D&D General Fighting Law and Order

[Micah Sweet]

I think that's an excellent observation. It's entirely fair to note that narrative games are much less "gamist" and challenge-oriented than D&D-type games. Narrative games are more extended improv sessions with rules for deciding who's turn it is to make stuff up. Now, that kind of play is definitely its own challenge in and of itself, but it's a different challenge than using your limited resources to win a combat.

Your description of narrative games is precisely why I don't like narrative games.

 

[Lanefan]

These two statements are directly contrary.

You. Cannot. Stop. ALL. Bad. Behavior. Without. Perfect. Rules.

That is literally, 100% true. You are demandinf perfection and then pretending that isn't what you're doing.

I think @Maxperson 's point is that even perfect rules won't and can't stop all bad behavior; if for no other reason than that "bad behavior" is probably going to include ignoring said rules...

 

[Lanefan]

A world in which nothing happens and everything is static, a wonderful landscape painting by the GM, sounds impossible to create drama in.

I've seen parties create all sorts of drama in a completely empty boring cave.

All it takes is a bunch of characters who don't like each other and a stray comment to light the powderkeg...

The GM must provide some hooks and potentials and challenges, or it's dead in the water.

It's only dead in the water if the players don't hoist some sails and take the helm.

 

[TwoSix]

I don't know, that sure sounds like, "if you really understood MY way, you'd realize it's better than yours" to me.

The only realization to make is when you realize that no play style is "right" or "wrong", they're all simply tools to make you a better roleplayer as a whole. My D&D play has been improved by playing PbtA games and OSR type games; likewise, I use the tools I've developed as a trad DM and player to make me better at other games.

 

[Lanefan]

Rules can't help people who are bad as DMs because they simply don't care enough to follow guidance or have internalized bad action as being necessary parts of their identity, like the OP.

Where rules can help is with DMs who are willing to listen to guidance, but simply haven't yet had the chance to learn good practices, which is probably a pretty large subset of DMs.

Perhaps, but I still don't think there's any substitute for good ol' trial and error.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

I find a lot of things in DW simply don't apply to D&D. Then I get "But it really does if you just understood it's greatness." So I push back.

Pretty frustrating that you do so, considering I explicitly and repeatedly said that you CANNOT just directly flip the rules from DW to D&D because they're different games. That we can look at DW as an example and then try to work out what D&D might do in the same direction, but for its own unique goals. I even went on a rather pleasant discussion with @Lanefan about the subject.

Saying things like this, when I was explicitly calling out this distinction hundreds of posts ago to you specifically, makes me feel you are not taking the discussion seriously. Especially since I have reiterated that stance to you specifically.

Then pick one behavior. I'm not looking for perfection. I want to see if you can name a single rule that can mitigate even a single behavior that makes a DM bad. Hell, if you can find a group of rules that can mitigate one thing that makes a DM bad I'd settle for that.

"Be a fan of the characters." It explicitly tells the DM to be enthusiastic about the PCs and their goals. I've already said that rule, if understood and applied, would have prevented the entire situation that happened in this thread. I don't believe Bloodtide wants to be a bad GM, and I do believe that Bloodtide follows what rules are presented by the game at least in general.

The specific bad behavior, in this case, would be being dismissive and prejudicial against your players' desires and preferences. If you are sincerely trying to be a fan of their characters, such behavior is impossible—and if you genuinely cannot bring yourself to sincerely be a fan of any of the PCs, that is a clear sign something is deeply wrong and needs to be addressed. In rare extremity, it may mean you simply aren't compatible, but I find such issues can usually be addressed.

And if your response is "well I can just twist that into a pretzel and thus get around it," then again, you are demanding perfection, not merely utility. Because that was your original request, that I name a rule which you couldn't abuse. A rule that cannot be abused is, by definition, perfection.

Seriously, that's it. I don't want the rules to "help" me with any of that.

So you would prefer they hinder? Or, perhaps worse, that they leave the inexperienced out in the cold? What a lovely sentiment!

Downgrade it from a series of moves rolled out each time the GM does something, to a tool that's invoked at specific points in time to create new problems, before dropping back to task resolution.

....but that's exactly what it is. What you call "task resolution" is simply having a conversation about the fiction. As long as things can be resolved simply by talking about what is present (or not present) and making decisions about it, there is no need to invoke mechanics. It's only when that conversation hitches on something invoked, one might say triggered, that the moves roll out. The instant you're done with a move, you go right back into the fiction, and things proceed again.

And GM moves, as said, are far more like stage directions. Critical for a good performance, but you wouldn't ever want to read the names aloud. Doing so would be irritating at best and likely corrosive to the player experience.

This post borders on obtuse. Do you really think they are saying the GM provides nothing to interest the PCs and spur them to action? My setting that I've just finished has 80 points of interest, all of which have a fictional connection to at least one other point, and a reason to go there. Once they get started, they see these connections and decide what they want to pursue, or to do something else entirely. It's not up to me, but there are plenty of things they might want to do.

Yes, I really did think they were saying that the GM has zero responsibility whatsoever to provide things of interest to the PCs or reasons to spur them to action, because those things by definition are drama and narrative. Because, y'know, they literally said "the players create their own drama and themes by the actions they take to interact with that world." Hence my incredulous response. And if GMs are required to provide hooks and other such things, then I have no idea what Creamcloud was contesting with the uncharitable "on a silver platter" jab, because they're still offering things up for players to choose or reject!

Of course it does. I don't understand this question.

Then what is it? Because "we attempted do do a thing and literally actually absolutely NOTHING AT ALL happened doesn't seem to add anything to the experience. By definition, it adds nothing because it IS nothing!

Because now you have to figure out some other option. It's called "being challenged" in addition to "being realistic" that sometimes you try to do something and the only result is that it doesn't work.

It absolutely is not. "Keep trying to open this door that you just have to roll high enough to open" is not "being challenged." Exactly the opposite. Having genuinely nothing whatsoever happen in response to player actions is...nothing. Definitionally nothing. It cannot be challenge or realism or anything else because it is, very literally, nothing!

If you want realism and challenge, you have to have consequences. Your enemies' plans advance because you failed to get to them. The bad guys get a clean escape because you couldn't chase them. The ritual is almost finished because you couldn't break through the locked door and had to find a different entrance. Whatever it might be, realism demands more than nothing. Nothing, truly nothing at all, zero change of state, is one of the most unrealistic consequences possible!

i didn't mean that the GM shouldn't be creating plot hooks, sure, werewolves in the forest to the north, the crime ring in the city to the south-east and the dragon on the mountain to the west, but it's not the GM's duty to make events of the world to cater to the player's own arcs and goals if the players aren't pushing themselves towards instigating and interacting with those things on their own iniative

But my problem, as noted above, is that I don't see any daylight between "it is not the GM's job to serve [drama and thematic occurrences] up to the players on a silver platter for the players to pick and choose at as they so desire" and "creating plot hooks" like "werewolves in the forest to the north, the crime ring in the city to the south-east and the dragon on the mountain to the west." How are those not being "served" to the players? How is this not a selection, which the players could in fact decide they don't like any of these and instead want to follow up on that one kooky merchant you voiced for two sentences back in session 1? (This is not actually a thing that happened in my game, just a general depiction of the "you never know for sure what players will latch onto.")

 

[Lanefan]

They're in combat and they're still in danger, and there are consequences to their failed rolls--they didn't weaken or kill their opponent.

It's not the same as failing to pick a lock, where their failure means they literally can't progress past that area.

If I fail to pick a lock a dozen times straight I can't progress past that area but I can still go elsewhere and do other things.

If I fail to hit my opponent a dozen times straight I'm probably not going to be progressing anywhere any more, unless someone is kind enough to revive me sometime.

 

[TwoSix]

Perhaps, but I still don't think there's any substitute for good ol' trial and error.

Trial and error is inevitable, but I've found having guidance lets me know what to try and helps me recognize the errors.

 

[TwoSix]

Your description of narrative games is precisely why I don't like narrative games.

Lots of people don't like lots of things. I prefer to like things.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Perhaps, but I still don't think there's any substitute for good ol' trial and error.

No, but surely you grant that it is better that we do not have to re-domesticate apples, cows, chickens, wheat, and sugarcane, and rediscover mines or chemical processes for harvesting table salt and baking soda/baking powder, simply so we can bake a pie.

The purpose of distilling and preserving the knowledge and experiences of our forebears is so that we can turn what took them years or decades of trial and error into something that instead only takes us days, weeks, or maybe months (if the lesson is quite tricky.) That doesn't mean you can just coast on theory and received wisdom. I'm a big fan of qualia and genuinely agree that there is no substitute for some amount of direct experience. But lots of things learned very, very slowly via direct experience can be learned quickly and effectively via training instead. And some things are almost impossible to teach, but quite easy to pick up with direct experience.

Trying to force 100% of learning to occur purely through direct experience is foolish and wasteful. Many, many things can be learned through teaching and study, thus allowing precious time saved, and enabling direct experience to be focused on the areas it is best at.