Cognitive dissonance in YOUR favorite RPG [+]

[kenada]

I guess it was a favorite game at the time, but there was one particular AP in Pathfinder 1e that had some issues for us: Shattered Star. It played fast and loose with some mechanics that caused a few, “Wait, what?” moments.

For example, in K9 of Curse of the Lady’s Light, there is a man who is described as a “charmed minion”. He’s described as having been forced to do all these things, but the strongest magic that could have been used against him is charm monster, which is not mind control. What finally pushed us over the edge was the encounter in B4 of the Under City in The Asylum Stone. It had some variant binding effect that of course made it attack the PCs.

At the time, we were viewing the mechanics as something like the game’s physics, so things were supposed to happen certain ways as a consequence of that. Having the adventure treat them so loosely was too much. We stopped at that B4 encounter, talked it through, and decided to stop playing the AP. I ended up running some other games for a while. I don’t think I did another Pathfinder AP again after that, though I think I did run The Dragon’s Demand, which was okay.

 

[Emoshin]

As a general rule, I tend to think of this in terms of suspension of disbelief, which is the term that people are familiar with from literature and films- but as more particularly applied to games. In other words, when are you able to avoid critically thinking about something in order to enjoy it?

I also like that term, and I wish there was someone with a psychology background who could explain if/how they relate or intersect.

(I think cognitive dissonance is something that happens to you, and suspension of disbelief (when/where applicable) can be a semi-conscious decision you make to cope with it, and once you get the hang of suspending your disbelief, it helps to diminish future cognitive dissonance, but I am not a psychologist!)

 

[overgeeked]

Here's what I had read before about ludonarrative dissonance:

• coined by video game designer Clint Hocking in 2007 in a blog post in response to the video game BioShock
• is the conflict between a video game's narrative told through the story and the narrative told through the gameplay

Given the propensity for arguments on Enworld, including arguments for and against comparisons to video games, that didn't seem like a good direction to take this thread.

I also read somewhere else that the term "ludonarrative dissonance" is sometimes mocked within the video game industry, that it's one of those terms that a newbie reads on the Internet and then starts using it at work. I don't have any way of verifying that, or knowing how much respect and usage the term has in the video game industry.

I also don't have any evidence that "ludonarrative dissonance" is widely used in the roleplaying community currently, and I don't know if "ludonarrative dissonance" is the term that, one day, will be used to widely describe non-video gameplay across the wider community.

I’m fine with video game terms being used as video game research, theory, etc are centuries ahead of RPGs at this point.

Wherever the phrase comes from, and whether it’s accepted in its place of origin are irrelevant to me. Ludonarrative dissonance is the exact thing you’re describing. Cognitive dissonance has no connection to what you are describing. It’s right tool for the right job. Sorry if I ruffled your feathers.

 

[Campbell]

Over the years I have learned to embrace a certain amount of dissonance in play. In my experience satisfying play often requires you to kind of work backwards at times. Find a reason to engage with the presented scenario, support another player character's play because you want to support the player, find ways to involve yourself in the lives of other player characters, justify helping other player characters achieve their own personal goals.

This was something I used to really struggle with when I was younger, prioritizing my own immersion over the health and pace of the game.

Learning to really embrace supporting one another as part of play has dramatically improved my experience running/playing trad games.
A very good example of working backwards in this way was in our most recent L5R game: it was becoming apparent that our personal goals were starting to pull us in different directions so working backwards I worked with another player to encourage his much older samurai to develop an affection for my character's mother to help justify more frequent contact in the fiction and a sense of shared fellowship between the characters.

Were those initial moments somewhat forced? Sure, but they resolved a lot of the underlying dissonance we were all feeling from moment to moment and really improved the overall mood, pace and narrative of the game.

 

[Xamnam]

Here's what I had read before about ludonarrative dissonance:

• coined by video game designer Clint Hocking in 2007 in a blog post in response to the video game BioShock
• is the conflict between a video game's narrative told through the story and the narrative told through the gameplay

Given the propensity for arguments on Enworld, including arguments for and against comparisons to video games, that didn't seem like a good direction to take this thread.

It's a smart call, as the term has been very twisted from the specific, original meaning to something that people toss out at any sort of contradiction they feel is present in a game's overall atmosphere. For example, people sling the term at Uncharted, because "They expect you to care about these characters, and think they're quippy, and fun, and heroic, and root for them, but Nathan Drake is a casual mass murderer, taking out thousands of enemies over the course of the games." Except, the narrative of Uncharted doesn't have anything to say about the sanctity of life. The themes present there are about legacy, self-determination, sacrifice, obsession. None of those are at all in conflict with the primary gameplay being Drake shooting people (and in fact, obsession could be seen as a corroborating one).

Now, I'm not saying you can't run into that in TTRPGs, but that requires there to be strong narrative/thematic content present in the rule book alone, and for it then to be contradicted by the gameplay, and we can't even begin to touch the narratives that arise at any individual table because they're all so individual. Cognitive dissonance is a much easier hurdle to clear than ludonarrative dissonance.

 

[Emoshin]

For example, in my favorite RPG (currently 5E), I see PC hit points as primarily a reserve of heroic resilience and good fortune (until it drops into, say, the 10s to reflect more physical endurance). However when, say, a fireball fills up an empty room and the PCs take massive amounts of fire damage, it’s hard for me to see cinematically what happened. Do they have first degree burns? Do the PCs manifest untold defensive powers? I try not to think about it too much.

Hey, coincidence?

Untested 5E – Dynamic Save Responses

DM: As you’re crossing the completely empty, 20’ x 20’ room, you foot hits a pressure plate. A huge fireball engulfs the room! Give me a Dexterity saving throw!Player: 18! And I have eva

thealexandrian.net

For my game, this just happens to be exactly the sort of acknowledgement I appreciate, at least academically. I'll also acknowledge, as referenced upthread, that there's a balance between layering on additional rules/guidelines to help with cognitive dissonance (or if you prefer, suspension of disbelief) versus keeping the gameplay flowing. I personally haven't arrived at any conclusion in my game about pin-pointing the right balance.

 

[GMMichael]

You spent an action to move, they didn't.

The action economy is fair (suddenly I'm reluctant to use any jargony terms in here), but it feels odd for the defensive character to have more chances to cause damage in the round (3) than the attacker (2). Or, maybe more dissonant: both characters have a disincentive to close and attack, since the closer will have one less attack action for damaging than the stationary fighter.

Avoiding all physical damage sounds pretty good? And surely parrying an opponent is very much a matter of relative skill?

It is good! But I should have added that you can't attack and defend at the same time, so the choice to parry is also the choice to make no progress to victory, seemingly.

 

[aramis erak]

Finding intolerable cognitive dissonance is why my "Favorite Game" has changed over time.

 

[uzirath]

An area of cognitive dissonance (if that's the right term) that I sometimes experience with RPGs, especially when playing with younger players, is the primacy of violence. I love the detail of the GURPS combat system, for example, but when I'm playing with my kids, I don't really want them thinking about stabbing people in the eyes. But it goes beyond the specific mechanics. Traditional RPGs that I grew up with (regardless of the system) tended to provide lots of action-movie-like scenes where violence was the key to success: killing bad guys, blowing things up, winning duels, etc. This doesn't jibe with my personal beliefs, yet I love playing it out in a game.

 

[innerdude]

This is a hard one, because goes right to the heart of one of the reasons I've mostly abandoned Savage Worlds as my "system of choice."

Had an amazing eight-year run with Savage from 2012-2020.

But by the end, I was very much starting to feel the "cognitive dissonance" around character progression vis-a-vis encounter balance and challenging players in combat.

After a certain point (generally once a character's parry goes above 7 and their toughness+armor goes above 11), it no longer becomes truly possible to challenge the players in fights without essentially escalating the risk of PC death per encounter above a level I'm not comfortable with.

And after a while, fights became sort of a "waiting game," where progress in a fight comes all at once when one side or the other (usually the players) scores a lucky "explosion" of their attack + damage. And once characters get to "Legendary" tier, it's just that much more pronounced.

I was actually shocked how much I enjoyed going back to a regular hit point track + conditions system with FFG Star Wars.

I still love Savage Worlds, and will always be down to play or GM it, but I would focus on even shorter campaigns---6 months tops, instead of the 15-18 months I usually did.