D&D General Games People Play: Looking at the Gaming Aspects of D&D

[Clint_L]

In my experience with Blades, a less "skilled" team that chose a more bruteforce approach would probably accomplish the goal anyway, and the difference between an experienced, good Blades player and a noob is the ability to create intriguing fiction first and foremost.


As of D&D, the thing I'm talking about is this weird self-contradictory idea that players are

• Supposed to learn how enemies work
• Not supposed to look up enemies stats
• Not supposed to acknowledge their knowledge of enemies stats if they already know (e.g. if they're a GM themselves)

in completely ludicrous cases, things are taken even further, where players are supposed to anti-metagame and actively avoid attacking trolls with fire.

The way I see it, the real game starts once everyone knows the rules and can act with intentionality. Fighting games really start when you know framedata by heart, Dark Souls really starts when you know all the movesets, strategy games really start when you know build orders and common strategies, chess really start when... Before that point, it's just floundering in the kiddy pool.

Hmmm...I am speculating here, but could not intentionality come from knowledge of character motivation and not from knowledge of rules?

If my intentional stance is "what would my player do in this situation with the knowledge they have?" this can lead to outcomes that are non-optional in terms of game strategy, but optional in terms of story development and, well, fun.

So let's go with the troll example. If I am playing a character who would not know about their vulnerability to fire, I am going to choose, intentionally, to have them act in ignorance. For me, that is fun, and I look forward to seeing how the story develops - will there be an opportunity for my character to work out this crucial information, or will they have to figure out a non-optional solution to the problem. What else can they come up with if they don't know about the vulnerability to fire? Now my creative problem solving capacities and imagination are engaged. And maybe the story changes - maybe what could have been a victory becomes a defeat, and my character flees. To me, those are interesting outcomes.

I don't think knowing that trolls are vulnerable to fire is about knowing the rules of D&D, in other words. I think it's about knowing the content of the story in advance. Which I think is un-fun.

And that's just me using my imagination to think "what would this character do in this situation," the same way I do when I am writing a story or acting. When I actually don't know all the information - for example, when a DM presents a new monster that I've never encountered, I find it even more stimulating, because now I am not acting. I find it incredibly satisfying when we solve a problem or puzzle.

In other words, I think that ignorance can play a crucial role in game design, that there are incredibly rewarding experiences that can only come through initial ignorance. And I think this is true of every game worth playing. I knew Warhammer rules inside out, but I still didn't know what point buy my opponent was going to show up with, or what decision they would make, or what the dice rolls would be. Each of those things presented me with fun problems to solve...or fail to solve.

I find that your arguments tend to focus on D&D-style games being non-optimized for either strategic gameplay or storytelling.

 

[Pedantic]

I disagree with the ‘most’ part. You can do it in most, but only Dark Souls like games and bullet hell type games expect you to imo


no, they do not disallow it, but that is to not annoy the customers who fail / are accustomed to being able to reload, not because it is part of the design beyond that

You're asserting that the intent of most digital games, excepting a few genres is that you should not in fact try again after hitting a failure state? That "Game Over" should be functionally identical to the game's files deleting themselves?

That's madness. Even if you're arguing that design intent should pretend it exists in a vacuum where games can only ever be played once, and that players aren't expected to retry them, that doesn't match the experience (for multiple decades now) of people actually playing those games. And it's just not true. There's a whole bunch of games that use the existence of save states to do meta-commentary on the nature of playing games!

 

[kenada]

Wow. Just, wow.

Fortunately, things have gotten better as the campaign has gone on. Transitioning to my homebrew system has possibly also helped.

 

[niklinna]

You're asserting that the intent of most digital games, excepting a few genres is that you should not in fact try again after hitting a failure state? That "Game Over" should be functionally identical to the game's files deleting themselves?

That's madness. Even if you're arguing that design intent should pretend it exists in a vacuum where games can only ever be played once, and that players aren't expected to retry them, that doesn't match the experience (for multiple decades now) of people actually playing those games. And it's just not true. There's a whole bunch of games that use the existence of save states to do meta-commentary on the nature of playing games!

And look at MMOs where people repeat the same fights over, and over, and over, and over...even after they've mastered them! Because loot of course.

 

[Pedantic]

I’m skeptical. Scores have fallout. Two successful but different approaches should generate different fallout, which will be better or worse depending on what happened. That’s going to affect the board state (faction standing/clocks, rep, coins, etc) differently depending on what the fallout is, so I think that’s more than just a generator of intriguing fiction.

For example, if we hadn’t protected our relationship with the Blue Coats in prior scores, then we wouldn’t have had that resource available to deploy in the last one. While the scores where we did that did result in nice fiction (such as when we killed Lord Scurlock), it also had practical game benefits (maintaining the +3 ally, acquiring a new claim, etc).

The question here though is whether or not you needed that resource, and/or if whatever you spent to defend it would have had more or less value. If it all comes out in the wash, then it doesn't really matter.

This is what I’m trying to get at with my comments regarding information gathering. If information isn’t going to be public knowledge, then it needs to be discoverable, and discoveries must be protected from gotchas. Establishing that trolls are vulnerable to fire shouldn’t mean trolls disappear from the game or are replaced by monsters that are actually healed by it. If you can’t reason about the situation, it’s not possible to formulate a plan of attack or find a path to victory.

Otherwise, I agree regarding the cultural expectations. D&D is a game, but we’re not supposed to treat it as a game. While it’s nice that it can support different styles of play, they’re not all treated or regarded equally. The aversion to metagaming is especially pernicious because it can lead to absolutely silly results even if your priorities are other than the gaming aspect.

We had a situation when I was running Halls of the Blood King (a site-based adventure without a prescribed plot) where the party was looking for a particular item, were almost 100% sure they found it, but the thing it was inside was locked. They had a thief character who could pick it, but one of the players worried they were “metagaming” since they hadn’t found the key. I was like: “You have a thief in the party. Picking locks is not ‘metagaming’ when it’s what thieves do.”

If this is the level of criticism we're talking about...then yeah, I definitely agree. Players should know what the mechanics do and use those mechanics. Rogues should pick locks, and in fact, I'd prefer the DCs for locks be specified in player facing materials, so that they can plan reliably around their lockpicking abilities. Breaking "any non-magical lock" and later "any magical lock" should both be things they can expect to hit reliably at various points in their careers.

I'm happy to agree that D&D is solidly at war with itself for giving players information. I think step 1 is making the systems transparent, so that PCs know how action resolution works and can plan for it (or as I'm constantly begging, write down the **** skill DCs in the player's handbook, yes all of them, yes before you start playing). The game should ideally then have clear systems for learning about NPCs and monsters and general investigation.

And then finally we have to acknowledge that puzzle monsters are only interesting if they're both innovative and well sign-posted. Trolls aren't interesting anymore, and that's okay. They were cool in the 70s.

 

[kenada]

And look at MMOs where people repeat the same fights over, and over, and over, and over...even after they've mastered them! Because loot of course.

Hey, I may need those 109 copies of Gordian Manifesto - Page 1 someday.

 

[kenada]

The question here though is whether or not you needed that resource, and/or if whatever you spent to defend it would have had more or less value. If it all comes out in the wash, then it doesn't really matter.

The costs to us to defend it were some harm and stress, trauma (due to bad play on my part), and heat. We used that relationship a few times, so I think it was worth protecting. We also got other things out of that score (as noted).

One thing I neglected to mention, and I can’t remember off hand whether we were looking at just a reset or having them go hostile, but hostile factions can put clocks on the board. If they did go hostile, that would have definitely resulted in a worse board state. Yes, this is represented as changes to the fiction (e.g., the Blue Coats are going to raid your vice den when their faction clock goes off), but it has a direct affect on your decision-making (losing your vice den will reduce your income, but dealing with the clock may have other opportunity costs and consequences, and you could always ignore it and hope the clock does not go off this time).

 

[TwoSix]

The way I see it, the real game starts once everyone knows the rules and can act with intentionality. Fighting games really start when you know framedata by heart, Dark Souls really starts when you know all the movesets, strategy games really start when you know build orders and common strategies, chess really start when... Before that point, it's just floundering in the kiddy pool.

I see your point, but I think psychological motivations for games also plays a role here. For example, in contrast to your point, my favorite part of playing games is in those beginning stages, when the rules are novel and attempting bold strategies is basically a wing and a prayer.

Once I've achieved a sufficent amount of mastery over a game, I tend to drop them and move onto something new to master. Refining my mastery just doesn't hold a lot of interest to me, because I'm not very competitive.

 

[mamba]

You're asserting that the intent of most digital games, excepting a few genres is that you should not in fact try again after hitting a failure state?

resetting to right before you failed, absolutely, this is rarely the intended gameplay loop, it is supported because people complain if they cannot

That "Game Over" should be functionally identical to the game's files deleting themselves?

no, you can play games repeatedly, but that is not the same as jumping back in time in a session. And even being able to is not the same as the game being designed around that / having it as part of the intended gameplay loop the way Dark Souls does.

In a racing game you can race the same track again, you don’t have to reset to the time before you crashed in a barrier or made a slight mistake that cost you a second and the top position.

In a strategy game you can play a different map (possibly randomized), you do not have to reset to before one battle you played suboptimal.

And so forth. Having a loop like this built into the gameplay is limited to games like Dark Souls, not eg Diablo, even though you can repeat the same area in Diablo too

 

[mamba]

And look at MMOs where people repeat the same fights over, and over, and over, and over...even after they've mastered them! Because loot of course.

not the same thing as what was being discussed

You are supposed to reload and try again when you die in most digital games.