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Fairy tale logic vs naturalism in fantasy RPGing
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<blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 6994109" data-attributes="member: 42582"><p>I'm not 100% sure what the "this" is.</p><p></p><p>But when I talk about using the mechanics, I'm thinking of something like the example of play in Moldvay Basic. The PCs enter a room, the GM rolls for wandering monsters and some hobgoblins come into the room through a secret door. The elf PC, who speaks hobgoblin, says in a friendly way to the hobgoblins "It's OK, Gary sent us" (or words to that effect - I'm relying on memory). The GM rolls a reaction roll (2d6), adding a bonus for the friendly greeting. (I recall the bonus being +1; to give a sense of scale, the bonus for 13+ CHA is also +1, and for 18 CHA is +2.)</p><p></p><p>As it happens, in the example the reaction, despite the bonus, is poor, which the GM narrates as the hobgoblins first being non-plussed by the elf's remark, and then getting angry and attacking.</p><p></p><p>If the roll had been better, however, then the hobgoblins would not have attacked, and presumably some discussion would have ensued about who Gary might be, why the hobgoblins should care, etc.</p><p></p><p>To me, the idea that you can bump into a group of hobgoblins while raiding a dungeon trying to rescue a kidnap victim (which is the backstory to the example of play), and have a friendly interaction with them as if you'd all met at bar downtown, is pretty absurd from a naturalistic point of view - but the possibility of that happening is a premise of classic D&D play.</p><p></p><p>In the example of actual play that [MENTION=6696971]Manbearcat[/MENTION] posted - which is more literally a fairy tale (my PC was sucked into some sort of dreamworld by the Night Hag) - the GM tells me:</p><p></p><p style="margin-left: 20px">Thurgon finds himself on a battlefield. You appear to be a battle captain in the King's army, embedded in viscious hand to hand combat with a terrible foe. You see the King leading the charge on your flank...but something is...off. Something is terribly wrong here and the battle isn't going in the direction it should be...or some important detail is slightly askew. What is this battle? What is wrong? Why is it so afoul of the real world account? The King is being pressed on all sides. The answer must come and come quickly.</p><p></p><p>The night hag is making a psychic attack (as per the stat extract that [MENTION=6696971]Manbearcat[/MENTION] posted) - ie it's trying to defeat the PCs by breaking them with fear and despair. That's what the dreamworld is about. Hence, I first frame the context for my action declaration:</p><p></p><p style="margin-left: 20px">This battle isn't a real battle. It's a battle of the heart. (Like when Lancelot stabs himself while sleeping in John Boorman's Excalibur. Or when Jean Grey "timeslips" under Mastermind's influence.)</p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"></p> <p style="margin-left: 20px">This dark fey is trying to change our hopes and memories. Instead of remembering the king's successful charge against the armies of chaos (can they be gnoll armies? I like the idea of this king as a version of Elidyr of Nerath) - which kept the city and its homeland free even though Adir and other marchertowns had fallen - the enemies now want us to remember the Battle of Nine Sons as a defeat. To believe that there never was a time when righteous strength had triumphed.</p><p></p><p>Because this was play by post, I spelled all that out in longhand. At a table, I think it would be communicated more in the back-and-forth between GM and players.</p><p></p><p>But you can also see - by framing the issue as one concerning <em>memory</em> - I'm getting ready to declare my action. After all, I know that I'm in a skill challenge, trying to rack up successes without racking up failures. So I review my PC sheet for resources, and my conception of my character for motivation and in-fiction capabilities (and hopefully the two reviews complement one another - otherwise there is a problem with the game's design!) - and on this occasion I see that I have History skill, and so want to take advantage of that to win this battle of the heart. So I declare my History check:</p><p></p><p style="margin-left: 20px">Luckily my memory is sound. I have the <strong>advantage</strong> of having heard the old men of the court - who rode alongside the then-young king, and his 8 brothers - speak of the battle when I was a boy. And later I read the chronicles that were preserved in the Iron Tower. I still remember the description of the the bold knights forming a wedge and riding their magnificent chargers through the unruly ranks, driving deep to reach its monstrous heart. [Thanks Robert J Schwalb, Dragon Magazine Annual p 11.]</p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"></p> <p style="margin-left: 20px">If I now am living the experience of one of those old men, and facing a great demon before me as I lead my cohort of knights and sergeants in the charge towards the heart of the gnoll army, I will recall those accounts I heard and read and live the truth, not some lie. (History check: +13 skill, +16 on the d20, for 29 vs Easy (? for advantage) DC.)</p><p></p><p>Notice that the word "advantage" is bolded - that's because that's a mechanical device for reducing the DC (in this case from Medium to Easy). So I'm supplying the narrative - my PC, who (it is well-established) is of a noble, knightly family, heard stories from the old men of the court - that warrants gaining such an advantage. And then I make my check, and succeed in recalling things as they happened (in the tales of the old men), not the loss and defeat that the night hag wants my character to imagine.</p><p></p><p>Finally, I add some description (with mechanical features of the character pointed to, as warrants of plausibility) of how it is that, having remembered the truth, my character lives it out in the dream:</p><p></p><p style="margin-left: 20px">With Honour and Glory (+2 power bonus to attack rolls of adj allies) my men and I will defeat this demon, who was not there when this battle really happened (NB those who flank it with me also gain a +1 power bonus to attack it as I Draw the Eye of Friend and Foe). And having defeated it, we will take our places next to the king and continue on to victory.</p><p></p><p><em>Honour and Glory</em> and <em>Draw the Eye of Friend and Foe</em> are both traits of my character (the latter due to being a Noble (theme), the former due to being a Knight Commander (paragon path)), with the mechanical effects mentioned. They don't make any difference to the resolution of the History check, but they provide the mechanical warrant for me colouring my success in the way that I do: as (in the dream) leading my men to victory over the (dreamworld) demon, just as the tales that I recalled tell of how, at the real battle, the knights rode to victory on their chargers.</p><p></p><p>Here is another example, from the same scenario but a bit earlier on (when, in the throne room, our PCs were confronted by a war troll) - I'll spoiler-block it for length:</p><p></p><p>[sblock]</p><p></p><p></p><p>The "right of command" bit is another feature from the noble theme (+4 to Intimidate those who dispute it).[/sblock]</p><p></p><p>The rules for making checks; for deploying resources (like Thunder Smite); for the number of successes needed - all shape the context of my decision-making as a player. The framing of the situation - "There's a war troll who's just torn the 'chamberlain' in half!", or "You've been sucked into an evil dreamscape!" - provides the context for making action declarations.</p><p></p><p>I wouldn't describe it as "a great deal of narrative control over the result". If anything, the control is being exercised at the point of <em>framing</em> the action declaration: <em>This war troll is defying my noble authority, and I want to cow it!</em>. Or, <em>This night hag has pulled me into a dreamworld to defeat me with fear and despair; but I will remember the truth about this battle, and turn the dream into glorious victory rather than defeat</em>. The check then determines whether or not the action declaration succeeds as the player hoped.</p><p></p><p>Much as in the Moldvay example: <em>I want these hobgoblins to treat as as friends, not allies, so I tell them in their language that Gary sent us</em>. The action declaration then tells us whether or not this succeeds.</p><p></p><p>The non-naturalistic feature of these examples comes in at various points: the GM doesn't decide, in advance, that the hobgoblins could never believe an elf who is raiding the dungeon; the cave troll doesn't just ignore my PC's claim to authority and try and eat him; the GM doesn't look up the campaign notes to see whether or not there was <em>really</em> a battle, the old veterans of which might have spoken to my PC as a boy; etc. These things are <em>possibilities</em>, but they would be ways of narrating failure of the check - not considerations to be brought to bear to <em>forbid</em> the check, or declare it an auto-fail.</p><p></p><p>That's the sort of thing I've got in mind when I say that the resolution mechanics are what enables the players to engage the situation, without needing to be concerned about unknown or unknowable naturalistic considerations.</p><p></p><p>Probably the easiest thing to do here is provide <a href="http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?324955-Whelm-reforged-as-Overwhelm-and-other-recent-skill-challenges" target="_blank">a link</a> to an actual play report of how "downtime" activities have been handled in my 4e game.</p><p></p><p>It didn't create any particular pull to (eg) expand the geographical scope of the setting.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="pemerton, post: 6994109, member: 42582"] I'm not 100% sure what the "this" is. But when I talk about using the mechanics, I'm thinking of something like the example of play in Moldvay Basic. The PCs enter a room, the GM rolls for wandering monsters and some hobgoblins come into the room through a secret door. The elf PC, who speaks hobgoblin, says in a friendly way to the hobgoblins "It's OK, Gary sent us" (or words to that effect - I'm relying on memory). The GM rolls a reaction roll (2d6), adding a bonus for the friendly greeting. (I recall the bonus being +1; to give a sense of scale, the bonus for 13+ CHA is also +1, and for 18 CHA is +2.) As it happens, in the example the reaction, despite the bonus, is poor, which the GM narrates as the hobgoblins first being non-plussed by the elf's remark, and then getting angry and attacking. If the roll had been better, however, then the hobgoblins would not have attacked, and presumably some discussion would have ensued about who Gary might be, why the hobgoblins should care, etc. To me, the idea that you can bump into a group of hobgoblins while raiding a dungeon trying to rescue a kidnap victim (which is the backstory to the example of play), and have a friendly interaction with them as if you'd all met at bar downtown, is pretty absurd from a naturalistic point of view - but the possibility of that happening is a premise of classic D&D play. In the example of actual play that [MENTION=6696971]Manbearcat[/MENTION] posted - which is more literally a fairy tale (my PC was sucked into some sort of dreamworld by the Night Hag) - the GM tells me: [indent]Thurgon finds himself on a battlefield. You appear to be a battle captain in the King's army, embedded in viscious hand to hand combat with a terrible foe. You see the King leading the charge on your flank...but something is...off. Something is terribly wrong here and the battle isn't going in the direction it should be...or some important detail is slightly askew. What is this battle? What is wrong? Why is it so afoul of the real world account? The King is being pressed on all sides. The answer must come and come quickly.[/indent] The night hag is making a psychic attack (as per the stat extract that [MENTION=6696971]Manbearcat[/MENTION] posted) - ie it's trying to defeat the PCs by breaking them with fear and despair. That's what the dreamworld is about. Hence, I first frame the context for my action declaration: [indent]This battle isn't a real battle. It's a battle of the heart. (Like when Lancelot stabs himself while sleeping in John Boorman's Excalibur. Or when Jean Grey "timeslips" under Mastermind's influence.) This dark fey is trying to change our hopes and memories. Instead of remembering the king's successful charge against the armies of chaos (can they be gnoll armies? I like the idea of this king as a version of Elidyr of Nerath) - which kept the city and its homeland free even though Adir and other marchertowns had fallen - the enemies now want us to remember the Battle of Nine Sons as a defeat. To believe that there never was a time when righteous strength had triumphed.[/indent] Because this was play by post, I spelled all that out in longhand. At a table, I think it would be communicated more in the back-and-forth between GM and players. But you can also see - by framing the issue as one concerning [I]memory[/I] - I'm getting ready to declare my action. After all, I know that I'm in a skill challenge, trying to rack up successes without racking up failures. So I review my PC sheet for resources, and my conception of my character for motivation and in-fiction capabilities (and hopefully the two reviews complement one another - otherwise there is a problem with the game's design!) - and on this occasion I see that I have History skill, and so want to take advantage of that to win this battle of the heart. So I declare my History check: [indent]Luckily my memory is sound. I have the [B]advantage[/B] of having heard the old men of the court - who rode alongside the then-young king, and his 8 brothers - speak of the battle when I was a boy. And later I read the chronicles that were preserved in the Iron Tower. I still remember the description of the the bold knights forming a wedge and riding their magnificent chargers through the unruly ranks, driving deep to reach its monstrous heart. [Thanks Robert J Schwalb, Dragon Magazine Annual p 11.] If I now am living the experience of one of those old men, and facing a great demon before me as I lead my cohort of knights and sergeants in the charge towards the heart of the gnoll army, I will recall those accounts I heard and read and live the truth, not some lie. (History check: +13 skill, +16 on the d20, for 29 vs Easy (? for advantage) DC.)[/indent] Notice that the word "advantage" is bolded - that's because that's a mechanical device for reducing the DC (in this case from Medium to Easy). So I'm supplying the narrative - my PC, who (it is well-established) is of a noble, knightly family, heard stories from the old men of the court - that warrants gaining such an advantage. And then I make my check, and succeed in recalling things as they happened (in the tales of the old men), not the loss and defeat that the night hag wants my character to imagine. Finally, I add some description (with mechanical features of the character pointed to, as warrants of plausibility) of how it is that, having remembered the truth, my character lives it out in the dream: [indent]With Honour and Glory (+2 power bonus to attack rolls of adj allies) my men and I will defeat this demon, who was not there when this battle really happened (NB those who flank it with me also gain a +1 power bonus to attack it as I Draw the Eye of Friend and Foe). And having defeated it, we will take our places next to the king and continue on to victory.[/indent] [I]Honour and Glory[/I] and [I]Draw the Eye of Friend and Foe[/I] are both traits of my character (the latter due to being a Noble (theme), the former due to being a Knight Commander (paragon path)), with the mechanical effects mentioned. They don't make any difference to the resolution of the History check, but they provide the mechanical warrant for me colouring my success in the way that I do: as (in the dream) leading my men to victory over the (dreamworld) demon, just as the tales that I recalled tell of how, at the real battle, the knights rode to victory on their chargers. Here is another example, from the same scenario but a bit earlier on (when, in the throne room, our PCs were confronted by a war troll) - I'll spoiler-block it for length: [sblock] The "right of command" bit is another feature from the noble theme (+4 to Intimidate those who dispute it).[/sblock] The rules for making checks; for deploying resources (like Thunder Smite); for the number of successes needed - all shape the context of my decision-making as a player. The framing of the situation - "There's a war troll who's just torn the 'chamberlain' in half!", or "You've been sucked into an evil dreamscape!" - provides the context for making action declarations. I wouldn't describe it as "a great deal of narrative control over the result". If anything, the control is being exercised at the point of [I]framing[/I] the action declaration: [I]This war troll is defying my noble authority, and I want to cow it![/I]. Or, [I]This night hag has pulled me into a dreamworld to defeat me with fear and despair; but I will remember the truth about this battle, and turn the dream into glorious victory rather than defeat[/I]. The check then determines whether or not the action declaration succeeds as the player hoped. Much as in the Moldvay example: [I]I want these hobgoblins to treat as as friends, not allies, so I tell them in their language that Gary sent us[/I]. The action declaration then tells us whether or not this succeeds. The non-naturalistic feature of these examples comes in at various points: the GM doesn't decide, in advance, that the hobgoblins could never believe an elf who is raiding the dungeon; the cave troll doesn't just ignore my PC's claim to authority and try and eat him; the GM doesn't look up the campaign notes to see whether or not there was [I]really[/I] a battle, the old veterans of which might have spoken to my PC as a boy; etc. These things are [I]possibilities[/I], but they would be ways of narrating failure of the check - not considerations to be brought to bear to [I]forbid[/I] the check, or declare it an auto-fail. That's the sort of thing I've got in mind when I say that the resolution mechanics are what enables the players to engage the situation, without needing to be concerned about unknown or unknowable naturalistic considerations. Probably the easiest thing to do here is provide [url=http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?324955-Whelm-reforged-as-Overwhelm-and-other-recent-skill-challenges]a link[/url] to an actual play report of how "downtime" activities have been handled in my 4e game. It didn't create any particular pull to (eg) expand the geographical scope of the setting. [/QUOTE]
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