clearstream
(He, Him)
Can you define what you mean by "major events of play" so that isn't ambiguous.
I don't know what you mean by "the authorship isn't being used". If it informs play, is it being used?
D&D 5E 5e* - D&D-now
- Thread starter clearstream
- Start date
I don't know what you mean by "the authorship isn't being used". If it informs play, is it being used?
clearstream
(He, Him)
Remember that I say the DM brings principles unavoidably to their interpretation of the rules. To what they will say, based on them. So for Hack and Slash, can you show how that mechanic DRIVES without reference to principles?
AbdulAlhazred
Legend
I'm not entirely sure how to answer the question. I think the salient question is about how fiction drives mechanics. Hack & Slash is invoked by some purely fictional event. There are no mechanical or cue-based requirements for that invocation listed in the rules text, aside from "it happens when a PC enters melee combat with an opponent." I'd even note that H&S might NOT be the result of such a declaration, it depends purely on the fiction (IE the example of the dragon who cannot be hurt by a melee attack, or the Ogre who's club must be bypassed via DD before it can be engaged).
So, yes, I can construct examples of fiction driving the use of H&S, which I think are already present and recapitulated above. As for 'without reference to principles' I'm stumped by why this would make sense as a point of discussion. I don't think there's any possibility of describing ANY action in DW without reference to principles. I mean, we can fail to mention them, and in many cases 'general practice' might suffice even if a specific principle didn't exist, but they exist specifically because they shape play in a certain way. In fact we could scrape the whole superstructure of distinct moves and playbooks and whatnot from DW and the principles would STILL apply! You would still be able to play!
Think of it this way, suppose we had a simple PbtA that had basically the agenda and principles of DW, but lacked any specific moves and playbooks. When a player said "I'm a wizard" then what would happen? The agenda is to present a fantastic world, that includes wizards, who presumably engage in the use of magic. So, if the wizard player says "I ensorcell the Orc Chieftain" we can well imagine that the GM is bound by his principles to narrate some sort of fantastical happening, etc. Thus simply having a structure of "players and GMs make moves" plus the agenda and principles of DW is pretty close to a logically complete and usable game system! This system would have mechanics, the making of moves, and a process, but very very few cues.
clearstream
(He, Him)
That side steps my question. Drives from it!? The underlined part - F > S > F. Where the 'S' is DW Hack & Slash. What about the mechanic drives the following F?
Last edited:
clearstream
(He, Him)
We've a lot of open questions, and I have examples to write (I took notes from my weekly game last night.) But first I wanted to follow up something I've been thinking about.
In C*, there are no mechanics: only the process description above. DM will decide results by making calls. F > C > F. Principles are unwritten: it's up to each group to decide. Can a DM run C* in fiction-first mode?
In C*, there are no mechanics: only the process description above. DM will decide results by making calls. F > C > F. Principles are unwritten: it's up to each group to decide. Can a DM run C* in fiction-first mode?
Last edited:
clearstream
(He, Him)
I can say something like 1) IFF the group's principles influence toward fiction-first, then a DM can run C* fiction-first
To make some of the arguments (others have made) in this thread, I need to also say 2) IFF an RPG has mechanics that are driven by and drive the fiction, then a DM can run that RPG fiction-first
C* has no mechanics, so cannot satisfy 2).
C* doesn't prevent DM making calls driven by and driving the fiction; so how can it be ruled out that they may do so? I don't believe that it can be! So it's down to principles, C* says don't forget to play in accord with your principles (you were going to anyway.)
C* is intended to imply a negative-twin - X*. I don't know the rules of X*, but I suppose them to work in specific ways that make it impossible to obey a group's fiction-first principles. 5e* says "5e isn't X*." Maybe a group with anti-fiction-first principles can find ways to interpret 5e as X*. 5e* says, "Don't do that. Use this interpretation that lets fiction-first live in the text." That's all it needs to say: the rest is up to the group.
Is it possible to hope that 5e* will force a group to play fiction-first? Earlier arguments in another thread necessitated a common belief that no RPG text can force a group to play fiction-first. 5e* thus has more modest expectations.
To make some of the arguments (others have made) in this thread, I need to also say 2) IFF an RPG has mechanics that are driven by and drive the fiction, then a DM can run that RPG fiction-first
C* has no mechanics, so cannot satisfy 2).
C* doesn't prevent DM making calls driven by and driving the fiction; so how can it be ruled out that they may do so? I don't believe that it can be! So it's down to principles, C* says don't forget to play in accord with your principles (you were going to anyway.)
C* is intended to imply a negative-twin - X*. I don't know the rules of X*, but I suppose them to work in specific ways that make it impossible to obey a group's fiction-first principles. 5e* says "5e isn't X*." Maybe a group with anti-fiction-first principles can find ways to interpret 5e as X*. 5e* says, "Don't do that. Use this interpretation that lets fiction-first live in the text." That's all it needs to say: the rest is up to the group.
Is it possible to hope that 5e* will force a group to play fiction-first? Earlier arguments in another thread necessitated a common belief that no RPG text can force a group to play fiction-first. 5e* thus has more modest expectations.
Last edited:
In the classic dungeon context, the fiction and the rightward arrows it gives rise to arise, at least to a significant extent, out of those unconventional actions that engage idiosyncratic features. White Plume Mountain might be fundamentally silly, but there's no denying its crazy rooms and the tricks in them generate cloud-to-cloud or cloud-to-box arrows!
It's classic D&D combat that is particularly light on rightward arrows in many cases, which is why I've been leaning heavily on it in this discussion.
AbdulAlhazred
Legend
Well, this is where DW/PbtA 'holds together' as a system quite well. ANY move will demand a return to the fiction. I mean, suppose an Orc approaches you with hostile intent, and you declare that you're going to fight him, and pull out your sword. This is about as cut-and-dried as it gets, the GM could reasonably just rule that you've invoked an H&S move. So, what are the possibilities here? You could roll 10+ and simply pig-stick the orc, forgoing the extra 1d6 damage option. You could roll 7-9, in which case you simply take damage in return for dealing it. 6- subjects you to some sort of GM Hard Move.
So, 10+ you MIGHT simply damage the bad guy and there's no other real fictional consequences. Note that in DW hit points are a very limited resource and even high level PCs don't have large stacks of them, so the fictional outcome of damage is MUCH more easily established than for D&D! That is, any blow that does 10 damage to ANYTHING seriously injured it! Likewise if a monster dishes out 10 damage, the result is pretty serious, and can be reliably narrated as such. There is MUCH LESS need for the Gygaxian equivocation about hit points that are 'luck' and whatnot! So you got a 10+, and assuming your opponent isn't killed outright by the resulting damage, the GM can narrate the result predictably in the fiction. The GM is also free to impose a soft move at that point, which could be anything, but will HAVE to be fiction-based, as there's no mechanical basis for initiating moves in DW. (IE "the orc takes your blow and attempts to push past you to get to the wizard!").
On a 7-9 there's likewise wound fiction for each side, and again the GM COULD come out with a soft move.
On a 6- the GM MUST respond with a hard move. This is going to be, necessarily rooted in the fiction, there are no mechanics that can simply generate such a thing. The most mundane answer would be something like "The orc takes a big swing at you with his axe and you take N damage!" Honestly, it could be anything, as long as it hurts and it follows from the H&S move and its fiction.
Now, the above example is about as cut-n-dried as it can ever get in DW. I'd note that there is NO TURN STRUCTURE, so once this interaction happens, the other players and the GM are going to be going back into the fiction and generating new moves. Maybe at this point the wizard pipes up with "I cast a magic missile at the Orc!" or something like that. This is again about as clear cut as it gets in terms of move generation, and admittedly the fiction part of it is more in terms of the wizard player adding his input at this point (again no mechanic dictates this, there's no initiative order or anything) but it is true that casting a spell is pretty mechanical in terms of how it works, at least up to a point.
But, really, in actual play IME, straight up combats rarely get very cut-n-dried. If you want to WIN and you don't want to just get chewed by every monster, you better learn to invent some tactics and bring some more fiction into play. For example the Dwarf above, his player could say "What do I know about Orcs that might help me here?" and all of a sudden he's spouting some nasty curse in the orc's face which makes it recklessly attack him and gives him some forward! This is the sort of thing that DW does, by its very design. It brings this stuff out.
Now, contrast with 4e, which can get pretty 'fictional' in some styles of play. Maybe a player pulls a Monster Knowledge or some kind of Lore check and then utilizes it to invoke a skill (Minor Action, spout a curse at the orc which gives you a +1 on your attack). This kind of thing is often cued via some keywords, or the easily invoked structure of the conditions (IE I toss a flask of oil in the troll's face, and it reels back, fearing the fire which comes next!). 4e reduces the impedance of these kinds of things a lot by keywording things heavily and providing ready-made conditions and things like forced movement to represent them, as @pemerton pointed out earlier.
Anyway, in terms of DW it is VERY HARD to get into anything resembling a D&D-esque mechanics-first combat loop. There MIGHT be a pair of moves traded between GM and player that could be colored that way now and then, but the game simply doesn't produce things like several rounds of combat in which everything is pure mechanics with only incidental narration for color, which 4e or 5e can easily do.
Shardstone
Hero
I have been lurking, and you guys have been talking past each other for a long time.
@clearstream , your ideas of narration-first is not the ideas that D&D were built off of. Your interpretation of that one line of text is an attempt by WotC to emulate PbtA genre games.
This doesn't mean people haven't always played D&D like this. But the conceit is, in D&D, you have buttons you hit that generates math that generates fiction. In DW, you have buttons you hit htat generates fiction that generates effect that generates more fiction.
But, you can play D&D just like this. However, the design of the game is to allow for both. DW does not allow for both, only the former. In D&D, you can play and ust use the names of spells and mechanics, and keep it something more gamey. In DW, you are forced to narrate.
Your ideal for D&D, which is to be a narration best game, means that you already play D&D like its DW. You aren't too caring of the other style, so I don't think you realize a lot of people play that other style in D&D, and they can't play it in DW.
@clearstream , your ideas of narration-first is not the ideas that D&D were built off of. Your interpretation of that one line of text is an attempt by WotC to emulate PbtA genre games.
This doesn't mean people haven't always played D&D like this. But the conceit is, in D&D, you have buttons you hit that generates math that generates fiction. In DW, you have buttons you hit htat generates fiction that generates effect that generates more fiction.
But, you can play D&D just like this. However, the design of the game is to allow for both. DW does not allow for both, only the former. In D&D, you can play and ust use the names of spells and mechanics, and keep it something more gamey. In DW, you are forced to narrate.
Your ideal for D&D, which is to be a narration best game, means that you already play D&D like its DW. You aren't too caring of the other style, so I don't think you realize a lot of people play that other style in D&D, and they can't play it in DW.
AbdulAlhazred
Legend
I think you can get fiction-first play out of most systems, so yes a GM could probably do that. The things that concern me to a degree in this case have to do with the lack of a way for the players to establish anything beyond their character's actions in the fiction as-presented. So, PROCESS WISE, since you give only process, there is a lack of something analogous to, say, Wises checks in BW, where the player gets to establish some sort of element of fiction whole cloth. I mean, there may be principles such as in DW like "ask questions use the answers" or something like that. There could be additional structure, like character traits, which the GM could be bound to honor. However, you have put things in pretty stark terms where you say "consistent with your preestablished fiction" that seem to recognize the existence of no such mechanics.
Frankly, this type of 'game' shows a couple of things. One is that, since there are no other mechanics than the basic process of play, some form of fiction must be the determinant, so it must be 'first' and 'last', but its hard to say there's a lot of significance to it, in the sense that ALL OF THE FICTION comes from one source! The players are merely choosing from options given by the GM, who is then free to interpret those choices in a way that produces any outcome she desires. While the players can certainly generate some basic input, the GM is in total control at all levels. It is more a fictional monologue than a game!
AbdulAlhazred
Legend
Right, since there aren't hard and fast rules for that stuff it becomes a mix of pure fiction and ad-hoc 'roll a d6 for this' kinds of stuff. Plus classic D&D lacks anything like 'skills' for the most part, so RP happens. Basically its like "There are three levers. I pull the middle one! OK, the floor drops out from beneath you!" Pure fiction, with just GM pre-defined backstory, ideally.
AbdulAlhazred
Legend
I think my position is more like "Even with this 5e* interpretation there's nothing creating substantive leftward arrows (mechanics back to fiction) that MUST be followed to make the game coherent." Yes, almost any RPG could be embellished or interpreted and then implemented at the table in a way that starts and ends with the fiction in a tight way. Some will require actually hacking the system, others (and I'd put 5e in this category along with most D&D) COULD do it, but have elements and mechanisms that normally deter tables from doing so.
And really, in the final analysis, it is more about who gets to have a say in what the fiction is, and when, why, and how, that really matters most. @clearstream's toy game system fully illustrates this. While it has basically nothing BUT fiction, because that fiction can only ultimately arise from the GM, it is almost like a monologue and I use the term 'game' hesitantly with something like that (I'll grant the use of the term in a loose sense, clearly).
clearstream
(He, Him)
I'd like to dig into the bolded part. Recall that above C* instructs player to "say what your character says or does, say something, that follows from your preestablished fiction". Whose fiction does the designer refer to here? I think the most natural reading is that it is the player's fiction.
The fiction is built by / emerges from players and DM. Say I'm a C* player. My character - Jo - is a cold-sea cultist. She wants to see a lot more ice and snow in the world. I'm going to say she's pretty dangerous with a flail. Obviously she can sail, navigate, swim, judge the coming weather.
C* doesn't say that DM can make any of that untrue. DM can say, "The Kraken sinks, planks groaning, the cries of sailors trapped below decks abruptly silenced. There's only you - Jo, Dem, and Ram - in the pinnace. There's a dark line along the east horizon. Maybe a storm, maybe land. You each might have snatched up a few things before abandoning ship? What do you have? And what will you do?" So now that's all true.
Later, I say "All right, that's enough! I swing my flail. Full force. I'm going to take down this bear man." DM says "Sure, the chains lash him and he staggers, but lets one wrap around his arm and pulls. He's strong. Dem, you see all this, are you doing anything?"
Or I say "Let's head west, further across the taiga. I know the ziggurat lies that way." And so we do. And likely it does, if we can just make it across the...
What I hope to illustrate is that if DM's principles make them feel they should be in total control at all levels, so that players only generate basic input, then it could turn out to be a fictional monologue. But C* doesn't guide toward doing that. Is C* a game? Well, it has players. It has rules. There's even a referee. The rules of C* are regulatory, not constitutive: so C* is what you make it. To say they are regulatory is to imply the antecedent activity: roleplaying. The title isn't innocent "An RPG - C*". Right, so it's a roleplaying game. Once we know it's a roleplaying game, we know that it shouldn't be a fictional monologue... unless our principles fail us.
AbdulAlhazred
Legend
Uh, I give up trying to find where the whole text of that was posted. All I can say is that my interpretation was that the player is responding to whatever the GM said. I mean, sure, it will follow from the PC's fiction, that would be the only possible meaning of playing in character at all! It still has to respond to GM produced situation. The key being I don't see any point where the player has an input on the fiction except "my character does X." Now, this might be highly significant, or almost meaningless, remembering that in C* there is just a response by the GM, who is going to decide what happened. I've argued MANY times that GMs can basically justify ALMOST any response to player input of this sort! They can bring in hidden backstory, or simply decide that 'Y' is what is likely to happen now in response to X. Obviously there's a constraint based on what will convince people to keep playing, but otherwise, nothing really.
This is a restatement of the oft-trotted-out "the players control the story because they say what their characters do" but we've long and convincingly argued that this is only sufficient to produce a fiction that is entirely in the hands of the GM in every important factor. How does the player engage with this theme of creating cold and ice and snow in the world? The GM has to add this to the fiction, because the player can ADD NOTHING, they can only react!
Now, that doesn't mean the game cannot be fiction first, as again this C* game has nothing really except fiction. The question here is if it is a game or not! Its a telling of fiction by a GM with inputs by players as to actions taken by their characters. You posit the 'cold sea cultist' but how is this even conveyed to the GM? Obviously I can simply TELL the GM, in a side conversation at the table, about it, and write it on my sheet, but it isn't part of the fiction and I have no mechanism to introduce it (well, again, I can do so in a sort of 'thought bubble' during play like "I do X because I'm a cold sea cultist and ....").
OK, its 'true' that I'm a cold sea cultist, so what? I mean, you may or may not build some fiction on that. I am just not seeing where player generated fiction gains any 'purchase' in the system.
Contrast this with DW where, at the very least, the player has a defined set of traits they get to set, which is to say bonds and alignment, plus to whatever degree race and class themselves count, as well as probably some choices of equipment and starting class features.
Now, if you are to say that the GM must necessarily create fiction which FOLLOWS FROM THE PLAYER'S DESCRIPTION of their character, you would be getting closer to what I would say is meaningful player contribution to the fiction.
What makes it 'likely it does'? I assume 'I' is a player declaring an action. I mean, this seems beyond what you first outlined, or maybe I just drastically failed to understand. If every GM introduction of more fiction MUST build on the previous player declaration, then we have a shared fiction exercise, what is often called a 'conch passing game'. However, we are still stuck in terms of there being no 'game' involved, at least in a more formal sense. Without cues and mechanical parts, how do we actually arbitrate who gets to decide what?
Well, if we have certain types of principles, then it could be anywhere from largely a GM centered telling with a bit of player interjection of action statements, or it could be virtually directed by the players with the GM as a bit of a director who sets the scenes the player's demand. I would also want to know if there would be other rules in that case, as we would want to know about what the process for character evolution/change might be, for example. Can I stop being a cold sea cultist? If not then my input might still largely be located in defining the main characters which the story is about, but not much of what happens to them.
I mean, I'm not sure all these issues are still closely related to whether fiction comes first and last anymore. They are more about who's story is this. There are 'story games' of all sorts in this respect. Some, like DW, have players defining a lot of the direction and plot and setting. In others these things may be completely nailed down and the questions focus on other things, like maybe relationships between the PCs or something.
FrogReaver
As long as i get to be the frog
I think what normally happens in a RPG even without any overt rules around it is that the GM tends to take players characterizations of their PC's and their established successes and failures and take those things as inputs into their imaginative process of creating a unique and interesting world/scene/NPC etc.
For me as a player, I'm not interested in 'adding any particular fiction' - beyond my characters background and what actions he takes. I'm interested in exploring the world the GM created and getting to be surprised by what I find there and by how it reacts to my character.
To call this playstyle preference something other than a game is insulting and inflamatory.
For me as a player, I'm not interested in 'adding any particular fiction' - beyond my characters background and what actions he takes. I'm interested in exploring the world the GM created and getting to be surprised by what I find there and by how it reacts to my character.
To call this playstyle preference something other than a game is insulting and inflamatory.
clearstream
(He, Him)
Based on I bring to C*, it is transparent that what the DM says is informed by what the players say. C* says "follows"! Why did DM start with a sinking ship in a sea? Because that followed from "cold-sea cultist". Why is there are ziggurat on the taiga. Because that followed from "cold-sea cultist". Inspiration for the conversation is shared around the table. DM is adding something - I don't say that they do not - and they are deciding how things turn out, but they are not unmotivated anarchists, and they are not deciding who characters are or what they say or do.
There is no contrast here other than that which lives in a given C* DM. How do I make that clearer?
What has been joined to the conversation? Player fiction and actions. What must DM say? Something that follows the conversation, potentially adding to it from, or in line with, their fiction. One possible source of confusion is that when I say "preestablished" I am thinking generally of foregoing. What is already in place. I think preestablished fiction is more contingent on DM's side, than player's. What DM says is informed by their preestablished fiction, but it is not locked in until it joins the conversation.
Given what DM says is motivated by - follows - what players say, it is indeed likely the ziggurat will be in the direction their shared fiction has placed it. It could turn out that something else is there, giving source to the rumours. The conversation isn't repetitive or inevitable. The players can be surprised by what they find, or the turn of events.
These doubts arise from assumptions projected onto the examples: principles that guide you to your interpretation of them. You might be wondering if C* players can say something like this:
"There's a ship - the Kraken - that I sail on. As navigator." That might have been part of prior conversation at the envisioned table. Can DM say "You lash out with your flail, but can't land a hit on the bear man." They can. When would they say it? That depends on what they have in mind, what has been preestablished, and nuances in their conversation. C* is reliant on principles that live in the group, not the rules. For some groups, it might be okay for player to say "I lash the bear man with my flail. The chains connect and he goes down." Player could say "Bear men! They killed my brother. Filled with rage I lash him with my flail." So that is now true. And DM might narrate "Fueled by your anger, the chains connect and he goes down. He doesn't move... you might have killed him."
I think C* does something to indicate the basic game loop and divide roles. It says something about establishing fiction and following the conversation. It leaves so much unsaid, that in my view we only grasp how to use C* because of what we bring to it. Thus what I might call your misapprehensions, are not "misapprehensions" at all. Based what you bring to C*, you arrive at a DM monologue. Whereas I do not. This underscores the point made by @Shardstone.
[NOTE EDITS]
Last edited:
clearstream
(He, Him)
We played the 59th session of our Tomb of Annihilation campaign. Here's a 5e* example from it. The situation was the result of a vast number of actions and decisions, and I won't capture every detail. I won't cover for example, the 'sleeper' cursed item that caused a near-TPK. Or the hags, protecting their 'lovely' godling.
The party were determined to destroy the Soulmonger. An artifact disrupting revival magic, and decaying every creature that had ever benefited from such magic. This brought them finally to the 'cradle' of the Atropal, a death godling being born into the world according to the designs of Acererak. The Soulmonger existed to feed the Atropal.
Using legendary actions, the Atropal was wailing, inflicting exhaustion on creatures failing their save against it. It was doing that because the characters had shattered the Soulmonger... it's 'milk bottle'. They had freed the unconsumed souls within it, in doing so. Including their fallen friends Malef, Ka-lu, Sebastian and Moss, whose spirits they saw departing. (Players present voiced the spirits of their erstwhile characters.) In each of its turns, the Atropal was draining life (deals necrotic damage to the character, restoring HP to itself). It's aura was suppressing healing on characters near to it.
Conversation was continuous, and player thinking was often explained out loud. They discussed that in destroying the Soulmonger they had satisfied their major purpose in the fiction. That was, aiding Syndra Silvane to destroy the Soulmonger (albeit in our campaign, things became more complicated as some allies hoped to retrieve and suppress it, to study it's power.) Some player-characters felt the Atropal despicable and dangerous. Others prized more their own lives.
The party chose to stay and fight, but this decision was by no means final or binding. Debate between fight or flight was ongoing, with each turn in the battle. Due to the Atropals immunities and vulnerabilities, the party's best hope to defeat it was Drusilia, with her arrows that dealt radiant damage. As a rogue, she needed sneak attack to make those count. Recollect that three levels of exhaustion applies disadvantage to attacks, and will negate sneak attack.
Thus we come to three connected moments in the battle.
1) We're in fiction. Keshma - a Dao - swore to help the party destroy the Soulmonger, which is now done. She has control of an air elemental. She loudly complains and announces her intent to leave. Characters remind her that the tomb is sealed and entreat her to continue to help. As it happens, Aarasmus knows this isn't quite true, because there are cracks in the ceilings on the first floor that the Dao might pass through using gaseous form. Thus persuasion and a degree of deception are engaged. The air elemental is the party's best chance of keeping an allied creature next to the Atropal, to enable sneak attack. Keshma is friendly to the party and the risk (to her) is minor (she has no intention of entering the cradle, and can see into it from where she is.) What happens next is meaningful, but I decide it's not uncertain: no roll. She does as asked, which is send in her elemental, which she speaks about as one might a loyal pet. Back to cubes. Sneak attack is enabled.
2) We're in cubes. Drusilia makes a save and fails - taking her third level of exhaustion. Back in fiction. Drusilia's player describes her indecision out loud. Her choices are constrained. With her halved speed she is forced to choose between taking a shot she knows will deal little damage, or dash to get out of the aura. The obviousness of her square for attacking, makes hiding shennigans ineffective, but she can still use cunning action to dash. It's riskier to take the shot and dash once rather than her possible twice. Other characters pipe up, encouraging her to fight or describing their readiness to flee. She takes a quick shot, which inflicts little damage because of exhaustion, and falls back 30', leaving herself still very much in danger.
3) We're in fiction. Clement sees all this and reassures Drusilia. Notwithstanding his own cowardice (or he might say, focus on life and song), he's motivated by his promises to Princess Mwaxanare, who has said she will take him on as royal concubine once she frees Omu from the yuan-ti and the arch-lich's influence. He has already retrieved the artifact she needs to do this, but the Atropal is in the way of his perfumed and contented future. Clement moves forward to touch and casts one of his possible two greater restorations. In doing so, he is leaving himself at exhaustion 3 which will soon become exhaustion 4. But he re-enables sneak attack. Back to cubes.
This was typical of the fight. A constant intermingling or movement back and forth between clouds and cubes. Considerations in the fiction, prior conversation, constraints, promises, hopes and so on, were given voice to by players. Cubes were informing those constraints. Choices in fiction - many things said - brought us back to just our particular cubes.
The party were determined to destroy the Soulmonger. An artifact disrupting revival magic, and decaying every creature that had ever benefited from such magic. This brought them finally to the 'cradle' of the Atropal, a death godling being born into the world according to the designs of Acererak. The Soulmonger existed to feed the Atropal.
Using legendary actions, the Atropal was wailing, inflicting exhaustion on creatures failing their save against it. It was doing that because the characters had shattered the Soulmonger... it's 'milk bottle'. They had freed the unconsumed souls within it, in doing so. Including their fallen friends Malef, Ka-lu, Sebastian and Moss, whose spirits they saw departing. (Players present voiced the spirits of their erstwhile characters.) In each of its turns, the Atropal was draining life (deals necrotic damage to the character, restoring HP to itself). It's aura was suppressing healing on characters near to it.
Conversation was continuous, and player thinking was often explained out loud. They discussed that in destroying the Soulmonger they had satisfied their major purpose in the fiction. That was, aiding Syndra Silvane to destroy the Soulmonger (albeit in our campaign, things became more complicated as some allies hoped to retrieve and suppress it, to study it's power.) Some player-characters felt the Atropal despicable and dangerous. Others prized more their own lives.
The party chose to stay and fight, but this decision was by no means final or binding. Debate between fight or flight was ongoing, with each turn in the battle. Due to the Atropals immunities and vulnerabilities, the party's best hope to defeat it was Drusilia, with her arrows that dealt radiant damage. As a rogue, she needed sneak attack to make those count. Recollect that three levels of exhaustion applies disadvantage to attacks, and will negate sneak attack.
Thus we come to three connected moments in the battle.
1) We're in fiction. Keshma - a Dao - swore to help the party destroy the Soulmonger, which is now done. She has control of an air elemental. She loudly complains and announces her intent to leave. Characters remind her that the tomb is sealed and entreat her to continue to help. As it happens, Aarasmus knows this isn't quite true, because there are cracks in the ceilings on the first floor that the Dao might pass through using gaseous form. Thus persuasion and a degree of deception are engaged. The air elemental is the party's best chance of keeping an allied creature next to the Atropal, to enable sneak attack. Keshma is friendly to the party and the risk (to her) is minor (she has no intention of entering the cradle, and can see into it from where she is.) What happens next is meaningful, but I decide it's not uncertain: no roll. She does as asked, which is send in her elemental, which she speaks about as one might a loyal pet. Back to cubes. Sneak attack is enabled.
2) We're in cubes. Drusilia makes a save and fails - taking her third level of exhaustion. Back in fiction. Drusilia's player describes her indecision out loud. Her choices are constrained. With her halved speed she is forced to choose between taking a shot she knows will deal little damage, or dash to get out of the aura. The obviousness of her square for attacking, makes hiding shennigans ineffective, but she can still use cunning action to dash. It's riskier to take the shot and dash once rather than her possible twice. Other characters pipe up, encouraging her to fight or describing their readiness to flee. She takes a quick shot, which inflicts little damage because of exhaustion, and falls back 30', leaving herself still very much in danger.
3) We're in fiction. Clement sees all this and reassures Drusilia. Notwithstanding his own cowardice (or he might say, focus on life and song), he's motivated by his promises to Princess Mwaxanare, who has said she will take him on as royal concubine once she frees Omu from the yuan-ti and the arch-lich's influence. He has already retrieved the artifact she needs to do this, but the Atropal is in the way of his perfumed and contented future. Clement moves forward to touch and casts one of his possible two greater restorations. In doing so, he is leaving himself at exhaustion 3 which will soon become exhaustion 4. But he re-enables sneak attack. Back to cubes.
This was typical of the fight. A constant intermingling or movement back and forth between clouds and cubes. Considerations in the fiction, prior conversation, constraints, promises, hopes and so on, were given voice to by players. Cubes were informing those constraints. Choices in fiction - many things said - brought us back to just our particular cubes.
AbdulAlhazred
Legend
I agree with you on what is fairly typical in a majority of instances of RPG play, in general. Not sure what you are referring to as "call[ing] this playstyle preference something other than a game" but if you are reacting to my doubts about @clearstream's toy example 'C' as being a game, it isn't related to any kind of 'playstyle'. It was related to the absence of any mechanics which have effect on play. I would have the same doubts as its status as a game regardless of who it designated as being responsible for which fiction. It is 'play', IMHO, as it is a leisure activity in which the participants play an active part. I am also OK with its designation as a 'game' in a less formal sense. I just think there's a real categorical difference between this kind of play and RPGs, where there are real game mechanics.
But going back to 'what normally happens', I think the question here in this thread is more about how or why a certain formulation of an RPG is or is not fiction first, and particularly how that relates to @clearstream's specific proposition. It could well be there isn't one person in the Universe who wishes to play this way, although it is pretty clear that there are actual people's preferences which are being discussed. What is 'typical' doesn't really factor in here, does it?
clearstream
(He, Him)
A formal definition of 'game' in Salen and Zimmerman's Rules of Play, based on their analysis of eight influential definitions, is this
They caveat that
Does 4e and DW meet their definition? And what about C*?
- All are a form of physical or intellectual activity
- All are voluntary
- If we take the DM to be a player, and in control of adversaries, then some of the time players are in conflict. Or we can say DM is not an adversary. All equally meet or don't meet this criteria.
- Rules? Is "If you decide something is impossible, say and ask for clarification" a rule? I'd be curious to see how one would show that it is not a rule!
- The goal-state in all constantly evolves. Right now we're sailing to shore. Later we're hoping to defeat a bear man.
You have your argument reversed. Against a formal definition of 'game', C* qualifies (or show that it does not). Rather I believe you are making a normative argument about what looks like a game to you.
AbdulAlhazred
Legend
Yeah, OK, I'm still rather skeptical of a couple of things. First there doesn't seem to be any structure to introduction of fiction. So, can I simply, as a player, introduce basically any consideration by simply decreeing it to be a motivation or goal of my character as and when I wish? To what degree is it really necessary for the GM to acknowledge one of these statements? I mean, this seems to be a very unstructured process, and again this is why I conveyed my doubts in terms of this being a 'game'. You also illustrate the issue with achievement of goals in cases where an issue is in doubt (IE the attacking the 'bear man' and what the results are/who actually gets to narrate them).
If we were to go back to 5e*, then we have to ask some of the same questions. Exactly what regulates what the players can say about the character's motivations and actions, and what they refer to? Is this related to things like BIFTs? There are also questions similar to above about resolution of conflicts. We've already gone over the whole thing with 5e's shaky conception of when checks are required and what the results signify. Since 5e(*) definitely give the GM both the responsibility to determine if a check is needed, and what will be checked, but also what the 'valence' of that check is, doesn't this kind of put most of the autonomy back in the GM's court? That is to say, and this is classic GM behavior, what stops a GM from simply stacking up checks? The GM is pushing some sort of fiction, so if the players wander off in some other direction, the classic GM response is to make all other paths filled with obstacle after obstacle and each check produce only marginal progress, except in their preferred direction. Yes, maybe you can all this 'bad GM play', OTOH experience dictates that a system of principles, clear agenda, and positively reinforcing game structure is helpful. So, I'm still a bit more in favor of a more ground-up approach than just making small changes to 5e. That's just my preference.
Similar Threads
