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<blockquote data-quote="AbdulAlhazred" data-source="post: 8524188" data-attributes="member: 82106"><p>Of course they had an agenda. No, AFAIK it was not really written down, aside from 'have fun', which Gygax certainly mentions in 1e. Back in the days of actual D&D (which I played and own) no, there was nothing explicit. D&D grew out of wargaming, as we know, and IMHO there was INTENDED to be a sort of play to find out what happens, TO THE PLAYERS. That is, do they solve clever traps and puzzles and advance PCs to higher levels of play? Honestly I think all else can be seen as an outgrowth of that, and so as such it forms a legitimate agenda. But nobody is arguing that an agenda, or principles/techniques/process of play don't exist without explication; just that it is, at best, hard to justify a statement that they are 'this' or 'that'. Hard to say what in fact they are in any certain way.</p><p></p><p>Again, nobody is maintaining otherwise. Heck, you and [USER=6696971]@Manbearcat[/USER] cannot even agree that you're playing Dungeon World or not, and it cannot get more explicit than DW (IMHO, maybe BitD or TB2 manage to top it a bit, not sure). People go into virtually every activity with something resembling an agenda, though it is very often unclear what it is, even to them.</p><p></p><p>I would probably not consider some of these to be 'games' in any recognizable sense, first of all. Nor am I sure what this entire line of discussion is leading towards when the topic was an existing (and quite specific) game! Now, I don't know anything much about any 'FKR movement' or what they propose, etc. so I can't even really comment on that, but 'Kriegspiel' is a very particular sort of activity with a significant amount of agenda and structure, though most of that is usually either developed in, or extended and particularized to form a scenario. </p><p></p><p>Kriegspiel was specifically designed as a tool for training operational staff in a realistic manner which would develop skills directly applicable to field operations in wartime. So it has a rather definite agenda, though when it was applied to a more general set of scenarios and finally as a form of recreation this obviously shifted. Still, there has always been a certain structured approach, specific techniques, a general process of play, and I would argue an agenda of injecting a certain type of 'operational realism' into play of the game. Also I would use the term 'game' guardedly. Kriegspielen can be PLAY in that they are an entertaining activity (some of them anyway), but they are also much more performative and open-ended in structure than is typical for games. That is to say, if 'Cowboys & Indians' is a game (arguably) then so is your average Kriegspiel, but that's only one perspective on it.</p><p></p><p>Yes, you can always substitute your agenda for one that is presupposed by a game, or provide one where none is explicitly given, and you can thus override any existing explicit or implicit agenda. You do risk incoherence with the game design though (OTOH coherence may not exist anyway, so you may risk nothing).</p><p></p><p>I think here we need to state that 'narrate the results' was not clearly stated by 5e to mean 'in fictional terms', at least that is a reasonably position taken by many. So we can take it as such, but I would consider this an independent extension to the sense of the rules text, not a corollary of your originally proposed 'say something meaningful'.</p><p></p><p>I accept that it means it ENDS with the fiction. I think we need to be careful to avoid the situation (very common in D&D) where the next assertion doesn't reference that fiction. That is we need to form our process in such a way that (IMHO) it strongly encourages or even requires, in a procedural and non-optional sense, that the next 'move' be made in fiction. This is one of the reasons DW so strongly emphasizes talking in terms of fiction at the table (various parts of the principles restate elements of this). There is always the danger that fiction can become secondary to mechanics, and become sort of just a 'pro forma' or even be elided entirely. I would ask how your 'Story 5e' proposes to avoid that.</p><p></p><p>As I note above, I have a concern about the robustness of a loop between fiction and mechanical play which will tend to break down. It is surely under pressure at least in combat, though I think out of combat 5e lacks sufficient structure to likely produce entirely mechanically-driven sequences of play. It might happen to a degree when spells are involved though. I mean, I can certainly imagine a player saying something like "I just charm him and get the information I need." There are situations where that wouldn't appear to actively violate your framework, but it would elide fiction. Its always going to be somewhat grey though, as in any Story Game you might consider such elision to be more a factor of there being no dramatic impulse to act out by stating some fiction there, like there's no character building or definition that could happen, etc.</p><p></p><p>Overall my other observation is just that I don't see 5e* as a particularly strong Story Game in that unstated conceptions of agenda and lack of specifics in things like genre and tone to match up to them make me think that you could not pick up 5e, read your essay, and say you had a real shot at running what you, [USER=71699]@clearstream[/USER], are envisaging they would play.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="AbdulAlhazred, post: 8524188, member: 82106"] Of course they had an agenda. No, AFAIK it was not really written down, aside from 'have fun', which Gygax certainly mentions in 1e. Back in the days of actual D&D (which I played and own) no, there was nothing explicit. D&D grew out of wargaming, as we know, and IMHO there was INTENDED to be a sort of play to find out what happens, TO THE PLAYERS. That is, do they solve clever traps and puzzles and advance PCs to higher levels of play? Honestly I think all else can be seen as an outgrowth of that, and so as such it forms a legitimate agenda. But nobody is arguing that an agenda, or principles/techniques/process of play don't exist without explication; just that it is, at best, hard to justify a statement that they are 'this' or 'that'. Hard to say what in fact they are in any certain way. Again, nobody is maintaining otherwise. Heck, you and [USER=6696971]@Manbearcat[/USER] cannot even agree that you're playing Dungeon World or not, and it cannot get more explicit than DW (IMHO, maybe BitD or TB2 manage to top it a bit, not sure). People go into virtually every activity with something resembling an agenda, though it is very often unclear what it is, even to them. I would probably not consider some of these to be 'games' in any recognizable sense, first of all. Nor am I sure what this entire line of discussion is leading towards when the topic was an existing (and quite specific) game! Now, I don't know anything much about any 'FKR movement' or what they propose, etc. so I can't even really comment on that, but 'Kriegspiel' is a very particular sort of activity with a significant amount of agenda and structure, though most of that is usually either developed in, or extended and particularized to form a scenario. Kriegspiel was specifically designed as a tool for training operational staff in a realistic manner which would develop skills directly applicable to field operations in wartime. So it has a rather definite agenda, though when it was applied to a more general set of scenarios and finally as a form of recreation this obviously shifted. Still, there has always been a certain structured approach, specific techniques, a general process of play, and I would argue an agenda of injecting a certain type of 'operational realism' into play of the game. Also I would use the term 'game' guardedly. Kriegspielen can be PLAY in that they are an entertaining activity (some of them anyway), but they are also much more performative and open-ended in structure than is typical for games. That is to say, if 'Cowboys & Indians' is a game (arguably) then so is your average Kriegspiel, but that's only one perspective on it. Yes, you can always substitute your agenda for one that is presupposed by a game, or provide one where none is explicitly given, and you can thus override any existing explicit or implicit agenda. You do risk incoherence with the game design though (OTOH coherence may not exist anyway, so you may risk nothing). I think here we need to state that 'narrate the results' was not clearly stated by 5e to mean 'in fictional terms', at least that is a reasonably position taken by many. So we can take it as such, but I would consider this an independent extension to the sense of the rules text, not a corollary of your originally proposed 'say something meaningful'. I accept that it means it ENDS with the fiction. I think we need to be careful to avoid the situation (very common in D&D) where the next assertion doesn't reference that fiction. That is we need to form our process in such a way that (IMHO) it strongly encourages or even requires, in a procedural and non-optional sense, that the next 'move' be made in fiction. This is one of the reasons DW so strongly emphasizes talking in terms of fiction at the table (various parts of the principles restate elements of this). There is always the danger that fiction can become secondary to mechanics, and become sort of just a 'pro forma' or even be elided entirely. I would ask how your 'Story 5e' proposes to avoid that. As I note above, I have a concern about the robustness of a loop between fiction and mechanical play which will tend to break down. It is surely under pressure at least in combat, though I think out of combat 5e lacks sufficient structure to likely produce entirely mechanically-driven sequences of play. It might happen to a degree when spells are involved though. I mean, I can certainly imagine a player saying something like "I just charm him and get the information I need." There are situations where that wouldn't appear to actively violate your framework, but it would elide fiction. Its always going to be somewhat grey though, as in any Story Game you might consider such elision to be more a factor of there being no dramatic impulse to act out by stating some fiction there, like there's no character building or definition that could happen, etc. Overall my other observation is just that I don't see 5e* as a particularly strong Story Game in that unstated conceptions of agenda and lack of specifics in things like genre and tone to match up to them make me think that you could not pick up 5e, read your essay, and say you had a real shot at running what you, [USER=71699]@clearstream[/USER], are envisaging they would play. [/QUOTE]
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