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A GMing telling the players about the gameworld is not like real life
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<blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 7576383" data-attributes="member: 42582"><p>I want to pick up on this.</p><p></p><p>Let's look, concretely, at a particular episode of RPG play. I'll draw again on the example of Discern Realities/Spout Lore, and the piece of Traveller play that I compared to this.</p><p></p><p>Discern Realities and Spout Lore provide a framework in which a player can oblige a GM to elaborate on the established fiction, in a way that connects to the interests/concerns of the player in respect of that fiction. To work, these DW moves depend on a few things being the case:</p><p></p><p style="margin-left: 20px">* There must be an established but "gappy" fiction. To see why, consider a Spout Lore result which requires the GM to tell the player something true and useful - the presence of this move, and this possible result, as part of the gameplay means that the GM is precluded from already having estabished everything about the fiction, which would create the possibility of there being nothing more useful to learn.</p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"></p> <p style="margin-left: 20px">* Following from the above, it depends on their being ways of resolving <em>other</em> sorts of action resolution - like, say, <em>we hurry to the next corner</em> or <em>we sneak across town avoiding being spotted by any sect members</em> - that don't depend on maps and keys and notes about the locations of sect members and wargame-type movement rules. Because those ways of resolving moving and sneaking and so on only work if the fiction is fully established in precisely the way that it can't be for the DW moves to work.</p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"></p> <p style="margin-left: 20px">* There must be some known goal or orientation or trajectory of play, such that the notion of <em>useful</em> makes sense. This establishes, straight away, a contrast with RPGing in which the players keep their plans and intentions secret from the GM.</p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"></p> <p style="margin-left: 20px">* As the flip-side of the above, there must be some clear sense of what would count as adversity or a setback for the PCs (and thus the players), so that the GM can make a meaningful move on a roll of 6-.</p><p></p><p>So can you implement the DW approach in 5e D&D? To me, it seems not super-easily: 5e D&D doesn't have clear mechanics for resolving moving and sneaking and the like other than the classic wargame approach, which means it doesn't properly handle "gappy" fiction. And 5e D&D, by default, doesn't really encourage clear trajectories of play, and a clear sense of adversity, in the way that these DW moves depend upon.</p><p></p><p>Could 5e D&D be tweaked to change this? Well, introducing clear goals and adversity might be easy enough. But then you'll bump into the central resolution system, which, outside of combat, doesn't clearly support <em>ntent and task</em> action declaration and <em>fail forward</em> action resolution, and rellies very heavily on GM intuition to set DCs.</p><p></p><p>Again, there are tweaks and workarounds and so on possible here, but that still leaves us with the issue of "gappy" fiction. Eg a relevant consideration for resolving hiding/sneaking in 5e D&D is whether or not someone is looking at the character. That is, the presence and location (in the fiction) of observers is an <em>input</em> into resolution. But resolving movement and sneaking in "gappy" fiction depends on a system where that sort of thing can be an <em>output</em> of resolution.</p><p></p><p>Can this be worked around too? Maybe - I'm not a 5e expert by any means. What I'm trying to point out is that <em>system</em> is intimately and intricately linked to the feasible range of techniques that can be used, and hence is apt to produce a particular sort of play experience. And while some posters in this thread have talked about the flexibility of D&D, and about picking and choosing among techniques, there are some failry deep features of 5e as a system that make it hard to use it to produce the sort of experience that DW will.</p><p></p><p>Classic Traveller can be contrasted with 5e D&D in some of these respects: first, its PC gen (the first lifepath system) produces characters with richer implicit backstory, and hence more readily emergent goals for play, than does 5e D&D; second, it has a system for random patron generation which can produce a patron without depedning on extrapolation from established fiction (hence producing less pressure for non-"gappy" fiction); third, it has a system for random world generation which can produce implicit situation (eg <em>how do people survive on this high-pop but low-tech world with a tainted atmosphere?</em>) again without needing the fiction to be filled in; fourth, its base move action is the interstellar jump, which can be resolved without needing a detailed, non-"gappy" map; fifth, it has a reaction roll table which can be used to extrapolate NPC reactions without needing to know what the underlying fiction is that explains that reaction, again supporting "gappy" fiction; and it has other random content generation systems also.</p><p></p><p>I drew on these features when (i) presenting a patron and a mission, and (ii) subsequently adjudicating the attempt by the player in my first Traveller session to extract more information from the PCs' patron about the nature of the mission she was sending them on.</p><p></p><p>Drifting Classic Traveller to play something like DW (not the same - more randomness, for a start!) is easier than doing the same with 5e - it has more supporting frameworks, and fewer assumptions about how framing and resolution work that will create problems.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="pemerton, post: 7576383, member: 42582"] I want to pick up on this. Let's look, concretely, at a particular episode of RPG play. I'll draw again on the example of Discern Realities/Spout Lore, and the piece of Traveller play that I compared to this. Discern Realities and Spout Lore provide a framework in which a player can oblige a GM to elaborate on the established fiction, in a way that connects to the interests/concerns of the player in respect of that fiction. To work, these DW moves depend on a few things being the case: [indent]* There must be an established but "gappy" fiction. To see why, consider a Spout Lore result which requires the GM to tell the player something true and useful - the presence of this move, and this possible result, as part of the gameplay means that the GM is precluded from already having estabished everything about the fiction, which would create the possibility of there being nothing more useful to learn. * Following from the above, it depends on their being ways of resolving [I]other[/I] sorts of action resolution - like, say, [I]we hurry to the next corner[/I] or [I]we sneak across town avoiding being spotted by any sect members[/I] - that don't depend on maps and keys and notes about the locations of sect members and wargame-type movement rules. Because those ways of resolving moving and sneaking and so on only work if the fiction is fully established in precisely the way that it can't be for the DW moves to work. * There must be some known goal or orientation or trajectory of play, such that the notion of [I]useful[/I] makes sense. This establishes, straight away, a contrast with RPGing in which the players keep their plans and intentions secret from the GM. * As the flip-side of the above, there must be some clear sense of what would count as adversity or a setback for the PCs (and thus the players), so that the GM can make a meaningful move on a roll of 6-.[/indent] So can you implement the DW approach in 5e D&D? To me, it seems not super-easily: 5e D&D doesn't have clear mechanics for resolving moving and sneaking and the like other than the classic wargame approach, which means it doesn't properly handle "gappy" fiction. And 5e D&D, by default, doesn't really encourage clear trajectories of play, and a clear sense of adversity, in the way that these DW moves depend upon. Could 5e D&D be tweaked to change this? Well, introducing clear goals and adversity might be easy enough. But then you'll bump into the central resolution system, which, outside of combat, doesn't clearly support [I]ntent and task[/I] action declaration and [I]fail forward[/I] action resolution, and rellies very heavily on GM intuition to set DCs. Again, there are tweaks and workarounds and so on possible here, but that still leaves us with the issue of "gappy" fiction. Eg a relevant consideration for resolving hiding/sneaking in 5e D&D is whether or not someone is looking at the character. That is, the presence and location (in the fiction) of observers is an [I]input[/I] into resolution. But resolving movement and sneaking in "gappy" fiction depends on a system where that sort of thing can be an [I]output[/I] of resolution. Can this be worked around too? Maybe - I'm not a 5e expert by any means. What I'm trying to point out is that [I]system[/I] is intimately and intricately linked to the feasible range of techniques that can be used, and hence is apt to produce a particular sort of play experience. And while some posters in this thread have talked about the flexibility of D&D, and about picking and choosing among techniques, there are some failry deep features of 5e as a system that make it hard to use it to produce the sort of experience that DW will. Classic Traveller can be contrasted with 5e D&D in some of these respects: first, its PC gen (the first lifepath system) produces characters with richer implicit backstory, and hence more readily emergent goals for play, than does 5e D&D; second, it has a system for random patron generation which can produce a patron without depedning on extrapolation from established fiction (hence producing less pressure for non-"gappy" fiction); third, it has a system for random world generation which can produce implicit situation (eg [I]how do people survive on this high-pop but low-tech world with a tainted atmosphere?[/I]) again without needing the fiction to be filled in; fourth, its base move action is the interstellar jump, which can be resolved without needing a detailed, non-"gappy" map; fifth, it has a reaction roll table which can be used to extrapolate NPC reactions without needing to know what the underlying fiction is that explains that reaction, again supporting "gappy" fiction; and it has other random content generation systems also. I drew on these features when (i) presenting a patron and a mission, and (ii) subsequently adjudicating the attempt by the player in my first Traveller session to extract more information from the PCs' patron about the nature of the mission she was sending them on. Drifting Classic Traveller to play something like DW (not the same - more randomness, for a start!) is easier than doing the same with 5e - it has more supporting frameworks, and fewer assumptions about how framing and resolution work that will create problems. [/QUOTE]
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