D&D General Fighting Law and Order

[Aldarc]

I don't worry about the game fiction moving forward. I set the stage, the PCs do what they want. That stage is full of interesting things to interact with.

I don't worry about this either when playing Dungeon World. The game fiction moves forward simply through the process of play. As a GM, I do much as you describe. I set the stage and the PCs do what they want.

I'm not telling a story.

Neither are most PbtA games.

I understand what moves are. Or at least I believe I do. But PbtA games seem to be using narrative structures to tell stories.

I think that the language of "to tell stories" misunderstands what's going on in PbtA, though I may be misunderstanding what you mean by narrative structures. Very much like OSR games, PbtA games emphasize emergent story, playing to find out what happens, and explicitly resist GM story-telling:

You’re most certainly not here to tell everyone a planned-out story.

This is how you play to find out what happens. You’re sharing in the fun of finding out how the characters react to and change the world you’re portraying. You’re all participants in a great adventure that’s unfolding. So really, don’t plan too hard. The rules of the game will fight you. It’s fun to see how things unfold, trust us.

(Dungeon World: GM Agendas, p.161)

Your agenda
When you play Stonetop, these should be your goals:

• Portray a compelling character
• Engage with the fictional world
• Play to find out what happens

The game’s rules and structure assume that you are pursuing these three goals, and no others. This isn’t a game that you play to win. The game doesn’t expect you to optimize your character. It’s not a game about testing your skill, and it’s not a game where you show up to be led through the GM’s story.

Everything you say and do as the GM is meant to support these three goals, and no others. It’s not your agenda (for example) to challenge the players’ skill, or to provide
“fair” fights, or to punish the characters. It’s absolutely not your agenda to control the players or force “your” story to go the way you think it should. When in doubt, ask yourself: this thing you’re considering doing, which of these three goals does it support? If the answer is “none of them,” then don’t do it. Do something else.

This is why I'm resistant against the language of "to tell a story" when describing PbtA games. The story happens as a process of play. It's not something that is being dictated in a more traditional gaming fashion.

D&D is establishing a fiction that responds to the actions of the PCs in context of that fiction. Stories emerge from play, but it's never the focal point. The focal point is a rough simulation and, depending on group desire, character growth and change based on the character's experiences in that world. Sometimes that fiction includes outside forces that have nothing to do with the actions of the PCs.

My concern here is that you are conflating your preferred play method of D&D with how D&D, on the whole, variously operates. There are a multitude of subcultures in D&D and they do not necessarily align with your description of D&D here. Traditional Play, in particular - which forms a substantial chunk of the hobby in the form of APs and the like - does not emphasize stories emerging from play. Instead, it's very much focused on GM pre-authored stories and guiding players through the story that they have set up.

You can call those outside forces "fronts" if you want, I personally don't think the term is particularly enlightening to anyone not familiar with it.

I prefer to use the terms that are associated with the game in question. This is to say, that I use "fronts" to talk about PbtA games. If people don't know what the term means, then I am open to explaining them, assuming that there is good faith in open dialogue.

But maybe, Oofta, try not to be so dismissive towards anything PbtA-related when I am engaging you in good faith and without making thinly-veiled potshots at the games you like. It would be appreciative if you could return the favor.

If there happens to be a consequence to the action other than they simply don't succeed you could call it a move. A round peg will fit in a square hole if the hole is big enough. But having a "there is no consequence [other than failure]" is one of the reasons I prefer D&D.

Okay, but understand that this is clearly not acceptable to all people who play in D&D. Otherwise the DMG wouldn't bother describing Success at a Cost or Degrees of Failure in the Resolution and Consequences section. This is not to mention a lot of GM advice books out there for D&D that talk about utilizing concepts such as "Fail Forward" to keep the game moving.

 

[Lanefan]

(1) Then as per the 5e DMG, the PCs probably shouldn't bother rolling dice or making an ability check if there is no meaningful consequence for failure:

Which is a terrible rule, as it fails to account for the many (many!) situations where success has meaningful consequences but failure merely maintains the status quo.

It also, somewhat oddly, supports rolls where failure has meaningful consequences but success maintains the status quo. An example might be someone (perhaps incompetently!) guarding a potentially-sneaky captive: roll perception, success means nothing changes, failure means consequences as the captive got away.

As per above, the 5e DMG says the DM should only call for ability checks when there is a meaningful consequence for failure. However, the DMG fails to provide much (if any at all) elucidation on what a "meaningful consequence for failure" looks like. Now imagine in the 5e DMG, if you will, a list that provided suggestions for different ways that the DM could make consequences for failed ability checks meaningful. Some consequences are quite obvious - damage, spell/trap effects, etc. - but other consequences for failure are not always so clear. That's basically what GM moves do. However, I will say in contrast to other games, including D&D, that the design intent of GM moves in PbtA games is to keep the game fiction moving in some new direction by giving the PCs stuff to react to or interact with.

Nobody has yet answered my questions from well upthread about whether those consequences have to be immediate or can be "saved up" for some future time when they are not expected.

For example, I heard that Vincent Baker partially developed his Apocalypse World game in response to a prevalent method of character play in 3e D&D (and its era of games) regarding skill checks: e.g., "I roll a Perception check." This is to say, it was a more "mechanics first" game style rather than "fiction first" one. (FYI, this is a common shared criticism as well among OSR circles.) Baker's solution to this in Apocalypse World was the Player Moves system. This is to say, the player can't roll a Perception check (i.e., Read a Sitch in AW and Discern Realities in DW) until the PC does the thing in the fiction and triggers the GM's call for the appropriate roll.

This has always been an issue, where players rely on meta-mechanics rather than in-fiction actions (and their own descrpitions of such) in order to get things done.

That said, it seems like a bit of an over-reaction to go and design an entirely new game system in order to push back when all it needs is a great big note in both the PH and DMG saying "No Roll Without Reason" and going on to explain as a hard rule that if the player doesn't explain what the character is doing and how, there's no roll given. 5e kinda waves at this idea but still could be more hard-and-fast with it.

 

[Lanefan]

I just want to preface this my saying when I clicked on the alerts button, it told me that your reply came from tomorrow.

View attachment 285010
So somebody is time traveling and I don't think it's me.

Could be a time glitch at your provider's end, or even a clock glitch in your device. I've seen that too, now and then.

Yes, this is what I mean. The worldbuilding doesn't get seen by anyone but the GM.

Which is also kind of a waste of worldbuilding. You're hinging dozens to thousands of hours of work on the ability of other people to realize it's something important enough to remember. Which, lets face it, many people simply can't or won't do. They have too many other things going on in their lives, or they have ADHD, or they don't pick up on a particular clue, or their notes get lost, or they simply missed, or misunderstood, what you said.

The player-side setting info (maps, pantheons, history, etc.) is mostly online and thus there for them to look at whenever they like. And sure, you can lead a horse to water but you can't make it drink; but whose fault is it when that horse dies of thirst?

Sure. That's definitely possible... if the game lasts that long.

For me, it's a baked-in assumption that it will.

I may finally get to use a monster idea that I'd come up with more than a decade ago, but several games have come and gone since then, since there was never a right moment for it. (And who'da thunk it, a taxidermied "grotesque" golem meant for Ravenloft may show up in my MotW game, simply because a player thought there should be a taxidermy shop in town and came up with a good name for one.)

Nice!

 

[Oofta]

I don't worry about this either when playing Dungeon World. The game fiction moves forward simply through the process of play. As a GM, I do much as you describe. I set the stage and the PCs do what they want.


Neither are most PbtA games.


I think that the language of "to tell stories" misunderstands what's going on in PbtA, though I may be misunderstanding what you mean by narrative structures. Very much like OSR games, PbtA games emphasize emergent story, playing to find out what happens, and explicitly resist GM story-telling:



This is why I'm resistant against the language of "to tell a story" when describing PbtA games. The story happens as a process of play. It's not something that is being dictated in a more traditional gaming fashion.


My concern here is that you are conflating your preferred play method of D&D with how D&D, on the whole, variously operates. There are a multitude of subcultures in D&D and they do not necessarily align with your description of D&D here. Traditional Play, in particular - which forms a substantial chunk of the hobby in the form of APs and the like - does not emphasize stories emerging from play. Instead, it's very much focused on GM pre-authored stories and guiding players through the story that they have set up.


I prefer to use the terms that are associated with the game in question. This is to say, that I use "fronts" to talk about PbtA games. If people don't know what the term means, then I am open to explaining them, assuming that there is good faith in open dialogue.

But maybe, Oofta, try not to be so dismissive towards anything PbtA-related when I am engaging you in good faith and without making thinly-veiled potshots at the games you like. It would be appreciative if you could return the favor.


Okay, but understand that this is clearly not acceptable to all people who play in D&D. Otherwise the DMG wouldn't bother describing Success at a Cost or Degrees of Failure in the Resolution and Consequences section. This is not to mention a lot of GM advice books out there for D&D that talk about utilizing concepts such as "Fail Forward" to keep the game moving.

I'll just reiterate. I'm done talking about PbtA. I was just trying to be polite and give my POV. Beyond that, I don't care.

 

[Lanefan]

I think that the language of "to tell stories" misunderstands what's going on in PbtA, though I may be misunderstanding what you mean by narrative structures. Very much like OSR games, PbtA games emphasize emergent story, playing to find out what happens, and explicitly resist GM story-telling:

This is why I'm resistant against the language of "to tell a story" when describing PbtA games. The story happens as a process of play. It's not something that is being dictated in a more traditional gaming fashion.

Some of that might be coming from that family of games often being referred to as "story games" or "story-now".

My concern here is that you are conflating your preferred play method of D&D with how D&D, on the whole, variously operates. There are a multitude of subcultures in D&D and they do not necessarily align with your description of D&D here. Traditional Play, in particular - which forms a substantial chunk of the hobby in the form of APs and the like - does not emphasize stories emerging from play. Instead, it's very much focused on GM pre-authored stories and guiding players through the story that they have set up.

I guess "Traditional Play" as a term is being used differently here than I'd use it, but I otherwise get your point.

It's also very possible to play old-school D&D on an emergent-story basis, starting with either a sandbox or West-Marches premise and just seeing where things go from there.

 

[Faolyn]

Are you talking groups of players here, or groups of characters?

When I say "multi-party" I'm mostly talking about different groups of characters, who may or may not be run by the same actual players.

Both.

I've had DMs who've run the same adventure for multiple groups of players (not the same group with different characters) in "different universes," but I've only had one GM (that I know of) who ran the same adventure for multiple groups of players in the same universe (that In Nomine game). Even the groups I've been in who have had multiple groups tend to run different settings, or even different systems entirely, with those different groups.

I do have a current DM who is running the same game with two groups but took actions I made in the game they run with us (I started a riot, burned down part of the city) and had them happen in their other game, because they found it kind of hilarious. However, our two groups of PCs are in different worlds and wouldn't ever be able to meet or cross over. We occasionally get reports on how things went differently between the two groups--our group seems to be less violent then the other one, so NPCs we allied with, they sometimes killed.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Which is a terrible rule, as it fails to account for the many (many!) situations where success has meaningful consequences but failure merely maintains the status quo.

It also, somewhat oddly, supports rolls where failure has meaningful consequences but success maintains the status quo. An example might be someone (perhaps incompetently!) guarding a potentially-sneaky captive: roll perception, success means nothing changes, failure means consequences as the captive got away.

Nobody has yet answered my questions from well upthread about whether those consequences have to be immediate or can be "saved up" for some future time when they are not expected.

This has always been an issue, where players rely on meta-mechanics rather than in-fiction actions (and their own descrpitions of such) in order to get things done.

That said, it seems like a bit of an over-reaction to go and design an entirely new game system in order to push back when all it needs is a great big note in both the PH and DMG saying "No Roll Without Reason" and going on to explain as a hard rule that if the player doesn't explain what the character is doing and how, there's no roll given. 5e kinda waves at this idea but still could be more hard-and-fast with it.

Yeah, that's a big part of my problem with these kinds of games. They've created hard rules for when an action can be taken that has mechanical consequences (on either side of the proverbial screen) and when it can't. Even if those rules make sense, it is limiting to mandate what's allowed in this way.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Some of that might be coming from that family of games often being referred to as "story games" or "story-now".

I guess "Traditional Play" as a term is being used differently here than I'd use it, but I otherwise get your point.

It's also very possible to play old-school D&D on an emergent-story basis, starting with either a sandbox or West-Marches premise and just seeing where things go from there.

That is my preferred method. I don't care for anything resembling an AP, no matter how popular it might be.

 

[Faolyn]

Which is a terrible rule, as it fails to account for the many (many!) situations where success has meaningful consequences but failure merely maintains the status quo.

It also, somewhat oddly, supports rolls where failure has meaningful consequences but success maintains the status quo. An example might be someone (perhaps incompetently!) guarding a potentially-sneaky captive: roll perception, success means nothing changes, failure means consequences as the captive got away.

Um. I think you might be misunderstanding a bit. If there's no real point the roll, don't roll. If a captive might get away on a failure, that means there's a point to rolling.

Nobody has yet answered my questions from well upthread about whether those consequences have to be immediate or can be "saved up" for some future time when they are not expected.

Think of it like in D&D: On a failed roll to search for traps, they might trigger the trap... which may be a trap that only activates a bit later on or in another location (e.g., the trap causes a pit in the next room to be unlocked or rings an alarm elsewhere in the dungeon). You've "saved" the consequences of that failed roll for later on, and it could be that the only thing that appears to have happened is that the PC heard a very faint click from the trap being activated.

This has always been an issue, where players rely on meta-mechanics rather than in-fiction actions (and their own descrpitions of such) in order to get things done.

That said, it seems like a bit of an over-reaction to go and design an entirely new game system in order to push back when all it needs is a great big note in both the PH and DMG saying "No Roll Without Reason" and going on to explain as a hard rule that if the player doesn't explain what the character is doing and how, there's no roll given. 5e kinda waves at this idea but still could be more hard-and-fast with it.

I don't see why it's an over-reaction. It created a new way to play that has proven to be very popular. The only problem with it is in reprogramming one's mind to accept the new way over the traditional way.

I mean, we've had decades of books saying "no roll without reason" and saying the PCs have to explain what the character is doing... and we still have GMs asking for rolls without reason (or saying that "no change" is still a good reason to roll) and PCs saying what they're rolling but not why or how. So why not try something new?

 

[Micah Sweet]

Um. I think you might be misunderstanding a bit. If there's no real point the roll, don't roll. If a captive might get away on a failure, that means there's a point to rolling.


Think of it like in D&D: On a failed roll to search for traps, they might trigger the trap... which may be a trap that only activates a bit later on or in another location (e.g., the trap causes a pit in the next room to be unlocked or rings an alarm elsewhere in the dungeon). You've "saved" the consequences of that failed roll for later on, and it could be that the only thing that appears to have happened is that the PC heard a very faint click from the trap being activated.


I don't see why it's an over-reaction. It created a new way to play that has proven to be very popular. The only problem with it is in reprogramming one's mind to accept the new way over the traditional way.

I mean, we've had decades of books saying "no roll without reason" and saying the PCs have to explain what the character is doing... and we still have GMs asking for rolls without reason (or saying that "no change" is still a good reason to roll) and PCs saying what they're rolling but not why or how. So why not try something new?

I will mention again that "popular" is not equal to "good", and neither is "new". No one should be pressured to try something that doesn't appeal to them, especially if their current method is producing positive results.