D&D 5E 5e* - D&D-now

[AbdulAlhazred]

One question to think about is - which is the larger, the player-character, or the game-world?

I'm not sure what 'larger' means precisely. They're two necessary parts of a whole fiction.

My thought was to ensure I could construct how a certain view emerges from the theory. What I probably have (related to my OP) is this

5e* (fiction-first)

1. interpret "narrates" as "say something meaningful"
2. understand "narrates the results" is an imperative regulatory rule: it signals a shift or arrow to fiction
3. narrating the results secures that the basic pattern begins and ends in the fiction (F > S > F)
4. saying something meaningful is a guarantee: players can respond to what DM says as if it is meaningful (finding meaning later)
5. the imperative to say something meaningful encourages a DM to ensure there's something meaningful to say
6. follow the rule on DMG 237, knowing that the implied principle influences everything (read everything in its light)
7. most often, what will turn out to be meaningful will have consequences that matter to fictional positioning - the set of valid gameplay options available to player at this moment of play

5e! (fiction-first + story-now)

1. 5e* +
2. give emphasis to the rules for Inspiration in PHB Chapter 4, and related guidance in DMG 240/241

As others have observed (in other forums) it's possible to get to fiction-first + story-now from non-committal games like 5e, but it's not possible to get to a non-committal game from a fiction-first + story-now game. That's because in the end the heavy lifting is done by the principles, not the mechanics, and fiction-first + story-now games set their principles out explicitly in their texts.

Well... maybe, maybe not. I think you can play even a game like DW in a few styles. I would say it should always be pretty 'committed', but it doesn't have to portray the action of the game as being laser focused, that is the NARRATIVE from the PC's point of view could be quite different, the parts that digress from what the game focuses on will simply be largely glossed over and reduced the essential parts. A game could, for example, depict a cross-continental exploration mission (IE Lewis & Clark) where 99% of the time it is just dull boring plodding over trackless landscape and poking around. The other 1% is fraught with danger, etc. and the end result is a pretty epic tale. Merriweather Lewis however probably was a bit bored much of the time...

To notice the regress here,

1. if system (including but not limited to 'the rules') is the means by which people agree about what happens in play,
2. then what enables people to agree to use the particular system?
3. we must include the means by which people agree to use the particular system, in the particular system

I don't see why. There is a "time before there was a game" and a "time when the participants agreed as to how to run the game" and then a "Time of the Game itself." I see no compelling reason why we MUST include them all in an analysis of things that primarily concern running the game. It is enough to acknowledge that in the agreement time something was somehow agreed upon, and then look at what that is. I mean, asking "why did this specific agreement come about" MIGHT have some value, but probably more in terms of a game designer adding features to a game that attract people to playing it, vs attributes of actual play.

But the means in that case cannot be a rule written up in the particular system text, implying that we can't escape leaning on exogenous rules even if we set out to do so. Recall that games are a voluntary activity. That has been fairly well accepted in game studies from at least the 1970s. Players agree upon grasping and upholding the rules in order to play the game. You can see the regress right there: players have to agree to the means by which they agree about what happens in play.

Again, I'm not finding a reason to call this an issue. It seems outside the scope of my current interest, at the very least.

Some believe it's impossible to play 5e as DW. On superficialities I agree. As to the mode(s) of play though, I disagree. One can play 5e* as a fiction-first + story-now game. Given the precise constructs and wordings of 5e, I'd be unsurprised if the designers didn't consciously afford that. Either way, it's inspiring.

Eh, I don't think they did 'consciously afford' that. I think it is mostly just a truth that you can bend RPGs a whole bunch, at least most of them. FOR ME at least the other truth also remains, I can run a Story Game more easily with other systems. 4e (and my bastard step-child of it) has the huge virtue IMHO of being both pretty D&D-like, and yet vastly easier on the DM!

 

[pemerton]

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.

A month or so ago I ran a session of White Plume Mountain. The PCs crossed a water-filled pit by jumping (in my AD&D variant this is mechanically governed, using an adaptation of the WSG rules integrated with the UA thief-acrobat rules) but making moves in the fiction (my memory is a bit hazy but I think they had a strong PC be a "catcher" or similar leaning out over the edge of the pit and braced with ropes). They were hosed by the heat induction passage, and one of them got killed by the ghouls. Then in the frictionless room, they resolved it via pure fiction: hammering pitons into the walls so they could use a rope to get themselves across.

It's interesting how Torchbearer straddles between pure fiction and the use of checks. I've been thinking of making a post or starting a new thread about its approach.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

A month or so ago I ran a session of White Plume Mountain. The PCs crossed a water-filled pit by jumping (in my AD&D variant this is mechanically governed, using an adaptation of the WSG rules integrated with the UA thief-acrobat rules) but making moves in the fiction (my memory is a bit hazy but I think they had a strong PC be a "catcher" or similar leaning out over the edge of the pit and braced with ropes). They were hosed by the heat induction passage, and one of them got killed by the ghouls. Then in the frictionless room, they resolved it via pure fiction: hammering pitons into the walls so they could use a rope to get themselves across.

It's interesting how Torchbearer straddles between pure fiction and the use of checks. I've been thinking of making a post or starting a new thread about its approach.

Sounds interesting. It does seem to be a bit more on the "checks are resolving your character's skill in accomplishing something" SOME of the time, but then there's the BW Wises kind of "come up with some fiction" things too. I think you can kind of do that with Nature, but I just have to play and figure out exactly how things work.

 

[pemerton]

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?

I already posted an answer to this question:

As far as the constraint from Hack and Slash passed into the fiction: the most obvious would flow from failure results. Eg Your sword breaks on the giant snake's scaly hide seems to me to be a pretty immediate change in fictional position.

On a 7-9, and on some 10+ results, the GM gets to narrate the enemy's attack. If the enemy is an ogre, then this could include that the ogre's blow (which has the Forceful tag: DW p 272) knocks them over the cliff edge. That's a change in fictional position that (most likely, I would say) leads to a Defy Danger roll. Or it could knock them back, meaning they have to Defy Danger - the ogre's club - to get back in close enough to attack. Unless, of course, they have a Reach-tagged weapon - more fictional positioning.

On a 10+ result where the player chooses only to deal damage while avoiding the enemies attack, then we get cubes-to-cubes with no new rightward arrows resulting from the leftward one that establishes (in the fiction) a successful attack. But even here there is a fairly clear contrast with D&D - DW has a very narrow hp range (eg a dragon has 16 hp: p 302) and armour provides damage reduction, so it is much easier to treat rolled damage results as representing relatively light blows (eg 1 hp) or very heavy ones (eg 10 hp), and so the leftward arrows are generated more along the lines of RQ or Classic Traveller than in D&D, where a damage roll of 10 hp can sometimes still be a completely superficial scratch (eg if rolled against a dragon that has 100 hp remaining even after the damage is deducted).

And @AbdulAlhazred made some similar points in post 308.

 

[pemerton]

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.

The bits that I've bolded aren't all in the fiction.

The air elemental is an ally looks like fiction.
The air elemental is adjacent to the atropoal may be fiction or may be a description of a cue, depending on if/how you are using a battlemap in combat resolution.
The rogues gets +Nd6 damage vs the atropal is not fiction. It's a fact about the cues and the mechanics.

The basic structure here is the same as Baker's example if I take the high ground and so get +2 to hit. It's a rightward arrow. (See steps 1 and 3 in Baker's first example resolution system here.)

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.

The bits I've bolded look, to me, like propositions about cues and mechanics. I don't see how Drusilia, in the fiction, is talking about movement rates and action declarations (dash vs shoot) and action economy (cunning action). Those to me look like the sorts of things a player says when talking about the mechanical scope for action. They seem no different from a player saying We should retreat because my PC has only got 10 hp left. Similarly, the reference to damage. The reasoning is not clouds-to-clouds (because Drusilia is exhausted, her shots are feeble). It is cues to cues (because exhausted is noted on the PC sheet, a certain mechanical process is applied to the player's attack and/or damage roll).

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.

This does not seem to describe any action resolution. I can't tell how much of this was actually state by Clement's player. But this seems to be a player reminding themself and/or their fellow players of their PC's motivation. In the fiction, it may also be Clement reminding Drusilia of his motivation. But I don't see (eg) a CHA (Persuasion) check to life Drusilia's exhaustion, or grant a morale bonus to attack or defence; the sorts of things one might see in (say) Prince Valiant or MHRP/Cortex+ Heroic.

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.

A fair bit of this is cubes: crossing of Clement's spell slot; resolving Clement's action "I cast a spell"; changing Drusilia's PC sheet (I am assuming that the spell has been used to reduce her exhaustion level by one - that's all cubes-to-cubes).

Had the wail not exhausted, then character movespaces would contain other valid choices, so what they subsequently said would have differed.

This looks to me like a description primarily of cube-to-cube reaoning.

Even though the wail is itself an event in the fiction, I'm not sure if every time the being wails it generates this effect; or only if the GM chooses to have this be an enervating wail. So even the fact that the wail is an enervating one may be a decision made by the GM in the arena of cues.

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.

What you describe does not, in its basic structure of play, seem very different from my AD&D 2nd ed play, or my Rolemaster play, or my 4e D&D play. Players declare actions for their PCs that are consistent with the motivations they are imagining for their PCs. No one else at the table seems to contest those motivations ("The player decides what their PC thinks and feels.")

In the granular details we see the cubes-to-cubes typical of D&D - action economy, attack rolls and damage rolls, the use of healing magic, etc. The motivations don't generate particular features of the action resolution process, nor constrain them, by way of rightward arrows. I don't see any "beginning and ending with the fiction" in the DW sense - for instance, Clement's action ends with mechanics (Drusilia's changed exhaustion status), not fiction.

Had character motives differed, then the process they chose to execute would differ, thus having different results.

Any RPG not played in pure pawn stance involves imagined and imputed character motives. But this does not mean that a player's decision to have their PC cast a spell to reduce the opponent's hit point, or improve an ally's hit points, involves clouds-to-cubes. Clouds-to-cubes is a framework for analysing action resolution (hence the heading, 3 Resolution Systems, not for describing why players declare particular actions.

The complaint seems to be resolving motives and constraints in fiction, in system, but that is exactly what is implied by F > S > F.

All this is doing is restating that the players are not in pawn stance. It tells us nothing about whether or not their are rightward arrows in action resolution. Baker introduced his clouds-arrows-cubes framework to, at least in part, critique various RPG designs, including his design of In A Wicked Age, and systems (perhaps like @AbdulAlhazred's favourite ultra-lite game PACE) that resolve only intent but do not actually reveal/exhibit what is was that took place to produce the desired outcome. The way you are using F >S > F those critiques become impossible to state. Eg F (the characters have motivations) > S (some sort of bidding system) > F (one of the characters now has what they want). The critique of resolve-only-intent systems disappears. Or F (the characters have best interests that motivate their players to declare actions) > S (the In A Wicked Age dice roll system) > F (now we know which character is closer to realising their best interests). The critique of In A Wicked Age's lack of rightward arrows has disappeared. I've already pointed out, in several posts upthread, that your framework makes it impossible to state the difference between D&D combat resolution and the combat resolution rules found in the simulationist reactions to D&D like RQ and RM.

In other words, and as @AbdulAlhazred suggested upthread (post #322), I don't think that you are using the notion of arrows linking cubes and clouds to one another in the way that Vincent Baker is. My usage is following Baker's. And that's because I think his framework is useful: it captures some fundamental differences between RPG systems. I don't see the point of an account of the fiction-mechanics relationship in which these various different ways of establishing that relationship can't be stated.

Overall, I am not seeing what is distinctive about 5e* as a RPG, other than the particular mechanical processes that it inherits from the 5e rulebooks. Your F > S > F seems to be a repudiation of pawn stance RPGing, but I don't see how it goes beyond that.

 

[pemerton]

The LP makes it that anything leading to agreement about what happens in play, can be counted as system.

This is not accurate.

Upthread I quoted two formulations of the Lumpley Principle:

[N]othing happens, in the fiction of role-playing, unless someone says it and it's heard by others. . . . Whatever mechanics you use, you are agreeing to use them among the group, usually as a creative inspiration or constraint, specifically as a way to affect what is going to be said.

System (including but not limited to 'the rules') is defined as the means by which the group agrees to imagined events during play.​

The second of those two formulations is not equivalent (either abstractly, or in its reference) to system is anything leading to agreement about imagined events in play.

Here are some things that help lead to agreement about imagined events but are (typically) not among the means by which a group secures such agreement, and hence are not elements of system: familiarity with one another; easy-going dispositions; common cultural background which supports shared patterns of thinking about how particular stories "should" go on; shared assumptions about who "should" own what elements of the fiction.

The Lumpley Principle, in both its formulations, serves a point.

The point of the first formulation is to stress that RPG rules are not self-actualising. They must be taken up and applied in a social context. (This is sometimes expressed via a shorthand like "social contract is prior to system".)

The point of the second formulation is to stress that system, in RPGing, includes elements that go beyond the things standardly presented as action resolution mechanics. It includes principles that constrain narration; allocations of ownership to elements of the fiction (these might be seen as a special case of principles that constrain narration - go to town in your narration if it's a bit that you own, but otherwise maybe dial it back a bit); rules or principles that govern turn-taking; etc.

But the second formulation is still a claim within the field of studying RPG design and RPG play. It is not an assertion about the general psychology of agreement.

Suppose I say that player's fictional position is the intersection of everything that is legitimate for them to say, and everything they are motivated to say (which very much includes everything that would be effective for them to say, but helps me understand why effectiveness alone doesn't always predict the moves actually chosen.) When Clement and Drusilia are caught up in mortal battle, they have overwhelming motives in its regard. If their attack reach is 5', and they are 20' away, and they are motivated to attack, then they have an overwhelming motive to choose closing moves. Or if they fear they can't make effective attacks, they have a motive to do something else.

Taking fictional positioning as the set of valid (legitimate and effective) things I can say

I don't see why we need to redefine fictional positioning.

Here is Vincent Baker:

Here's Emily Care Boss, writing in 2006 about the reward cycles she sees in freeform play:

creativity: free form play, of whatever stripe, has as its primary reward the creation of in-game events, material etc. Think about how allocation of narrative rights have become a huge part of mechanical systems: people want to be able to be creative, and giving them the right to do so is a powerful reward. How this is allotted and allocated in free-form is not as regulated by reproducible procedures, though, instead it often comes down to things like the informal social networks that Christian [Griffen] points out. Because of:
reinforcement and mirroring: what is real in a game world is what gets played/with. If everyone else ignores or doesn't know about what you've made up, it may as well not exist. So, the people who are the most "powerful" creatively speaking in freeform, are the ones whose ideas get picked up on and incorporated into the play of others. Those whose actions affect others and who end up having them reverberate around the shared creation. This can be done via any channel depending on the type of play: character action, background creation, informal discussion out of character, or "gming" (which in free-form, means setting the parameters of play, use of props, dissemination of information, creation of guidelines and intervention/adjudication. damn, online gms can do a hell of alot, more even, than tabletop ones, in a way, because there may be so many more people involved. same with large larps).
positioning: this is a wierd one that seems to arise out of the way that narrative control is not parcelled out in a regulated way in freeform. Other folks may have had very different experiences, so take it with a grain of salt. Anyway, what it is is setting up in-game events and interpretations to support your following (character) actions. For example, if I want to shoot your character with a gun, I have to first establish that there is a gun present, that it is loaded etc. If I want to kill your character, I will have to establish, and get others to collaborate with me in establishing, that my character can keep yours from escaping, that mine has the ability to successfully shoot yours, that help will not arrive in time etc. Instead of a die roll, based on various things that represent all this stuff, it has to be negotiated, or simply spoken and accepted as "what has happened" in order for it to occur. So in freeform, you may be thinking (even unconsciously) three moves down the road, in order to back yourself up on future actions.
Well, that's a couple anyway. Sorry to go on. It is a big thing for me, though, that there are systems in there, even if they are unspoken and little understood.​

(my emphasis; original here)

Here, Emily's talking about the player's position: what gameplay options do I, as a player, have available to me right now? Over the course of the game, my legitimate moves change; what are my legitimate moves at this moment of play?

In freeform games, Emily says, what determines your selection of available legitimate moves is the current state of the fictional stuff in the game. If there's a gun in your character's hand, that adds certain moves to the selection available to you, the player. If there's a gun in someone else's character's hand, that changes the likely outcomes of the moves you might make.

(For now, let's politely pretend that making a move in a roleplaying game means asserting something, like "my guy shoots yours," and subjecting it to the group's assent or dissent to determine its actual in-game veracity. I think this is not true, but it makes it easier for now.)

Contrast freeform with cue-mediation. The freeform rule at play here is "if you've established that your character is holding a gun, all other things being equal, it's a legitimate move to assert that your character fires it at someone." The equivalent cue-mediated rule would be "if you have a gun on your character sheet, all other things being equal, it's a legitimate move to assert that your character fires it at someone." See the difference? Playing freeform, we look into the fiction-as-established to determine whether a possible move is legitimate; playing with cues, we look over at the cue to determine whether it is.​

Given that D&D is cue-laden, many of the legitimate moves that a player can make will follow not from fictional position but from the state of the cues ("cue position"). For instance, whether my PC is conscious or unconscious is typically not an element of fictional position but rather follows from the fact that my hp tally is greater than zero. Attack reach, in contemporary D&D, is likewise typically a matter of cues and not fictional position (contrast Dungeon World, or some approaches to AD&D).

The "typically" in my previous sentence sits in the same conceptual space as Baker's "all other things being equal":

In a given game design or game in play, freeform and cue-mediation can happily coexist. You see where I included "all other things being equal" in both rules? Often in practice that includes a quick check across the boundary between them. Like when you have a pistol on your character sheet, but in the fiction as established your character's just stepping out of the shower, right?​

As far as everything a player is motivated to say, that does not seem to be part of position at all. Rather, and as Emily Care Boss explains, it is motivation that drives positioning: ie because I want the fiction to include such-and-such a thing (say, my PC isn't killed by the giant), then I have a motivation to establish an appropriate position that will enable me to avoid that outcome, be that a fictional position (eg I'm hidden from the giant) or a cue position (eg I've got a sword of giant-slaying on my PC's gear list). Of course my current position might constrain my possibilities of further positions (eg fiction like I've just encountered a giant on an open plain or a cue record like I'm subjected to paralysation). But I don't see how motivated action declarations are themselves part of position (fictional or cue).

 

[pemerton]

Sounds interesting. It does seem to be a bit more on the "checks are resolving your character's skill in accomplishing something" SOME of the time, but then there's the BW Wises kind of "come up with some fiction" things too.

I don't think there's much of the BW Wises thing in Torchbearer, at least as written.

But the GM-side rules distinguish between saying That's a Good Idea (ie say yes because it sounds plausible/clever) and calling for a check. From the Scholar's Guide, p 216:

If you think the players have come up with a smart use of their gear, spells or even bodies—then there is no need to roll the dice or test, no need to spend a check and it doesn’t cost a turn. Simply say to them, “That’s a good idea,” then describe the effect of their action. It’s as if they passed a test without rolling dice or taking a turn (though they don’t get advances from it)."​

So there is a trade-off between (i) avoiding the advance of the grind and avoiding the risk of a twist or condition, and (ii) earning a passed or failed test towards advancement.

Another illustration of how particular techniques in a RPG open up bigger possibilities. Because 5e D&D doesn't link checks to advancement, and doesn't have a systematic way for establishing costs of making and/or failing a check, there is no basis for setting up this sort of trade-off.

 

[clearstream]

I think my understanding of playing to find out is pretty typical - the participants (including the GM) collectively learn what it is that happens next, in the fiction. The use of the word learn is deliberate, and contrasts with choose or decide. There are techniques used - most typically the rolling of dice - which determine the parameters of outcomes and/or events at certain key moments; and there are constraints accepted and applied - some perhaps resulting from the dice rolls , others perhaps being general principles applied to concrete states of affairs (such as a description on a PC sheet) - which mean that whatever decision-making does take place is not unfettered but is shaped and directed.

And just to remind ourselves

An RPG - C*​

The game loop is

• DM establishes fiction setting things in motion
• Players say what their characters say and do
• DM arbitrates
• DM narrates the results

To say what your character says or does, say something, that follows from your preestablished fiction and the ongoing conversation, that uncovers and shapes future conversation; don't say anything that doesn't accord with your principles

To arbitrate, when it follows, decide consistent with your preestablished fiction and the ongoing conversation; don't decide in a way that doesn't accord with your principles

• If you decide something is impossible, say and ask for clarification
• If you decide something is sure to succeed, say that it does
• If you decide something is uncertain and it matters, make a call

To narrate the results, say something that follows from your preestablished fiction and the ongoing conversation, that uncovers and shapes future conversation; don't say anything that doesn't accord with your principles

I think you are not resting your case upon the presence of a stochastic method for choosing between outcomes, because you say

There are techniques used - most typically the rolling of dice - which determine the parameters of outcomes and/or events at certain key moments; and there are constraints accepted and applied - some perhaps resulting from the dice rolls , others perhaps being general principles applied to concrete states of affairs (such as a description on a PC sheet) - which mean that whatever decision-making does take place is not unfettered but is shaped and directed.

Thus you are making an assumption that in C* making a call is unfettered. It's not shaped and directed. But C* admonishes DM - "don't decide in a way that doesn't accord with your principles." Therefore DM may very well make their call according to general principles applied to concrete states of affairs - such as pre-established fiction / foregoing conversation - and it will be shaped and directed.

The second part of what you say could seem to reintroduce doubt on that score. [That is, doubt on the possibility of finding anything out when arbitrating by principles rather than roll.]

A system of GM-fiat resolution does not count as playing to find out in this sense, because the GM does not learn what it is that happens next, in the fiction. Rather, the GM decides. I think there was a fair bit of advocacy for this approach to resolution in the 2nd ed AD&D era; and their are strong hints of it, at least, in some later D&D materials. The most overt form that it takes is the GM calling for a roll, but then narrating things much the same regardless of what the player rolls (perhaps overlaying slightly different colour depending on whether the roll is low or high - "With a lot of effort and sweat, you make it to the . . . ." vs "You easily make it to the . . . , barely raising a sweat".

It might help to have in mind Alan Calhamer's Diplomacy here. According to what you say, as France I can't learn what happens next, because I decide exactly what moves I will be making. There's no uncertainty in outcomes in Diplomacy: among players all things are decided. And yet, everyone at the table - including France - is surprised when they learn what happens next. There is the possibility that a C* DM is following a principle of play as a form of negotiation, in which their moves will only be settled in full consideration of the moves of the players.

It should be obvious - and maybe it is - but what counts is that all participants can add things to the conversation, and that what they add must follow [the implication is a principled negotiation]. The adding itself can be an asymmetrical negotiation between them, but it's not asymmetrical in power, it is asymmetrical in scope. There is a lusory attitude required to bring an honesty or clarity to this. What should happen when the arch-cat Gog attempts to stalk the hellhound Hemlock? Well, in our prior fiction we learned that... and so... but what about... in that case I'll... and everyone learns what happens next. If one should have doubts, it should be doubt that DM ever gets to make calls due to uncertainty in C*, rather than that making such calls will somehow invalidate playing to find out.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

The bits that I've bolded aren't all in the fiction.

The air elemental is an ally looks like fiction.
The air elemental is adjacent to the atropoal may be fiction or may be a description of a cue, depending on if/how you are using a battlemap in combat resolution.
The rogues gets +Nd6 damage vs the atropal is not fiction. It's a fact about the cues and the mechanics.

The basic structure here is the same as Baker's example if I take the high ground and so get +2 to hit. It's a rightward arrow. (See steps 1 and 3 in Baker's first example resolution system here.)

The bits I've bolded look, to me, like propositions about cues and mechanics. I don't see how Drusilia, in the fiction, is talking about movement rates and action declarations (dash vs shoot) and action economy (cunning action). Those to me look like the sorts of things a player says when talking about the mechanical scope for action. They seem no different from a player saying We should retreat because my PC has only got 10 hp left. Similarly, the reference to damage. The reasoning is not clouds-to-clouds (because Drusilia is exhausted, her shots are feeble). It is cues to cues (because exhausted is noted on the PC sheet, a certain mechanical process is applied to the player's attack and/or damage roll).

This does not seem to describe any action resolution. I can't tell how much of this was actually state by Clement's player. But this seems to be a player reminding themself and/or their fellow players of their PC's motivation. In the fiction, it may also be Clement reminding Drusilia of his motivation. But I don't see (eg) a CHA (Persuasion) check to life Drusilia's exhaustion, or grant a morale bonus to attack or defence; the sorts of things one might see in (say) Prince Valiant or MHRP/Cortex+ Heroic.

A fair bit of this is cubes: crossing of Clement's spell slot; resolving Clement's action "I cast a spell"; changing Drusilia's PC sheet (I am assuming that the spell has been used to reduce her exhaustion level by one - that's all cubes-to-cubes).

This looks to me like a description primarily of cube-to-cube reaoning.

Even though the wail is itself an event in the fiction, I'm not sure if every time the being wails it generates this effect; or only if the GM chooses to have this be an enervating wail. So even the fact that the wail is an enervating one may be a decision made by the GM in the arena of cues.

What you describe does not, in its basic structure of play, seem very different from my AD&D 2nd ed play, or my Rolemaster play, or my 4e D&D play. Players declare actions for their PCs that are consistent with the motivations they are imagining for their PCs. No one else at the table seems to contest those motivations ("The player decides what their PC thinks and feels.")

In the granular details we see the cubes-to-cubes typical of D&D - action economy, attack rolls and damage rolls, the use of healing magic, etc. The motivations don't generate particular features of the action resolution process, nor constrain them, by way of rightward arrows. I don't see any "beginning and ending with the fiction" in the DW sense - for instance, Clement's action ends with mechanics (Drusilia's changed exhaustion status), not fiction.

Any RPG not played in pure pawn stance involves imagined and imputed character motives. But this does not mean that a player's decision to have their PC cast a spell to reduce the opponent's hit point, or improve an ally's hit points, involves clouds-to-cubes. Clouds-to-cubes is a framework for analysing action resolution (hence the heading, 3 Resolution Systems, not for describing why players declare particular actions.

All this is doing is restating that the players are not in pawn stance. It tells us nothing about whether or not their are rightward arrows in action resolution. Baker introduced his clouds-arrows-cubes framework to, at least in part, critique various RPG designs, including his design of In A Wicked Age, and systems (perhaps like @AbdulAlhazred's favourite ultra-lite game PACE) that resolve only intent but do not actually reveal/exhibit what is was that took place to produce the desired outcome. The way you are using F >S > F those critiques become impossible to state. Eg F (the characters have motivations) > S (some sort of bidding system) > F (one of the characters now has what they want). The critique of resolve-only-intent systems disappears. Or F (the characters have best interests that motivate their players to declare actions) > S (the In A Wicked Age dice roll system) > F (now we know which character is closer to realising their best interests). The critique of In A Wicked Age's lack of rightward arrows has disappeared. I've already pointed out, in several posts upthread, that your framework makes it impossible to state the difference between D&D combat resolution and the combat resolution rules found in the simulationist reactions to D&D like RQ and RM.

Right, so PACE has this issue, which is addressed better in PbtAs (and probably is why I haven't run it in a while, one reason anyway) which is it can be hard to 'get back to the fiction' sometimes. Jon is 'Debonair: 4' and Jill (an NPC) is 'Hard as Nails: 3'. Jon needs to seduce Jill (we'll assume there's a motive here, which is pure fiction that we start from, as well as fictional position putting them in an appropriate situation). So, Jon's player naturally declares some sort of action, "Jon, using his skill with the ladies, picks an opportune moment and kisses Jill." The GM decides this is no foregone conclusion, Jill's motivations aren't entirely compatible with Jon's, he's going to have to stake something on the outcome. Now, he SHOULD at this point need, fictionally, to describe some stake, at the very least perhaps his actions could put her off and make him look bad. As the GM has called this a conflict, however, its pretty easy to leave all that unstated and the player can simply say "well, I have 4 points on my side, for Debonair." The GM could simply respond likewise "well, I have 3 points for Hard as Nails, and I spend 2 more from my pool, for 5..." But what actually happened? You can run this mechanical 'boxes' auction and its so general it can represent anything, and you don't even have to say. I mean, you SHOULD say, but its too easy not to. Its not like DW where you really CANNOT proceed without fiction. Now, I think this is a lot like what Baker was complaining about with In a Wicked Age, and the observation that it "eventually catches up with you" is equally valid. At SOME POINT we will have to know what happened between Jon and Jill in fictional terms! (maybe it will just remain untold, depending on the direction things take, perhaps). At the very best we've not resolved something about Jon's character. Did he try to force himself on her? Had she heard about how he treated her friend Jane? Does he actually have feelings for her? And if so, how can he show that when he's just seen by everyone as an insincere lady-killer (as implied by his trait)? Unless we actually attach the fiction to the mechanics, we won't know, but the PACE system doesn't really have a way to put 'teeth' on the fiction (not surprising, its author described it as a game that was just written as an exercise, and it is only a few pages long).

In other words, and as @AbdulAlhazred suggested upthread (post #322), I don't think that you are using the notion of arrows linking cubes and clouds to one another in the way that Vincent Baker is. My usage is following Baker's. And that's because I think his framework is useful: it captures some fundamental differences between RPG systems. I don't see the point of an account of the fiction-mechanics relationship in which these various different ways of establishing that relationship can't be stated.

Overall, I am not seeing what is distinctive about 5e* as a RPG, other than the particular mechanical processes that it inherits from the 5e rulebooks. Your F > S > F seems to be a repudiation of pawn stance RPGing, but I don't see how it goes beyond that.

Yeah, I think admonishing the GM to say 'what matters' and then taking every such statement of fiction as being NECESSARILY important and thus worthy of some rightward arrow is OK. It might, for instance, be a sort of way to fix PACE, where you say "well, lets add points for situation, anything I say as GM matters, and if you can describe how it helps you, then I MUST grant you the right to spent points on it." It still needs to be coupled with stronger reasons to tie back to fiction, like maybe the player can ONLY spend points on things that the GM describes in his part of the fiction, or something like that. You then need DW-like principles to insure the GM actually does it, etc. The problem here being, DW STARTS at the principles, PACE starts at a bidding system. Its a bit of a fun game for one-offs, but unless the players are pretty versed in Story Game, it won't work well. I think 5e* has analogous issues. You and I and Manbearcat could sit down and play a Story Now game with it that would work, but I'm pretty sure if some of the other posters here run it, even sticking to the 'letter of the law' for narration, it will come across as just D&D, bog standard. Maybe GOOD D&D, but not different from any other good 5e game.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

This is not accurate.

Upthread I quoted two formulations of the Lumpley Principle:

[N]othing happens, in the fiction of role-playing, unless someone says it and it's heard by others. . . . Whatever mechanics you use, you are agreeing to use them among the group, usually as a creative inspiration or constraint, specifically as a way to affect what is going to be said.​

​

System (including but not limited to 'the rules') is defined as the means by which the group agrees to imagined events during play.​

The second of those two formulations is not equivalent (either abstractly, or in its reference) to system is anything leading to agreement about imagined events in play.

Here are some things that help lead to agreement about imagined events but are (typically) not among the means by which a group secures such agreement, and hence are not elements of system: familiarity with one another; easy-going dispositions; common cultural background which supports shared patterns of thinking about how particular stories "should" go on; shared assumptions about who "should" own what elements of the fiction.

The Lumpley Principle, in both its formulations, serves a point.

The point of the first formulation is to stress that RPG rules are not self-actualising. They must be taken up and applied in a social context. (This is sometimes expressed via a shorthand like "social contract is prior to system".)

The point of the second formulation is to stress that system, in RPGing, includes elements that go beyond the things standardly presented as action resolution mechanics. It includes principles that constrain narration; allocations of ownership to elements of the fiction (these might be seen as a special case of principles that constrain narration - go to town in your narration if it's a bit that you own, but otherwise maybe dial it back a bit); rules or principles that govern turn-taking; etc.

But the second formulation is still a claim within the field of studying RPG design and RPG play. It is not an assertion about the general psychology of agreement.


I don't see why we need to redefine fictional positioning.

Here is Vincent Baker:

Here's Emily Care Boss, writing in 2006 about the reward cycles she sees in freeform play:​

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creativity: free form play, of whatever stripe, has as its primary reward the creation of in-game events, material etc. Think about how allocation of narrative rights have become a huge part of mechanical systems: people want to be able to be creative, and giving them the right to do so is a powerful reward. How this is allotted and allocated in free-form is not as regulated by reproducible procedures, though, instead it often comes down to things like the informal social networks that Christian [Griffen] points out. Because of:​

reinforcement and mirroring: what is real in a game world is what gets played/with. If everyone else ignores or doesn't know about what you've made up, it may as well not exist. So, the people who are the most "powerful" creatively speaking in freeform, are the ones whose ideas get picked up on and incorporated into the play of others. Those whose actions affect others and who end up having them reverberate around the shared creation. This can be done via any channel depending on the type of play: character action, background creation, informal discussion out of character, or "gming" (which in free-form, means setting the parameters of play, use of props, dissemination of information, creation of guidelines and intervention/adjudication. damn, online gms can do a hell of alot, more even, than tabletop ones, in a way, because there may be so many more people involved. same with large larps).​

positioning: this is a wierd one that seems to arise out of the way that narrative control is not parcelled out in a regulated way in freeform. Other folks may have had very different experiences, so take it with a grain of salt. Anyway, what it is is setting up in-game events and interpretations to support your following (character) actions. For example, if I want to shoot your character with a gun, I have to first establish that there is a gun present, that it is loaded etc. If I want to kill your character, I will have to establish, and get others to collaborate with me in establishing, that my character can keep yours from escaping, that mine has the ability to successfully shoot yours, that help will not arrive in time etc. Instead of a die roll, based on various things that represent all this stuff, it has to be negotiated, or simply spoken and accepted as "what has happened" in order for it to occur. So in freeform, you may be thinking (even unconsciously) three moves down the road, in order to back yourself up on future actions.​

Well, that's a couple anyway. Sorry to go on. It is a big thing for me, though, that there are systems in there, even if they are unspoken and little understood.​

(my emphasis; original here)​

​

Here, Emily's talking about the player's position: what gameplay options do I, as a player, have available to me right now? Over the course of the game, my legitimate moves change; what are my legitimate moves at this moment of play?​

​

In freeform games, Emily says, what determines your selection of available legitimate moves is the current state of the fictional stuff in the game. If there's a gun in your character's hand, that adds certain moves to the selection available to you, the player. If there's a gun in someone else's character's hand, that changes the likely outcomes of the moves you might make.​

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(For now, let's politely pretend that making a move in a roleplaying game means asserting something, like "my guy shoots yours," and subjecting it to the group's assent or dissent to determine its actual in-game veracity. I think this is not true, but it makes it easier for now.)​

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Contrast freeform with cue-mediation. The freeform rule at play here is "if you've established that your character is holding a gun, all other things being equal, it's a legitimate move to assert that your character fires it at someone." The equivalent cue-mediated rule would be "if you have a gun on your character sheet, all other things being equal, it's a legitimate move to assert that your character fires it at someone." See the difference? Playing freeform, we look into the fiction-as-established to determine whether a possible move is legitimate; playing with cues, we look over at the cue to determine whether it is.​

Given that D&D is cue-laden, many of the legitimate moves that a player can make will follow not from fictional position but from the state of the cues ("cue position"). For instance, whether my PC is conscious or unconscious is typically not an element of fictional position but rather follows from the fact that my hp tally is greater than zero. Attack reach, in contemporary D&D, is likewise typically a matter of cues and not fictional position (contrast Dungeon World, or some approaches to AD&D).

The "typically" in my previous sentence sits in the same conceptual space as Baker's "all other things being equal":

In a given game design or game in play, freeform and cue-mediation can happily coexist. You see where I included "all other things being equal" in both rules? Often in practice that includes a quick check across the boundary between them. Like when you have a pistol on your character sheet, but in the fiction as established your character's just stepping out of the shower, right?​

As far as everything a player is motivated to say, that does not seem to be part of position at all. Rather, and as Emily Care Boss explains, it is motivation that drives positioning: ie because I want the fiction to include such-and-such a thing (say, my PC isn't killed by the giant), then I have a motivation to establish an appropriate position that will enable me to avoid that outcome, be that a fictional position (eg I'm hidden from the giant) or a cue position (eg I've got a sword of giant-slaying on my PC's gear list). Of course my current position might constrain my possibilities of further positions (eg fiction like I've just encountered a giant on an open plain or a cue record like I'm subjected to paralysation). But I don't see how motivated action declarations are themselves part of position (fictional or cue).

Yeah, and this is again sort of the problem with the PACE model, motivation is important, but it is NOT part of the fictional position. It is often unstated and pretty much unconstrained! In my Jon/Jill example, what are the emotional reactions of the characters to each other? The player probably decides those for Jon, maybe his use of his trait, possibly backed up by a willingness to use points (IE the player can stake some currency on it) can decide what Jill feels. So, a decent way to play that out is, Jon approaches Jill, he attempts to woo her, Jill is pretty tough-minded, but he's a pro! The GM decides to make him prove it though, he spends 2 points, Jill pulls out a knife and holds it to Jon, exclaiming that she won't be used like Jane was! The player could let that stand, Jill cuts him across the cheek and he flees. Or he could decide he wants to push it, this is an important goal for Jon! He says "Jon pours out his story to Jill, explaining how Mary set him up and he never intended to betray Jane!" OK, so this may be his 'spin' on the story, but the player spends 2 more points, Jill is convinced, she drops the knife... But there's no rule that says the game even has to be interpreted this way, really. Unlike DW where you can hope that everyone reading the rules will be at least close to a mutual understanding of how it should play out, PACE doesn't SAY any of that, and usually if I get someone that normally plays D&D into a game using that system, they try to elide all the fiction!