D&D 5E (2014) Character play vs Player play

[Hussar]

[MENTION=6775031]Saelorn[/MENTION] - what is the in game logic that prevents bombing 1st level PCs with adult dragons?

 

[Cyberen]

Hello !
Considering the "Players only control their characters" nonsense, I kindly remind some posters that, through the BattleSystem or the War Machine, players were expected, once their characters had reached a certain level, to take part in greater scales conflict and manage military units. A module I can't remember of the X series, various modules of the CM series, and the DL8, DL9, and DL11 modules of the Dragonlance series have those boardgame moments as part of the D&D experience. Clearly, the game has moved away from this model, advocating the resolution of large scale conflicts through the achievements of the PCs acting as an elite squad (if I remember well, this advice is found in 2.5 in the Combat & Tactics Player's Option book, in 3.0 in the Complete Martial, and I guess the 4e DMG). But, clearly, the *traditional* approach is to give to the players the control of the PCs henchmen, retainers, and even thousands of soldiers at times. I have to admit I like this *traditional* approach much more than the recent take, as it breaks the "bigger numbers, same game" treadmill seen particularly in 3e and 4e.

 

[KarinsDad]

[MENTION=6775031]Saelorn[/MENTION] - what is the in game logic that prevents bombing 1st level PCs with adult dragons?

There obviously is none.


All decisions made at a table are a combination of in game and out of game considerations.

There is no pristine "only in game" decision making processes by anyone at a table. Ever. They are always influenced in some ways by out of game information, desires, ideas, etc.

 

[Hussar]

There obviously is none.


All decisions made at a table are a combination of in game and out of game considerations.

There is no pristine "only in game" decision making processes by anyone at a table. Ever. They are always influenced in some ways by out of game information, desires, ideas, etc.

Exactly.

From beginning to end, choices by everyone at the table are a mixture of in game logic and ooc elements.

 

[pemerton]

Clearly, the game has moved away from this model, advocating the resolution of large scale conflicts through the achievements of the PCs acting as an elite squad (if I remember well, this advice is found in 2.5 in the Combat & Tactics Player's Option book, in 3.0 in the Complete Martial, and I guess the 4e DMG). But, clearly, the *traditional* approach is to give to the players the control of the PCs henchmen, retainers, and even thousands of soldiers at times. I have to admit I like this *traditional* approach much more than the recent take, as it breaks the "bigger numbers, same game" treadmill seen particularly in 3e and 4e.

I agree with the point about the "traditional approach".

For completeness, Heroes of Battle advocates the "new" approach.

In 4e I've used a third approach: the paragon- or epic-tier PCs personally take on the enemy army (modelled via swarm rules or skill challenge). That doesn't involve very much "player control of non-character elements" but it does involve "metagame considerations informing ingame reality" - eg when you use swarms, the enemy forces present themselves in (more-or-less) square arrays of forces. It also involvs "metagame considerations inform mechanical modelling of ingame elements" - the enemy units are mechanically modelled as swarms rather than as minions, standards, solos etc.

 

[animal chubs]

The PCs are told that there is a magical evil artifact somewhere in the room but they don't know where, so they are asked to spread out and talk to everyone in the inn to see if they can discover anything suspicious. The adventure enters "Phase 2" when the PCs figure out that one guy has the artifact in a glass sphere in a bag at his feat. Any attempt to get into the bag or reference to the bag causes the NPC to get paranoid and attempt to pick up the bag and accidentally smash the sphere, causing the lightning to be released.
Read more: http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?370391-Character-play-vs-Player-play#ixzz3IrSoNMlZ

Have a wizard walk in and cast SLEEEEEEP, then search everyone. but all this really comes down to is how good the DM is. My friends and I all just started playing the game but luckly we have a good DM. If my bard buddy comes in and is like "Friends" then gets what he needs from them, he'll give out some information or just make somthing up on that spot that shortens the quest a little. So we hardly ever have a dull moment. Even though we meta game the whole dame session XD All and all, find a good dm who can go with the flow. Dont hang out with annoying dnd players who go by the book 100%. Not sure if this helped or went off topic a bit but i tried. ima gonna cast blink and leave right quick

 

[Neonchameleon]

We're in agreement on this point. It would be silly, which is why it should be avoided when possible - the easiest way to avoid having to acknowledge a meta-game reason is to not do things for meta-game reasons.

Indeed. There are a lot of things for which the easiest way of coping is by going into denial. That denial is the easiest way of coping in no sense means that it is the best way of coping.

That you choose to play a game, where certain events are more or less likely to happen, says nothing about the game itself. It is entirely exterior to the game. The game is what it is, and doesn't care whether or not you are playing it.

The game doesn't care. That's because the game simply does not exist without players. it's very hard for a game to care about anything.

Playing without taking the rules of the game into account is simply bad play. It's playing while ignoring the laws grounding your world. If your goal is to play a Quixotic character who does defy the laws grounding their world, then that's fine. There's nothing wrong with Don Quixote as a character. But most characters shouldn't be Don Quixote. Especially not if they tilt at dragons rather than windmills and don't expect to be fried in their armour.

 

[Manbearcat]

You know I'm curious, for the posters falling on the side of the players having authorial/narrative control of the world/universe... [MENTION=6696971]Manbearcat[/MENTION], [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION], [MENTION=22779]Hussar[/MENTION], [MENTION=6783796]Lerysh[/MENTION] and a few others... Is the DM granted authorial/narrative control over the player's characters?

If so, is there a limit?

If not, why not... if everyone is supposed to be equally influencing the game/story? How can this be true if the player's all get a character (piece of the narrative/story) who is off limits from the DM (except through resolution mechanics which everyone has access to)... but the DM gets no such thing that in turn cannot be influenced or changed by the players? If the DM does in fact get this in the playstyle you all are advocating what is the particular thing that is sarosanct from their suggestions/changes/etc.?

Sorry, this is way come and gone. I'll be brief and just focus on this below:

- Is the DM granted authorial/narrative control over the player's characters?

Yes. Conflict-charged scene openers.

In the style of D&D play being advocated for here, the GM does have some very specific techniques and principles which provide for a very limited and specific type of narrative control over the player's characters. However, due to the agenda of the game itself (to push play towards conflict that the players care about and resolve with their PCs - the point of play itself), it doesn't infringe upon his/her players' agency. That is, of course, assuming the GM observes some crucial components; * Purchased PC build aspects, ** earned assets within the evolved narrative to date, and *** formal action declarations (and any resolution if required) in preceding transition scenes are sovereign components insured against GM use that overturns a players legitimate conception of them.

Quick example.

* So you're a Rogue who is a master infiltrator and thief? Ok. I'll never frame you into a scene whereby you're flat caught mid-theft or infiltration.

** So, through play, you've earned a squad of elite commando ranger companions/henchman to recon a forest specifically to find a locale therein? Ok. I'll never frame you into a scene whereby your rangers have searched the forest and come up empty or they've been eaten by a marauding dragon.

*** So the group has just resolved a conflict and has a decision to make. Find suitable camp to hole-up or push on despite it all? The players have decided that they wish to push on through the night, braving a driving blizzard in a perilous journey across a frozen, danger-fraught wasteland. Ok. I'm not going to subordinate their wishes because I have some kind of other conflict I think would be nifty in their immediate locale (eg - I wished they had decided to camp so I could unleash it). Further, if the transition scene resolution mechanics say that they brave those dangers without any complications, I'm not going to suddenly say they're lost in the white-out of the storm. The next scene opener is them arriving at their destination and whatever conflict awaits them there.


I'm sure you've got some questions, thoughts, incredulous The Rock eyebrows etc, so I'll stop there.

 

[Ridley's Cohort]

[MENTION=6775031]Saelorn[/MENTION] - what is the in game logic that prevents bombing 1st level PCs with adult dragons?

That is the extreme example.

The more common example, one so common that we take it for granted even when it is staring us in the face, is the typical structure of a long written adventure.

At the macro level, there are usually areas that are supposed to be fought in a specific order. Area 1, then Area 2, then Area 3, etc. If the players, via keen insight, realizes where to find the BBEG in Area 5 while finishing up Area 1, 99 times out of 100 they will be severely punished for honoring the in game logic that the PCs are brave and may want to stop the death of innocents sooner rather than later. (Because the PCs were supposed to level up twice and gain magic items and be "barely ripe enough" to confront the BBEG, once stripped of minions. At the right time, and no sooner.)

At the micro level, so called dungeon levels are internally "silo'd" to a bizarre degree. The PCs having defeated both Bad Guy A and Bad Guy B, Bad Guy D opts to not lift a finger to help Bad Guy C (who is getting carved up literally 110 feet down the hall), even though it completely obvious who is next on the list. Yes, we can handwave cheesy mustache-twirling excuses why the villains work so badly together, but, if we actually apply in game reasoning, it is gobsmacking how the villains behave in a very specific predictable way, instead of one of the many other equally logical options.

The reason adventures are written this way is simple: it is more fun for the players to fight more stuff, and the way to increase the amount of fun stuff to fight is to force the combats to happen in bite-sized encounters, by crippling the strategic thinking of the NPCs/monsters at both the macro and micro level. Pure metagame reasons.

Yes, it is possible to write adventures that do not feature only barely hidden rails forged of metagaming reasoning. That is, however, not the actual experience of the vast majority of D&D adventures.

 

[pemerton]

AD&D - whichever edition you were quoting - is the game where night-time travelling will involve running into bandits every week, while intermittently encountering demons or undead.

I made an observation in my post to which you didn't reply, so I'm going to have another go.

Gygax's Town & City encounter table allows for all sorts of creatures to turn up. Suppose the GM rolls a lich - s/he is expected to have the GMing skills to narrate this lich into the ongoing fiction, and make sense of it, whether or not s/he had anticpated in advance the possibility of a lich turning up.

This is an example where ingame causality - the origins of the lich, for instance - is narrated as an afterthought to event generation - the PCs' encounter with a lich. Traditional D&D, based heavily as it is on random encounter tables, is rife with this sort of post hoc narration of newly-determined story elements into the ongoing fiction.

the easiest way to avoid having to acknowledge a meta-game reason is to not do things for meta-game reasons.

I'm not sure that this is true - I think the easiest way to avoid fourth-wall breaking in-character talk is to think oneself into the fiction and narrate from that perspective.

But in any event, I don't see that you can avoid doing things for metagame reasons. The encounter table tells you that the PCs encounter a lich - that's a metagame event. Now you, as GM, have to locate that lich within the existing backstory and ongoing flow of events. Being able to do this creatively and engagingly is a core GMing skill. The two best proponents of it that I know on these boards are [MENTION=386]LostSoul[/MENTION] and [MENTION=6680772]Iosue[/MENTION].