Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 6238876" data-attributes="member: 42582">I am not disputing that a game of D&D can be run in the way you describe. Indeed, a whole edition (2nd ed AD&D) and a whole gaming culture are built upon the method you describe.My point is (and for somewhere over 1000 posts in the thread has been) that there are also other ways to run D&D. And that in some of those other ways the techniques you suggest are not helpful. For those running D&D in those other ways, other sorts of advice is required.So, for instance, if the style of play is one in which the GM's job is "to go where the action is", then it would be a GMing error to create challenges around the selling of the loot, if the selling of the loot was merely a procedural matter that had no dramatic or thematic weight. (Why do we nevertheless play it out? Because D&D has no abstracted rules for selling loot, and so there is no canonical way for resolving loot sales other than playing it out. Contrast Classic Traveller, which does have abstracted rules for buying and selling.)And even if the selling of the loot is a point of dramatic focus - eg what is being sold is a mysterious artefact - then there are ways to resolve it other than via GM stipluation of the relevant backstory. For instance, in the 4e framework the presence of the wizard in his/her tower and his/her willingness to buy could be determined via a successful Streetwise check (in 3E that would be Gather Information). If the situation were resolved this way, we would have a fairly standard distribution of narrative authority: the GM gets to decide the truth of the general backstory proposition "There is a wizard who lives in a tower in this town", but the action resolution mechanics are used to resolve the success or failure of the present dramatic situation ie "Do or don't the PCs get to sell their loot to the above-mentioned wizard?"As for your suggestion that, in my earlier post, I have engaged in the strawmanning of "every suggestion that the PC’s cannot simply dictate every turn of events in the game world [being] interpreted as a complete inability of any action of the players to have any impact on the game world", I was simply responding to [MENTION=17106]Ahnehnois[/MENTION]'s claims that "the point of any spell or skill or rule is not to give a player the ability to dictate any part of the narrative" and that "it's for the DM to decide what's in the world and how people behave." If those claims are true then the players cannot, simply via application of the game mechanics, have any impact on the game world. Furthermore, unless his posting has been rather misleading, I believe that this is exactly how Ahnehnois runs his game: the game mechanics are merely some sort of input into the GM's decision-making process as to what happens in the gameworld.I am not claiming that D&D cannot be played that way. Rather, I am pointing out that D&D can be played in other ways too, including ways in which the players can, simply via application of the game mechanics, have a direct impact on the fictional content of the game world.What is in disupte is whether the GM should draw upon that secret backstory to determine the success or failure of the actions that the players have declared for their PCs. There are other ways of having action resolution reflect unknown elements of the gameworld.It's not about "knowing everything". It's about how the unknown stuff is determined.For instance, is the wizard in his/her tower ready to buy loot? This can be determined via GM declaration of secret backstory, or via (say) a Streetwise check. The latter doesn't involve the PCs knowing everything relevant - it involves the players being able to influence the content of the gameworld by direct application of the mechanics (eg if it is very important to them to be able to sell their loot to the wizard, then they can muster their bonuses to the Streetwise check).These examples don't show (i) that world-building was the focus of those stories (they only show that there can be environmental as well as other forms of challenge), nor (ii) that there is any sociological coherence whatsoever to those stories (and in my view there clearly is none).These examples also conflate player and PC in a way that is playstyle-dependent. In an approach in which (for instance) the presence of the wizard in the tower ready to buy loot is determined via a Streetwise check, no one supposes that the PCs, by talking to NPCs, are causing the wizard to be present. Likewise, if the GM narrated snow in the pass of the mountains as a result of a failed Survival check, no one would suppose that the PCs caused it to snow. Rather, because the check failed, it follows that the players' desire - that their PCs succeed in virtue of their outdoor survival capabilities - has not been realised. And the GM gives effect to this by narrating impassable snow.Huh? Like I already said, for the past 1000+ posts I've been talking about playstyles. And pointing out that techniques that work for some playstyles don't work for others.And if you're claiming that no one plays 3.5 in an indie-style, I simpply don't believe you. Just look at some of [MENTION=27570]sheadunne[/MENTION]'s posts in this thread, where he is looking for ways to incorporate "indie" techniques into a 3E/PF game. And [MENTION=22779]Hussar[/MENTION] is another. And I very much doubt that they are the only ones.The question I was addressing, via the Bib Fortuna example, was whether or not it is abusive for a player whose PC has mind-influencing powers to use them against the servant of a powerful NPC. I don't see how it's relevant to that question to consider whether or not the use of such powers is morally abusive within the gameworld. (Unless you're saying that it is always abusive play for players to have their PCs do morally questionable things. If so, that would also be highly playstle dependent.)I don't understand the theory of mind and of interpersonal interaction that you are deploying here. What is it to make someone a better orator except to change the perceptions of others? What is oratory but influencing others' perceptions?Isn't this just Jabba making a successful saving throw?</blockquote>

Verification