D&D General A glimpse at WoTC's current view of Rule 0

[Manbearcat]

I'm curious, it's not immediately obvious to me. What do you parse as the difference between (i) and (iv)? Given that (iv) explicitly includes the premise/themes at hand, it's hard for me to see offhand how that isn't a dramatic story beat. Is it that (i) is not necessarily conflict charged? Is that the end result and/or impact of (i) might be more obvious, or even somewhat forgone? Something else? Or just that (i) and (iv) can sometimes overlap, but not always, and therefore worth splitting?

A story beat is an essential component of macro-story design. It is a structural element that intentionally organizes dramatic and tonal elements with a mind toward an arc, an act, and the entire body of a story.

There are some games that (a) are concerned with this at the agenda-level, (b) are specifically designed with this dramatic structure as the core of play, and (c) therefore the participants array their thoughts and prerogatives around this paradigm. Fiasco, Ten Candles, certain iterations of Fate and Cortex+ among others come to mind. In the Trad space, you're talking about a GM Storyteller style where either an AP or a GM organizes a metanarrative around such story conceits and structure. Node-based design where essential story elements give default structure and shape to a narrative to be played through is absolutely this.

If you're familiar with American Football, an (somewhat crude admittedly) approximation is the difference between:

* Playcalling for this situation in front of you right now

vs

* Gameplanning + Game Management Ethos

<snip>

: in Torchbearer (or a similar-style game) does playing with integrity to character - often expressed as "do what the character would do" - take precedence even if-when doing so would lessen either or both of the conflict-charged situation or the tactical challenge?

A basic example would be a character whose established personality (and-or in-fiction history) leads it to want to avoid (or sneak around, or bypass, or deflect, or even dismiss) conflict rather than stand right into it.

It's virtually impossible for me to answer this because the GMing and the play of Torchbearer makes it impossible to play a character that avoids conflict. Now you can create a character that tends to evade, misdirect, skulk, and deceive and has a Belief, Instinct, Creed, and Nature that demonstrates these tendencies (along with selected Class, Traits, Skills, Wises). But this character is still a Torchbearer character. Play is still about:

* "Fighting for What you Believe" (your Belief, Instinct, Creed, Friends, Parents, Hometown) and dealing with your Enemy

* It is still structured by the phases of Town, Adventure, Camp, Journey/Toll and all the dynamics therein (dealing with The Light and Grind clocks.

* Players still have to make Tests with their PCs to deal with obstacles.

* Players still have to engage with and resolve the Conflict mechanics/procedures via their PCs.

* Players still have to stay on top of their PC's Conditions and recover them so they don't spiral into the Dead condition or retirement in some way.

* Players still have to accrue Checks with their PCs to fuel Camp phase.

* Players still have to manage the difficulties of their PC's Inventory.

* Players still have to deal with Twists + Town Events + Camp Events via their PCs.

* Players still have to deal with the structure of a Short or Medium or Long Adventure via their PCs.

* Players still have to pay their PC's bills at the end of Town phase.

* Players still have to make theme/premise-based plays with their PCs in order to fuel and gain currencies essential to gameplay and attendant survival and advancement.

* Players still have to deploy their PC's Nature and deal with it's losses/gains and stay on top of it so it doesn't lead to retirement.

* Players still have to make decisions around using PC Traits against themselves or failing tests to advance PCs.

-----------

So I don't know exactly what you have in mind, but (a) playing characters that want to bake muffins and avoid strife is not playing Torchbearer and (b) the gameplay engine itself makes it impossible to avoid strife, adventure, and danger.

The game is all conflict, all the time, and designing and playing a Torchbearer character at all is to accept this and embrace it.

 

[Aldarc]

Don't have time to get into the challenge-based post that I was hoping to, but I saw this post by @Lanefan and then your reply to me and figured I'd get a quick post up on the subjects here. Really just two things and they're very interelated:

1) @Lanefan , Neither Stonetop nor Torchbearer are games that are interested in "dramatic story beats." This is often confused because of the overly broad "Storygames" that these kinds of games mistakenly get binned in. IMO, Storygames are absolutely interested in (and designed around) (i) "dramatic story beats" and play at both (ii) the arc layer as well as (iii) outcomes and finished product.

Story Now games, by contrast, are not interested in any of those (i) - (iii) above. This is an absolutely essential thing to understand to grok these games individually and their differences. Story Now games are interested in (iv) the immediacy of experiencing and resolving conflict-charged situation that addresses a premise/theme (wash/rinse/repeat). The fact that this play stacks on itself and ends up (hopefully) generating compelling story is just a byproduct. It isn't what play or design of system is preoccupied with.

2) The other thing I wanted to address is Torchbearer is absolutely designed around challenge-based priorities. It absolutely does emphasize "skilled-play" and a "play-to-win" orientation for the players. In fact, Torchbearer does this better and more fully than any game I've ever GMed. The only game that comes close is Moldvay Basic and 4e's combat engine, but Torchbearer's complexity + layers of challenge and duress-based calculus players must perform outmatches both of them so it is the TTRPG Top Dawg.

So why is Torchbearer such a good Story Now game despite it also being such an incredible "skilled play" game engine? It is because, at the core of plenty of challenge-based designs is a focus on the immediacy of experiencing and resolving conflict-charged situation that addresses challenge (the tactical layer). It should be obvious when contrasted with Story Now above, that there is pronounced overlap in agenda which allows for overlap in design. The thing that Torchbearer does along with this bolded bit above is (a) its conflict-charged situations address both premise/theme as well as challenge, (b) it is possessed of myriad design features that generate strategic, throughline decision-points that become the crux of play (demanding both sound tactical and strategic play and those demands are relentless), and (c) decisions around advancement (another component of challenge-based play) are also complex/impactful and steeped in "skilled play" calculus for a player.

If you are going to respond to @Lanefan, then I recommend reading what I wrote in my original post here. I do think that these sorts of games are interested in "dramatic story beats"; however, there may be some confusion as it seems we have two different opinions regarding what is meant by that.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Actual natural language or the word chaos they call natural language in D&D?

Surprise me. I want to understand without feeling like I'm at a game theory symposium.

 

[Micah Sweet]

The Forge :: Narrativism: Story Now

Is the Forge the only source of this information? Since they are so biased towards narrative styles of play I tend to look askance at their way of describing things.

 

[Micah Sweet]

A story beat is an essential component of macro-story design. It is a structural element that intentionally organizes dramatic and tonal elements with a mind toward an arc, an act, and the entire body of a story.

There are some games that (a) are concerned with this at the agenda-level, (b) are specifically designed with this dramatic structure as the core of play, and (c) therefore the participants array their thoughts and prerogatives around this paradigm. Fiasco, Ten Candles, certain iterations of Fate and Cortex+ among others come to mind. In the Trad space, you're talking about a GM Storyteller style where either an AP or a GM organizes a metanarrative around such story conceits and structure. Node-based design where essential story elements give default structure and shape to a narrative to be played through is absolutely this.

If you're familiar with American Football, an (somewhat crude admittedly) approximation is the difference between:

* Playcalling for this situation in front of you right now

vs

* Gameplanning + Game Management Ethos



It's virtually impossible for me to answer this because the GMing and the play of Torchbearer makes it impossible to play a character that avoids conflict. Now you can create a character that tends to evade, misdirect, skulk, and deceive and has a Belief, Instinct, Creed, and Nature that demonstrates these tendencies (along with selected Class, Traits, Skills, Wises). But this character is still a Torchbearer character. Play is still about:

* "Fighting for What you Believe" (your Belief, Instinct, Creed, Friends, Parents, Hometown) and dealing with your Enemy

* It is still structured by the phases of Town, Adventure, Camp, Journey/Toll and all the dynamics therein (dealing with The Light and Grind clocks.

* Players still have to make Tests with their PCs to deal with obstacles.

* Players still have to engage with and resolve the Conflict mechanics/procedures via their PCs.

* Players still have to stay on top of their PC's Conditions and recover them so they don't spiral into the Dead condition or retirement in some way.

* Players still have to accrue Checks with their PCs to fuel Camp phase.

* Players still have to manage the difficulties of their PC's Inventory.

* Players still have to deal with Twists + Town Events + Camp Events via their PCs.

* Players still have to deal with the structure of a Short or Medium or Long Adventure via their PCs.

* Players still have to pay their PC's bills at the end of Town phase.

* Players still have to make theme/premise-based plays with their PCs in order to fuel and gain currencies essential to gameplay and attendant survival and advancement.

* Players still have to deploy their PC's Nature and deal with it's losses/gains and stay on top of it so it doesn't lead to retirement.

* Players still have to make decisions around using PC Traits against themselves or failing tests to advance PCs.

-----------

So I don't know exactly what you have in mind, but (a) playing characters that want to bake muffins and avoid strife is not playing Torchbearer and (b) the gameplay engine itself makes it impossible to avoid strife, adventure, and danger.

The game is all conflict, all the time, and designing and playing a Torchbearer character at all is to accept this and embrace it.

Forgive my ignorance, but this is the kind of language I'm talking about. Is it possible to explain the playstyle and how it differs from others without presenting it like a college syllabus?

 

[Oofta]

Forgive my ignorance, but this is the kind of language I'm talking about. Is it possible to explain the playstyle and how it differs from others without presenting it like a college syllabus?

I feel your pain. I'm sure these explanations make sense to those who know what the buzzwords are, but odds are if you understand the buzzwords you already know about what's bein explained. I'm assume people aren't doing it on purpose, but there is very little in those explanations that don't require a Forge Dictionary to understand.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I feel your pain. I'm sure these explanations make sense to those who know what the buzzwords are, but odds are if you understand the buzzwords you already know about what's bein explained. I'm assume people aren't doing it on purpose, but there is very little in those explanations that don't require a Forge Dictionary to understand.

Exactly! Clearly this style of gaming has very strong adherents who understand all this stuff, but I was hoping for an explanation that just spelled it out plainly, like a conversation as opposed to a mid-level academic lecture (when I didn't take the intro course). Do the actual rulebooks for these games use this kind of language when explaining how the game is played?

 

[soviet]

Exactly! Clearly this style of gaming has very strong adherents who understand all this stuff, but I was hoping for an explanation that just spelled it out plainly, like a conversation as opposed to a mid-level academic lecture (when I didn't take the intro course). Do the actual rulebooks for these games use this kind of language when explaining how the game is played?

If only there was a way to find out!



My own game Other Worlds is on DriveThruRPG (and I'm sure free elsewhere) - it's my attempt at designing a game that supports a narrativist agenda. It contains a lot of practical advice and explanations, but no jargon. Me and my group were used to very traditional play ourselves so a lot of the text is from exactly that kind of practical 'how do we do this?' perspective.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Exactly! Clearly this style of gaming has very strong adherents who understand all this stuff, but I was hoping for an explanation that just spelled it out plainly, like a conversation as opposed to a mid-level academic lecture (when I didn't take the intro course). Do the actual rulebooks for these games use this kind of language when explaining how the game is played?

No they don't.

 

[Micah Sweet]

No they don't.

Then why do so many people here do so? Where's the benefit?