D&D General Can we talk about best practices?

[jmartkdr2]

I think you could draw a line at the idea that players are entitled to put something in the fiction - that never really happens in DnD (any edition). There are a lot of ways to ask to add something, and abilities that add something to the fiction, but the culture seems to be that any of these only happen, ultimately, with dm approval.

There are games where players have a right to add things to the fiction. You could call these story games or narrative games or whatever, but DnD ain't one of them.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Yes, this is true. It's also one of the things that makes D&D...particularly 5E...kind of hard to discuss at times. It's so amorphous that there are always exceptions, and all exceptions must be considered to be as valid as all others. Hence the mention of the Plot Points from the DMG as evidence that D&D can do more narrative style play.

So many people defend 5E from perfectly valid criticisms based on the version they play, which has been tweaked a bit to suit them, rather than defending what is actually written or presented in the books.

That isn't specifically a D&D thing. I may not have made it clear, but I don't actually do anything with D&D proper and haven't since the 3e days; 5e in particular is very much written to someone who isn't me. If I was going to do something in that sphere, it'd be PF2e, SotDL or 13th Age.

But honestly, even those are only things I want if I really want to run something in the D&D style, and I usually don't. But there are all kinds of fantasy, SF and post-apocalypse games where making part of it up as you go along is viable as long as you keep yourself in check.

I tend to enter these threads because while they may have D&D at the top, most of the topics apply just as well to any number of trad games.

 

[pemerton]

@pemerton Thank you that was illuminating.

No probs!

I suppose if you just write in your background that you hope to meet your brother et al, the DM might ignore it.

I think we're still at cross-purposes. I'm not talking about bad, or bad-faith, GMing of the 5e D&D game. Suppose that the GM doesn't ignore it. What happens next, in play? What sort of action(s) do I, the player, declare to engage with this bit of backstory?

It's often surprising how many players are vehemently against themselves or any other player having narrative control.

I think you could draw a line at the idea that players are entitled to put something in the fiction - that never really happens in DnD (any edition).

<snip>

There are games where players have a right to add things to the fiction. You could call these story games or narrative games or whatever, but DnD ain't one of them.

I think the notion of narrative control - or "adding things to the fiction" - can benefit from elaboration.

Do you (or others) regard the following as narrative control: (i) given that the existence of a hostile Orc is an established part of the fiction, then (ii) a player can declare I attack the Orc and can thereby, and following an appropriate die roll, (iii) bring it about, in the fiction, that the Orc is attacked and killed by the character and hence dead?

Do you (or others) regard the following as narrative control: (i) given that it established in the fiction (a) that a PC has a brother and (b) the PC has returned to where s/he and his/her brother grew up, then (ii) the player can declare Now that I'm back in my homeland, I hope to meet my brother and can thereby, and following an appropriate die roll, (iii) bring it about that his/her PC meets his/her brother?

Do you (or others) regard the following as narrative control: (i) given that it established in the fiction (a) that a PC is in the vicinity of a wall (b) the wall is the sort that might have a secret door (eg it is the wall of a castle or manor house or cathedral rather than the wall of an outhouse or peasant hovel already established to be of no interest from either an architectural or dramatic point of view), then (ii) the player can declare I search the wall for a secret door and can thereby, and following an appropriate die roll, (iii) bring it about that his/her PC finds a secret door in the wall?

I'll explain why I've chosen these three examples, all of which seem to me to be potential instances of narrative control:

The first seems to me to be pretty standard in D&D play (there are exceptions, like the DL modules "obscure death" rule, but a lot of people seem to be critical of those exceptions). Other sorts of action declaration that have the same basic character are (in classic D&D) forcing open a stuck door, disarming a trap that has been discovered, pushing over a statute - in general, making changes to the fiction that correspond to the character, in the fiction, exerting causal power to bring about the change.

The second allows the player to exercise control over the framing of encounters. The closest example I can easily think of in D&D play is in classic D&D, where various PCs have the ability to attract followers, which at the table means that the player has the ability to trigger a certain sort of encounter - but only in the case of the paladin's warhorse, as per Gygax's DMG, does this normally have any dramatic weight; for other classes it seems to be more of a down-time exercise. (EDIT: I just remembered the Yakuza's contact ability in the original OA, which is in the neighbourhood of an ability of the player to initiate a dramatically-significant encounter.)

The third allows the player to exercise control over the architectural details of the setting, and if we generalise it to similar cases (like I seem to recall that the Captain of the Guards in this town has a fondness for black lotus or Isn't Evard's Tower around here?) then it will allow the player to exercise control over other elements of setting and backstory.

I'll now explain how I'm thinking about these through the lens of "narrative control": in a game about fighting enemies and exploring lost temples, then the first sort of action declaration gives the players a lot of control over the narrative. But stuff like whether or not an enemy is in the neighbourhood or whether or not the temple has a statue in it is part of the framing, and is under GM control. In this sort of game, if a player asks Can my PC see anything interesting in the room? or Are there any secret doors? the GM has to make a decision about how to handle framing. In classic dungeon-crawling D&D it's legitimate to call for a check (eg Perception, or a roll to find secret doors, depending on the system details) or the use of a resource (eg a wand of secret door detection) as a "hurdle" in the way of some framing. This is because, in those games, part of the skill (or luck) of play is to get the good scenes framed!

On the other hand, sometimes everyone wants to get to the good scenes rather than put a hurdle in their way, and then the GM might just say 'yes' to the player's question. In fact, even if the player doesn't ask the GM might say something to prompt the question or otherwise push towards the new framing: eg When you enter the room, you notice that there is dust in most of the corners except one, which looks like it gets regularly swept clean - this is a prompt to the players to have their PCs inspect that corner for a secret door. Once the GM is dispensing with hurdles for framing, then it helps to be clear about the point of Perception and similar checks - they're to provide some degree of verisimilitude, or to help manage pacing via tension and release, but they're not playing the same role that was envisaged for them back in 1974. A best-practice guide for 5e D&D would talk about this. (Gygax comes close in his DMG, p 110, but doesn't quite come out and discuss the matter clearly.)

Now suppose that the game is not mostly or primarily about fighting enemies in lost temples, but is about social dynamics, or the PCs' place in the (social) world, or a full-on Godfather or X-Men-style soap opera. Then the second sort of action resolution I mentioned becomes significant. Perhaps not essential - but if it's not part of the system (which, by default, it is not in 5e D&D) then the GM is carrying a huge amount of the burden of play. Because the answer to many significant questions - whom can we meet? what deals can we do with them? who betrays whom? - will rest on his/her shoulders. Stuff that, in the temple-raiding game, was mostly just about framing now matters to outcomes, and the GM just has to make up all the outcomes. Of course one way to handle this is just to say 'yes' every time a player says Can my PC encounter so-and-so but then what has happened to the sort of tension-and-release pacing that we get in (say) D&D combat or in (say) a BW Circles check? A best-practice guide for 5e D&D would talk about this sort of thing, with advice on how the GM should handle it: pre-scripting is the traditional way (and the way that every D&D module in this vein that I can think of handles it), but maybe there are other ways? Maybe we can invent a subsystem that uses CHA checks or something like that.

Now consider a game where the function of architecture, or other backstory, isn't just as a component of framing as in the temple-raiding game. Suppose we want a game where the players really leverage the architecture - like Conan often does in REH Conan stories - or really leverage the backstory - like Gandalf and Aragorn and even Frodo do in LotR. How can we approach this in play? One way is to permit action declarations of my third type above. Another is to leave all the backstory in the hands of the GM, and allow the players to leverage it only after they have had it told to them by the GM. Again, this second way is the default way in 5e D&D. What are the risks? The risks are that the players end up dancing very much to the GM's tune, or end up following the GM's breadcrumbs, or end up just parroting the GM's pre-conceived solution back to him/her. Many CoC modules are good illustrations of what I have in mind, in terms of this risk. A best-practice guide to 5e would talk about this, and how a GM might deftly handle the revelation of backstory so as to try and drive play rather than block or stonewall: nice discussions of these techniques can be found in (eg) Vincent Baker's Dogs in the Vineyard or John Harper's Agon 2nd ed, both of which (i) depend upon GM-pre-authored backstory and (ii) expect the players to leverage that extensively in nplay, and so (iii) give the GM clear advice on how to get all that backstory out onto the table, and also - at least in the case of Agon - when and how to defer to player interpretations of the significance of the backstory. I reckon similar sort of advice, but tailored to the particularities of 5e D&D, could be pretty useful.

 

[Lanefan]

I don't see how this is any different from traditional RPGing. In What is Dungeons & Dragons, published in the early 80s by Puffin Books, it was assumed that the players would author this sort of backstory for their PCs.

Do many people approach PC backstory with the premise that a player must rely on the GM to establish this sort of information about immediate relatives?

What I was referring to is the bit where the player declares that his/her PC hopes to meet his/her brother, having returned to their old stomping grounds. In some RPGs, there are ways of resolving this that do not depend upon largely unconstrained GM decision-making.

Establish? No. Approve? Yes.

The DM always has right of veto, even if she maybe doesn't use it very often.

 

[Fanaelialae]

I think we're still at cross-purposes. I'm not talking about bad, or bad-faith, GMing of the 5e D&D game. Suppose that the GM doesn't ignore it. What happens next, in play? What sort of action(s) do I, the player, declare to engage with this bit of backstory?

If you want to be proactive, you have your character go looking for his brother (the docks might be a good place to start, or maybe looking for the tavern maid).

Alternately, if you want to take a passive stance, you wait for the DM to introduce him or a related hook.

But I seriously doubt you needed me to tell you that.

 

[teitan]

I think DCC is a great game, but I definitely don't think it's good for generic fantasy. Appendix N inspired adventures? Sure! Dungeon crawls with gonzo stylings? Absolutely! It does go into a few other genres with stuff like Xcrawl and Mutant Crawl Classics but all of that is intended for the same sort of tone and style of over the top, lethal gameplay.

Not much heroic fantasy or other sorts of fantasy play available, in my opinion. Like, you wouldn't be able to use it for a "magical school" type game, specifically for the flavor it brings to the table (that of wizards hoarding knowledge and magic being more dangerous to use than a backwards-facing gun!).

Note I was comparing it to D&D and didn’t say it was the best. That would be OD&D without the cleric.

 

[pemerton]

If you want to be proactive, you have your character go looking for his brother (the docks might be a good place to start, or maybe looking for the tavern maid).

Alternately, if you want to take a passive stance, you wait for the DM to introduce him or a related hook.

But I seriously doubt you needed me to tell you that.

What, at the table, is involved in having my PC go look for his/her brother?

How does that play out and get resolved? What is the chance, when my PC turns a corner, that s/he happens to bump into his/her brother? I can - and have - answered those questions for Burning Wheel. I've given my answer for 5e D&D as I understand it - the GM decides. What is your answer, for 5e D&D?

A best-practice guide has to talk about what we do at the table, not what we might imagine happening in the fiction.

 

[Ovinomancer]

So we have session 0 and paying attention to player provided character background in narrative leaning games. Are there mechanics we can borrow from other systems that are not too disruptive to allow player narrative injection to a game in progress?

So, firstly, @Fanaelialae is operating off of an odd definition of 'narrative games' where this means "focuses on story stuff." That's great, but it makes engagement difficult.

Secondly, eh. 5e is rather not well suited for narrative (or Story Now) style mechanical introductions. The GM centered nature -- where the GM is the sole authority over game fictions outside the characters and the expectation of prepped events/locations/plot -- makes adding mechanic expressly designed to enable players to direct what's important in the game really incoherent. Instead of mechanics, you can borrow some of the principles, though, and adapt your game so that the GM is more amenable to player wants.

Fundamentally, though, even this has trouble. The play goal of a Story Now game is for everyone at the table to find out what happens in play -- there is no story before, only now. These games structure themselves from the ground up to enable this play. And those structures do not look like 5e. 5e's core mechanic is "the GM decides," and it leans on this very heavily throughout the system. This makes it hard to introduce "the player gets a say" mechanics because they actively fight the conception of the game.

Personally, I actively play both 5e and Blades in the Dark at the moment. These games are very, very different in just about all ways. And I enjoy them each for how they are different. I wouldn't recommend trying to mix these flavors -- they don't really work well together.

 

[clearstream]

I think the notion of narrative control - or "adding things to the fiction" - can benefit from elaboration.

Do you (or others) regard the following as narrative control: (i) given that the existence of a hostile Orc is an established part of the fiction, then (ii) a player can declare I attack the Orc and can thereby, and following an appropriate die roll, (iii) bring it about, in the fiction, that the Orc is attacked and killed by the character and hence dead?

There may be two kinds of narrative control here. The first is the declaration that sets the scene in motion. Our narrative now contains a fight.

A second may be the details of the fight itself - the character takes this action, and then that action, and then this other action. Declaring the attack isn't stochastic. Those other actions often will be.

Do you (or others) regard the following as narrative control: (i) given that it established in the fiction (a) that a PC has a brother and (b) the PC has returned to where s/he and his/her brother grew up, then (ii) the player can declare Now that I'm back in my homeland, I hope to meet my brother and can thereby, and following an appropriate die roll, (iii) bring it about that his/her PC meets his/her brother?

There may be two kinds narrative control here. Given what is described to happen in the mind of characters is properly part of a narrative (say when Sam feels hope on seeing a star) then the first part - describing a hope or desire to meet my brother - is a kind of narrative control.

Inspired by the hope, the player declares their character searching for their brother. I think this is the same as the attack declaration above: it sets the scene in motion, in a specific direction.

Another is bringing it about the meeting itself, which you have described as stochastic. That then is the same as actions in the fight.

A third is that I think there will be narration of the world this all occurs in - the brother is in the nave of the church of Torm. There is a church, there is a god, Torm, with worshippers, and so on. That was also true of the fight above.

Do you (or others) regard the following as narrative control: (i) given that it established in the fiction (a) that a PC is in the vicinity of a wall (b) the wall is the sort that might have a secret door (eg it is the wall of a castle or manor house or cathedral rather than the wall of an outhouse or peasant hovel already established to be of no interest from either an architectural or dramatic point of view), then (ii) the player can declare I search the wall for a secret door and can thereby, and following an appropriate die roll, (iii) bring it about that his/her PC finds a secret door in the wall?

This again seems to divide into the three kinds of narrative control. Declaration, stochastic action, the space it occurs in.

I'll explain why I've chosen these three examples, all of which seem to me to be potential instances of narrative control:

The second allows the player to exercise control over the framing of encounters. The closest example I can easily think of in D&D play is in classic D&D, where various PCs have the ability to attract followers, which at the table means that the player has the ability to trigger a certain sort of encounter - but only in the case of the paladin's warhorse, as per Gygax's DMG, does this normally have any dramatic weight; for other classes it seems to be more of a down-time exercise. (EDIT: I just remembered the Yakuza's contact ability in the original OA, which is in the neighbourhood of an ability of the player to initiate a dramatically-significant encounter.)

The third allows the player to exercise control over the architectural details of the setting, and if we generalise it to similar cases (like I seem to recall that the Captain of the Guards in this town has a fondness for black lotus or Isn't Evard's Tower around here?) then it will allow the player to exercise control over other elements of setting and backstory.

I believe all three cases presented include the same three kinds of narrative control: framing, details of resolution, architectural details (what I have called world). I suspect inhabitants are also included in world.

A possible razor for identifying these kinds as narrative control, is if, given an identical preceding narrative, a player A might be predicted to produce a different narrative from a player B. Supposing our dutiful scribe writes it out exactly as it is played. It is control if there are differences and A and B were able to choose those differences.

I'll now explain how I'm thinking about these through the lens of "narrative control": in a game about fighting enemies and exploring lost temples, then the first sort of action declaration gives the players a lot of control over the narrative. But stuff like whether or not an enemy is in the neighbourhood or whether or not the temple has a statue in it is part of the framing, and is under GM control. In this sort of game, if a player asks Can my PC see anything interesting in the room? or Are there any secret doors? the GM has to make a decision about how to handle framing. In classic dungeon-crawling D&D it's legitimate to call for a check (eg Perception, or a roll to find secret doors, depending on the system details) or the use of a resource (eg a wand of secret door detection) as a "hurdle" in the way of some framing. This is because, in those games, part of the skill (or luck) of play is to get the good scenes framed!

The PCs might choose where in the space they declare themselves to be going, but not what is there. The DM controls the world included in the narrative.

One though about that: over time a campaign world will often become shaped by all the declarations and actions of players, so that it stops being the narrative of world that would have been if DM alone had created it, and becomes a world that could only exist given player interaction. Is that a form of narrative control?

On the other hand, sometimes everyone wants to get to the good scenes rather than put a hurdle in their way, and then the GM might just say 'yes' to the player's question. In fact, even if the player doesn't ask the GM might say something to prompt the question or otherwise push towards the new framing: eg When you enter the room, you notice that there is dust in most of the corners except one, which looks like it gets regularly swept clean - this is a prompt to the players to have their PCs inspect that corner for a secret door. Once the GM is dispensing with hurdles for framing, then it helps to be clear about the point of Perception and similar checks - they're to provide some degree of verisimilitude, or to help manage pacing via tension and release, but they're not playing the same role that was envisaged for them back in 1974. A best-practice guide for 5e D&D would talk about this. (Gygax comes close in his DMG, p 110, but doesn't quite come out and discuss the matter clearly.)

This is a great point. For me it speaks to arguments you have made elsewhere as to the value of including principles and guidance, as well as rules. I recollect an Angry GM (I think it was) blog on Dungeon World that said something like - it has a view of best-practice and forms that into its rules, so that you can't help perform some best-practices just in playing it.

Now suppose that the game is not mostly or primarily about fighting enemies in lost temples, but is about social dynamics, or the PCs' place in the (social) world, or a full-on Godfather or X-Men-style soap opera. Then the second sort of action resolution I mentioned becomes significant. Perhaps not essential - but if it's not part of the system (which, by default, it is not in 5e D&D) then the GM is carrying a huge amount of the burden of play. Because the answer to many significant questions - whom can we meet? what deals can we do with them? who betrays whom? - will rest on his/her shoulders. Stuff that, in the temple-raiding game, was mostly just about framing now matters to outcomes, and the GM just has to make up all the outcomes. Of course one way to handle this is just to say 'yes' every time a player says Can my PC encounter so-and-so but then what has happened to the sort of tension-and-release pacing that we get in (say) D&D combat or in (say) a BW Circles check? A best-practice guide for 5e D&D would talk about this sort of thing, with advice on how the GM should handle it: pre-scripting is the traditional way (and the way that every D&D module in this vein that I can think of handles it), but maybe there are other ways? Maybe we can invent a subsystem that uses CHA checks or something like that.

I sometimes read posters speculating the D&D can or can't do X kind of play. It seems there is this assumption

1. There are ways of play (Xs)
2. There are ways of enjoying play (what counts as good, given X)
3. For each combination of 1. and 2., there must be a set of best practices (resulting in a lot of possible best practices)

One take away might be that although Xs might be very diverse, and may be successfully hybridised in all kinds of ways, once you can decide on your X and Y, you can locate a set of best practices.

Now consider a game where the function of architecture, or other backstory, isn't just as a component of framing as in the temple-raiding game. Suppose we want a game where the players really leverage the architecture - like Conan often does in REH Conan stories - or really leverage the backstory - like Gandalf and Aragorn and even Frodo do in LotR. How can we approach this in play? One way is to permit action declarations of my third type above. Another is to leave all the backstory in the hands of the GM, and allow the players to leverage it only after they have had it told to them by the GM. Again, this second way is the default way in 5e D&D. What are the risks? The risks are that the players end up dancing very much to the GM's tune, or end up following the GM's breadcrumbs, or end up just parroting the GM's pre-conceived solution back to him/her. Many CoC modules are good illustrations of what I have in mind, in terms of this risk. A best-practice guide to 5e would talk about this, and how a GM might deftly handle the revelation of backstory so as to try and drive play rather than block or stonewall: nice discussions of these techniques can be found in (eg) Vincent Baker's Dogs in the Vineyard or John Harper's Agon 2nd ed, both of which (i) depend upon GM-pre-authored backstory and (ii) expect the players to leverage that extensively in nplay, and so (iii) give the GM clear advice on how to get all that backstory out onto the table, and also - at least in the case of Agon - when and how to defer to player interpretations of the significance of the backstory. I reckon similar sort of advice, but tailored to the particularities of 5e D&D, could be pretty useful.

You refer to a third-type of action declaration. Can you say anything more about what is distinct about it? By my count we have the following kinds of narrative control

1. Declarations that choose which scenes our narrative will contain.
2. Actions, often stochastic, which narrate how the scene plays out.
3. Settting, or world, that defines what can be included in narration. (Typically defining at least the architecture and inhabitants.)

Regarding actions, a sliding scale is in play for power of fiat over the narrative that they afford to players. Spells in D&D are an example of absolute fiat. I have a light cantrip. Whether others agree or not, I am empowered to make a tightly defined change to the setting. Skills are less absolute. I have Sleight of Hand. If I am able to make a declaration that evokes Sleight of Hand, I have a chance of imposing a change on the narrative that I will have described from what is loosely said to be covered by the skill. It's an interesting nuance (and there are other cases), but for the moment I believe they can all come under 'actions'.

Regarding setting, players do add their characters to the inhabitants of the world. Players get to say - the setting contains a dragonborn warlock who was once a sailor, and goes by the name 'Fang'. Is characters is another kind of narrative control?

 

[pemerton]

You refer to a third-type of action declaration. Can you say anything more about what is distinct about it?

(i) given that it established in the fiction (a) that a PC is in the vicinity of a wall (b) the wall is the sort that might have a secret door (eg it is the wall of a castle or manor house or cathedral rather than the wall of an outhouse or peasant hovel already established to be of no interest from either an architectural or dramatic point of view), then (ii) the player can declare I search the wall for a secret door and can thereby, and following an appropriate die roll, (iii) bring it about that his/her PC finds a secret door in the wall?

What is distinctive about it, compared to norms of D&D play, is that the question of whether or not there is a secret door in the wall is answered not by reference to the GM's prep, or the GM's on-the-spur-of-the-moment-decision if s/he has no relevant prep, but rather is bound up in the resolution of the players' declared action.

It's a way of distributing authority over the authoring of backstory, and of having that authority be something other than fiat authority (which is a contrast with, say, OGL Conan "fate points" or 5e DMG optional "plot points"). The significance of non-fiat authority is that authorship can take place without anyone just deciding what happens next. This is helpful for "story now" or "playing to find out" approaches to RPGing.