As a broad general example: principles can collide. I think you noted the 3e Lawful Good Paladin dilemma. The solution to that kind of dilemma is to prioritize one principle over another when they collide. That would be one good reason to ignore a principle at a particular time.
IMO, this is a better way to phrase your objection. It avoids the whole conflation of 'a good reason' with 'do it anytime you like' - which was the whole point of my counter-objection.
Maybe a better approach is to first ask if you believe there are every any good reasons to violate principles? If not I think we are at an impasse, if so I think you have your answer to what 'good reasons to ignore a principle' actually entails.
I think real world D&D play does have principles at the table level, just not the ruleset level.
I'd say principles are your decision-making guides.
Fully agree here! I think it's a really great point as well.
If the game is designed with the principles in mind, and the principles have been put under the microscope and vetted, then no, I generally don't think that they should collide. Since it's the game I'm familiar with (sadly, I haven't played nor run Apocalypse World, so I can't comment on its principles, which
are different from Dungeon World's principles!), I'll return to DW's principles.
- Draw maps, leave blanks
- Address the characters, not the players
- Embrace the fantastic
- Make a move that follows
- Never speak the name of your move
- Give every monster life
- Name every person
- Ask questions and use the answers
- Be a fan of the characters
- Think dangerous
- Begin and end with the fiction
- Think offscreen, too
I'll work through these one at a time, examining how it intersects with the others.
"Draw maps, leave blanks": This is pretty narrow in application--it really is fairly specific to the actual maps themselves. As a result, it can only even
potentially collide with any of the other principles if for some reason they should apply to the process of creating a map. Which of them has the potential for that? "As questions and use the answers," perhaps, but that doesn't contradict each other--it just means if you use answers to help make maps, those maps should still have some blank space somewhere. Since one of the Agendas is
play to find out what happens, the answers should never be so totally definitive and complete that they should result in an utterly unambiguous map with zero blanks left, so...that seems to be out. I'm not really sure which others
could produce a truly irreconcilable conflict, such that you must choose to either draw a map with no blanks
or break some other principle.
"Address the characters, not the players": This is a purely meta-level thing. Don't use player names, use character names. Speak in the fiction. I honestly cannot see how addressing a player would truly be
required by the other principles. If you have a suggestion, I'm wiling to listen, but I just don't see it.
"Embrace the fantastic": This acts as a modifier on the other principles, particularly the next one ("make a move that follows") and two of the ones near the end ("think dangerous" and "think offscreen, too.") This principle is mostly about determining the
style and
tone of how things play out, and is one of the easiest principles to change if you wish. I have kept it myself, but I'm sure someone who wanted a more grim, gritty, low-fantasy kind of game might change it to "embrace the gruesome" or the like. Regardless, this operates on the level of tone, while most of the others do not, other than "be a fan of tharacters." I can't see any inherent contradiction between being a fan (in the sense defined by the explanatory text) and embracing fantastical things--much the opposite, actually.
"Make a move that follows": This is the first truly
mechanics-facing principle we've seen thus far, as opposed to those about procedure or tone. It, like the penultimate principle, is a reminder to do what coheres with the situation at hand. It is not, despite its sound, about
adjudicating, but rather about how to choose your response once an adjudication calls for the GM to do something. For example, if a player just got a 6- on a
Parley, the move for trying to exploit social leverage, "deal damage" would
not generally be "a move that follows" because social situations usually don't directly cause injuries. "Turn their move back on them," however, is quite reasonable--having made such a grievous social error, the tables have turned, and now the NPC has leverage over the character! What do they do?
"Never speak the name of your move": This is much like addressing characters. It's a meta-level thing; don't
call out "I am now using the Deal Damage GM move." "I choose to Reveal An Unwelcome Truth." It's just a reminder to not call attention to the sausage-making.
"Give every monster life" and "name every person": Lumping these together because they serve essentially the same function. They are a reminder that
beings in the world should matter. Monsters should pop, should enrich the experience. People the player characters meet should be
people, with names and history and goals. This, in a certain sense, provides the conterweight to "embrace the fantastic," by ensuring that the world feels weighty and grounded. Even though the two work in opposite directions, this is a complementary rather than conflicting effect.
I'll leave off there because this has gotten quite long. Point being, these principles
don't conflict with one another. They are designed to work in concert with one another. Many simply operate on completely distinct levels (tone vs mechanics vs procedure), and those which
do touch the same things do so in ways that shouldn't be forcing an irreconcilable conflict, but rather reinforce the impact of one another.
Awesome! I'm really excited about this. I'm good with that. What system is this in?
If you are willing to go into that level of detail, then I am too. I'll let you lead us on that part for a bit.
Sure thing. It's Dungeon World. None of the modifications I've made will matter for a relatively low-level character, so we can proceed with it more or less as-written. Do you have a preference for a particular theme or style? There are several ideas which come to mind--politics, trade, Jinnistani weirdness, Kahina (=Druids/Shaman) mysticism, Safiqi (=Cleric/Paladin) theology, any of the various known threats, etc.--so if you have any particular concept you'd like to focus in on, I can start weaving from that. Otherwise, I'll just pick whatever strikes my fancy.
The character creation process is described
here. The various default classes are linked on the left-hand side. Of the various characters that have appeared in the game thus far, none have been an Arcane Duelist, a Cleric, an Immolator, a Paladin, or a Thief. Should none of these strike your fancy, we can look at third-party options. If you have questions about the social context regarding any class, fire away; I have probably already shown how much I love talking about the world my players and I have built. It would be
much too much text to just drop all of it on you here, so better to focus in on a particular area and give descriptions as we go.
@pemerton mentioned a game above (i think it was AW) where player intentions were irrelevant to outcomes.
Perhaps I misunderstood his intent then. My understanding was, it's not that player intent is irrelevant, but rather that player intent is already made manifest through the declared action. Intent is already codified in the fiction which leads up to the triggering of a move, at which point you resolve the move as quick as you can, and then return to the fiction.
I can think of a few player principles for (some, maybe most) 5e D&D games:
- Play an interesting character - RPG's are driven by characters. Play one with likes and dislikes, etc.
- Let the DM, DM - unless there's concrete evidence otherwise, accept that the DM has the groups (not just your) best interests at heart. That he is trying to create a fun and engaging experience for everyone.
- Don't actively use your character to annoy other players. If you do want to do something that may be annoying, or even something detrimental to the team then foreshadow it and give them plenty of opportunities to stop you. It will be fun for both you and them.
I'm sure we could add some more, but those sound good to me off the top of my head.
Well, based on the above and other things...two of these aren't really "principles" in the PbtA sense, at least not fully. These two are
agendas. I can, in fact, point you to
the player agendas, and you will find that these agendas closely match your first and third statements. Some
bits in here are principles, however. "Play one with likes and dislikes," for example, comports well with "be awesome and flawed."
The distinction between an Agenda and a Principle is that an Agenda is a
goal, something you are aspiring to achieve, while a Principle is an
action, concrete things you do (or don't do!) to achieve those goals. "Play an interesting character" is a goal. "Have likes and dislikes," on the other hand, is a thing you can just
do, it's an action, not a high-level gloss.
Note, however, the difference between your second principle (which is, in fact, a principle!) and the second principle in the document I linked: "Attempt any action, but defer results." Your principle there, in effect, tells the players to be passive consumers: trust the DM, accept what the DM does, don't question the DM's decisions without a
really good reason, follow along. Meanwhile, the DW principle tells players to be
active but not
demanding: to boldly declare what you
attempt, while being willing to accept the consequences thereof. Several other principles in this document likewise encourage active, dynamic player choice, while emphasizing that this is both (a) a cooperative effort, and thus requires consensus-building and respect, and (b) about
playing to find out what happens, so certainty is generally unhelpful and over-analysis is counterproductive.
