Authenticity in RPGing

[Imaro]

One of the things I find strange/interesting in these discussions is that the adventure path (or railroad if you prefer) is considered the default D&D 5e play style... but I question that assumption. I've literally never run a published adventure path (though I have stolen liberally from them both for encounters and idea generators) and in all the games I've joined I've never once played through an adventure path. In fact the vast majority of D&D streaming doesn't seem to be adventure path play either... I'm just curious if there is actual evidence (outside of the fact that they are being published by WotC) that this is the predominant playstyle for D&D 5e?

 

[kenada]

Everyone always frames “play to find out” (PtFO) in player-side terms and fair enough. But its the GM side perks that draw me in.

I get to be a type of curious audience member (while aggressively opposing player goals while bound by rules-integrity) to both the accreting fiction and the peculiarities of my own cognitive space and reactions that I wouldn’t otherwise have access to (because typically life doesn’t come at you that fast or on all of the converging axes that are part and parcel of GMing these games). I think I called it something of a personal Rorschach Test upthread (or perhaps in the last thread). It’s also a bit of a cognitive crucible/challenge (which I enjoy).

I didn’t appreciate it until recently, but the techniques and principles that support “play to find out” also remove the GM from having to decide what happens. I really like that. I can offer an “impossible” situation, and we can see how the PCs respond to it. That’s not specific to this style of play (e.g., it’s a common trope of OSR play), but I feel like also being the arbitrator creates a risk that whatever ruling I make could feel unfair to the players.

 

[Bedrockgames]

One of the things I find strange/interesting in these discussions is that the adventure path (or railroad if you prefer) is considered the default D&D 5e play style... but I question that assumption. I've literally never run a published adventure path (though I have stolen liberally from them both for encounters and idea generators) and in all the games I've joined I've never once played through an adventure path. In fact the vast majority of D&D streaming doesn't seem to be adventure path play either... I'm just curious if there is actual evidence (outside of the fact that they are being published by WotC) that this is the predominant playstyle for D&D 5e?

I think this is accurate. My impression is most typical D&D groups are doing a hybrid of lots of different things. I'm not even sure WOTC is doing adventure path stuff as much anymore. I don't play 5E so I am not current but I keep hearing from players there are more sandbox elements in a lot of the modules, and the one module I have, Castle Ravenloft, definitely seems more open. I do remember there being a lot of adventures back in the early and mid-2000s where everything tended to be pretty linear and they were also structured around encounter challenge levels (which is what I think really tended to keep those adventures on the rails because the idea was you needed to plan out encounters so they provided adequate challenge to a party over the course of play, so you were often encouraged to design adventures around 2 level X encounters, followed by a level Y, encountered, followed by two Level W encounters, and ending with a level Z encounter or something (I don't remember the exact patterns but it was stuff like that which is kind of hard not to do in a linear way). But even with that said, I also remember finding plenty of non-linear, non-road adventures in dungeon (granted not WOTC, but I strongly associate the term adventure path with Paizo). I remember being at my peak "Fed up with linear style adventures" around 2005 or so.

 

[Imaro]

We often leave out the most important part of phrase in question during these discussions. Play to find out what happens. Meaning that first and foremost play is centered around a curious spirit of what happens next. Not what the setting is like. Not what the story is. Not how we manage resources. What happens next.

It's a mentality that is focused on being present, not worrying where things will lead or on manifesting your conception of your character. Not chewing scenery.

The frenetic energy and visceral emotion of something like Dogs in the Vineyard is just different than the slow elaborate buildup, detailed character work and brief crescendos of action that typify the social heavy, character reinforcing play of something like L5R/Vampire. Which is incredibly different from adventure of the week D&D play centered on group problem solving,

I have no idea why so much virtual ink gets spilled trying to minimize these differences rather than celebrate them.

I think one of the problems is that it presupposes how these games are run and played in the wild without actually backing up that assertion with any evidence. When I run a campaign of D&D I definitely don't think it could be summed up as an "adventure of the week...play centered on problem solving" campaign. If anything that describes a minority of what has taken place in the campaign to date.

 

[Thomas Shey]

The problem Pemerton ran into right out the gate here is that for simple functionality, he had to use a definition of a term for what he was talking about out the gate. But the word choice suffers from the curse of almost all word choice in such things; it has semantic loading beyond its literal meaning or even the specific definition he provides. So people are going to, to one degree or another, react to it on that level (specifically the premise that some play styles provide it better than others) and that's going to fog the ability to have the discussion.

That's always going to be a problem, as any attempt to separate denotational from connotational meanings is, outside of very narrow contexts (which are essentially impossible to produce in a forum thread) a doomed enterprise.

 

[Campbell]

Maybe it felt a bit like jazz aficionados saying that what jazz has - with all its variations in details of technique, principles, etc - is authenticity. That players make genuine choices, in play, that say something - individually and, if it's working properly, together.

That casts shade: it implies that other forms of music - classical say - are inauthentic. Consider the ameliorating statement - all music has authenticity. I think the OP does not intend anything like that. The OP does mean to say that some kinds of music lack authenticity, or have it in lesser degree. They go on to say something like - the flipside of this is that the effect of composition and all its variations squelch authenticity. The parameters of play have already been set.

Emphasis mine. The text of the OP has implications that can rightly be engaged with. Demand engagement, really, to get properly into the argument on its merits.

I mean it's obvious to me this is really a discussion of expressive authenticity and the impact of curation. Basically, the conceit that the more we curate the art we create the less it is a reflection of us as artists and the more it is content for others to take in. There's a lot to be said for the value gained by curation, but there is also something raw, unbound, personal that gets lost.

 

[Umbran]

I'm just curious if there is actual evidence (outside of the fact that they are being published by WotC) that this is the predominant playstyle for D&D 5e?

That's a valid question, but probably best in another thread.

 

[Bedrockgames]

I mean it's obvious to me this is really a discussion of expressive authenticity and the impact of curation. Basically, the conceit that the more we curate the art we create the less it is a reflection of us as artists and the more it is content for others to take in. There's a lot to be said for the value gained by curation, but there is also something raw, unbound, personal that gets lost.

I can see both being an authentic expression of an inward experience (one raw and instinctual, the other arrived at more through introspection and contemplation). Sometimes it takes thinking about martial to find the truth you want to express. But there is also something very authentic and primal about expressing an idea without any thought and going purely by feel. It is the zero sum game that makes it an issue. If the OP had said the experience was raw and instinctual, that would make more sense to me. Even if the OP had said it was a raw and authentic way to play the game. I don't think many would have batted an eye. It is the way this statement gets used to launch the 'those squelch authenticity' argument. It is the 'this is authentic, but those are railroad variations that squelch authenticity' that makes me want to push back against the idea more. Most of my criticism has been on the labeling of three clue rule as a railroad variation.

 

[Bedrockgames]

I mean it's obvious to me this is really a discussion of expressive authenticity and the impact of curation. Basically, the conceit that the more we curate the art we create the less it is a reflection of us as artists and the more it is content for others to take in. There's a lot to be said for the value gained by curation, but there is also something raw, unbound, personal that gets lost.

Another issue that has arisen is I think some people would also view this as something of a straw man. They would push back against the idea that these other styles of play and games are more curated. The GM is doing a lot of improv in these games, the players are reacting in the moment: they are improvising their response. It isn't like they are sitting down before hand to curate what will happen. There may be structure, but even an uncurated jazz performance has structure in the form of modes, scales, key signatures.

 

[Bill Zebub]

The problem Pemerton ran into right out the gate here is that for simple functionality, he had to use a definition of a term for what he was talking about out the gate. But the word choice suffers from the curse of almost all word choice in such things; it has semantic loading beyond its literal meaning or even the specific definition he provides. So people are going to, to one degree or another, react to it on that level (specifically the premise that some play styles provide it better than others) and that's going to fog the ability to have the discussion.

That's always going to be a problem, as any attempt to separate denotational from connotational meanings is, outside of very narrow contexts (which are essentially impossible to produce in a forum thread) a doomed enterprise.

Knowing that…and it should be obvious, especially when choosing a word that carries implicit value judgments…it would probably be smart to preface the whole thing with definitions/disclaimer.