere) there's likely not going to be any interruption.

In BitD it seems that the authors of the rules put in triggers to influence pacing, in D&D it's left up to the DM. Neither is a better approach, just different.

Lanefan said:

Thing is, oftentimes some or even all of those 'x' events are what lead up to the following 'H' event; which means eliding or handwaving the 'x' events risks having those 'H' events happen in isolation and without coherent in-fiction explanation - kinda like a movie where the editor was ordered to shoehorn a four-hour story into a 90-minute runtime leading to a disjointed, jumpy show on the screen.

I agree that an all-'H' game can be just as verisimilitudinous* due to the detail of the setting beneath it, but don't believe it can provide as grounded a game in the long run due to the 'jumpiness' I note above.

* - and I'm going to find a different word for this; if I have to type that one again some of my hair is getting pulled out.

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Eh, I think my experience is that you don't need a ton of filler. Narrativist games also tend to be pretty strong on thematic coherence. In 1KA Odu Nobunaga is rising to power. You oppose it, you assist it, you try to survive it. There's not a lot of need to explain why Takada and Oda are meeting in battle. Now, perhaps you can effect the action, maybe significantly. But the general course of events is already in motion.

AbdulAlhazred said:

I would say it's not my place to bring toys, the players do that! I might bring a couple of my own too, but my job is to fill in the blanks, maybe prompt some action, help manage the focus, etc.

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Fair enough. Although I will clarify that the players get to decide how or even if they're going to play with a toy. For that matter, if there's a toy they don't have they can always ask for it and if they like one type of toy over another I'll provide more of their favored toy.

AlViking said:

I'm glad that worked for you, sounds like you both had fun. But for me? I explicitly tell people when they're thinking of joining the game that I expect them to accept that they're on a team and to work with the other people at the table to find someone who will fit in. There will be opportunities for players to pursue their character's agendas to a certain degree during downtime and we'll exchange messages on it. But entire solo sessions? I just don't see that ever happening.

Still interesting to hear other people's experiences.

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I tell them to do what their characters would do. If someone roleplays their way out of the party then, depending on the player's intentions, one of - or a combination of - several things might happen:

--- the departed character retires and the player rolls up a new one (or cycles a pre-existing character back in)
--- the player and I get together at the pub during the week and update the departed character
--- the departed character retires and the player temporarily or permanently leaves the game, if such was their intent (for example if Bob is leaving the game anyway, it makes sense that he find a way to role-play his character into retirement rather than just leave it hanging as a loose end)
--- sometimes the 'departed' character hasn't truly left, and instead continues to follow the party in secret; this gets done by dm-to-player notes (or maybe text messages these days) on the fly during the session as I-as-DM never know when or if the following character might want to dive back in

The bigger headaches come if-when the party splits into two (or more!) sub-parties, each involving multiple players, and it's intended as a long-term or permanent split*. What I usually do there is put one lot on hold (say, group A) and play group B with the players from group A bringing new characters in to join group B; then when group B are done or have reached a logical break point e.g. between-adventure downtime I put them on hold and reverse the process, this time with group A.

* - short-term splits (e.g. half the party go around to sneak into the castle from the rear while the rest storm the drawbridge as a diversion) I play out in-session, physically separating the players if I can such that neither group knows what's happening with the other; and as DM I bounce back and forth between the groups as best I can until-unless they reunite or one group gets wiped out.

AbdulAlhazred said:

Eh, I agree with @pemerton here, 2, socially conformant game-facilitating play is extremely prevalent. Many of the old classic pitfalls of early play illustrate this super well. Every party would have just that one thief who was shady enough to do his job, yet mysteriously totally loyal to the party of complete strangers! The notion that such a person exists in any realistic world is basically totally far-fetched. I mean, I can't claim I spent my life hanging around such people, but I certainly know enough about humanity to know that low lifes are untrustworthy! Yet, every thief player knows to portray this unicorn of humanity because otherwise the game implodes spectacularly.

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My take on that is if it's going to implode, let it. Just make sure the brawling stays in character.

The party I'm running right now has three Thieves in it - two pure and one multi-classed with Illusionist - out of seven characters total. All of them have some ve-ery shady things in their past (one of them outright murdered two members of an old party she was in), and two of the three have no reason to be loyal to the current party other than the well-learned lesson that having allies nearby when in the field is much more conducive to survival and prosperity than not having allies nearby.

The third does have good reason to be loyal to the party, at least for now, as the party rescued him from long-term captivity at the hands of Mind Flayers and he was and remains very grateful for that.

AnotherGuy said:

pemerton said:

One way to ignite a little bit more controversy about the player-side principles and heuristics would be this: the second one that I described, of players choosing their PCs' actions on the basis of social expectations, is in my view far more common than is often acknowledged. It's just that the discussion of it is often framed not in terms of player-guiding heuristics and principles, but rather "table etiquette" like follow the GM's hooks or don't declare actions that will tend to break up the party.

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I would imagine given the necessary character motivations this is maybe more prevalent in PbtA games? I suspect the slower pace of trad D&D helps alleviate some of this issue?

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I'm not sure which way you're going here, and so haven't worked out what the "this" is.

My own sense is that Apocalypse World is intended to "work" when the players do declare actions from the point of view of their characters; to be more robust than (say) D&D when the players have their PCs in different places doing different things, without needing to run separate sessions.

Here are some posts about this from previous threads:

chaochou said:

Apoc World is certainly a game where PCs can act independently. Sorceror is another, and certain versions of FATE too. There will be many others, but all three of those games emphasise (either through advice, play principles, or procedures) the co-design of a tense, drama-filled opening situation where every player ends up with a character which excites them and who has a personal, unique stake.

I tend to aim for about 10-15 minutes of time for a player before moving on. But it's not hard and fast - because if the fates of the characters really are interconnected, then a tense scene for one PC is tense for everyone. I've certainly had nights where everyone is on the edge of their seat as a scene unfolds for another character...

I've occasionally had the opposite - nights where people aren't paying any attention at all to the rest. Group size is very important in this respect. Smaller groups feel more involved and personal. It's hard to shift the spotlight around six people while maintaining an unfolding situation that's compelling for everyone. Three is a sweet spot, I think, four is good.

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chaochou said:

I find my play with five ends up very similar to what you describe with three players, except instead of two sets of activity (your group of two and then the third player alone) you end up with at most three sets (two groups of two and a lone actor) and often two (three and two or four and one).

I find the game makes some difference - my players will look for aid and back-up in Burning Wheel more readily than in Apocalypse Word, which I think is a function of AW characters being generally more badass from the outset than three lifepath BW characters. But even in AW it's extremely rare for me to have five players doing independent and unconnected things.

If I've made a move and Sickboy is missing, there's always more than one player that wants to know how and why, and that will naturally lead the players to seek each other out as different moves catch or require their attention.

I really like running for three in Apocalypse World, but it only takes two or three rolls to go against the players and things can spiral out of control for a hardhold pretty quickly. So I find with three, my players won't seek out confrontation with each other directly or overtly - there's enough adversity (and tension and fun) from scarcity and the apocalypse without really needing to.

Whereas, with five players you've got enough manpower to make the hardhold feel reasonably secure, and that gives greater opportunity for conflicts of interest between the characters.

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The first of these is from 2019 and the second from nearly 4 years later, which makes me speculate that @chaochou had had more opportunity to practise running for slightly larger groups.

My own experience with GMing in a non-party fashion is mostly with two or three players.

AlViking said:

I was responding to

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Yes, I know. That posts says nothing about "allowing" or "stopping" anything.

AlViking said:

You state that you don't "need" things you feel are not interesting, etc..

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Correct. That's a statement about what I look for and enjoy in RPGing.

AlViking said:

I don't care one way or another about the moving the story forward to what you term highlights

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The term "highlights" has only been used by me in the context of replying to @Micah Sweet who used it. What I said, as per the post that you've quoted, was I aspire to play being exciting, engaging, interesting, surprising, tragic, hilarious or otherwise moving, as much as possible.

AlViking said:

I've learned over the years to enjoy things like shopping trips by using them as fun RP acting opportunities

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OK. As I posted, my players have never shown any interest in this sort of low-to-no stakes play.

AlViking said:

the game isn't about me, or at least not me alone.

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My RPGing isn't about me, or about me alone, either.

You seem to be thinking that the only way that I can achieve play that satisfies my desires is by squelching my players' desire to engage in play that is not exciting, engaging, interesting, surprising, tragic, hilarious or otherwise moving. But as I already posted, my players seem to generally share my preferences. And so no squelching is required!

Micah Sweet said:

It's certainly a factor in most games IMO, but the first heuristic is the one I focus on and is far more important to me. In particular, I very much do not want rules that specifically encourage or require the second heuristic be followed. Most if my players might often choose to make decisions this way, but they don't have to, and I don't want them to feel that they do.

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Well, my own view is that the RPGing you prefer - OSR and Level Up, as per your poster tagline - make the sorts of heuristics you reject more frequent and more salient than some of the RPGs that I play, which are more amenable to player simply declaring actions from the perspective of their PCs.

pemerton said:

My own sense is that Apocalypse World is intended to "work" when the players do declare actions from the point of view of their characters; to be more robust than (say) D&D when the players have their PCs in different places doing different things, without needing to run separate sessions.

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As a side validation to this, my Stonetop game had 3 different sets of "stuff" going on in 3 different geographic regions of the area around the Town at one time for a while. The players were excited to all get back together and collide off each other / tackle things as a group again, but the game totally supported it and in fact led to great moments of tension & hilarity when you'd cut from a player fighting for her life in the bowels of a collapsed tower-dungeon over to some mundane scene in town with a bickering argument over where the food for the festival is going to come from.

Thomas Shey said:

back in the day when we shifted over from OD&D to RuneQuest almost everyone in the (rather large group) got an immediately stronger feeling of verisimilitude. I'd speculate that's because RQ felt both more grounded and less stylized than OD&D

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In my case, the same thing happened with the shift from AD&D to Rolemaster.

It's not a coincidence - despite all their technical weaknesses, RQ and RM are reasonably well-designed RPGs which deliver the gritty/grounded experience that they aspire to.