How Visible To players Should The Rules Be?

[Micah Sweet]

I've never played Masks, but I understand that it is about inexperienced Teen Titans/New Mutants-esque superheroes.

Not familiar with Masks. Does it use playbooks? Because nothing says, "look how unique and special my PC is" like a playbook.

 

[Micah Sweet]

@Campbell is clearly talking about the structure of play. As he says:

To elaborate, there is a structure of RPGing that looks like this:

*The GM creates a scenario, which has a goal to be attained, normally by the characters going to a place that (i) is not easy to get to, and (ii) is not immediately known to them.​

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*The players create PCs, whose connection to the goal established by the GM is primarily instrumental, but who have the sorts of capabilities, training and gear that make them reasonably well-suited to attaining it.​

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*The GM presents the players (via their PCs) with a way into the scenario, and when the players resolve this "hook" they learn the possible next steps to be taken.​

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*The players then work their way through the scenario until (if they don't fail) they resolve the goal.​

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*Action resolution outside of combat is typically either free-form ("We look around the room." "OK, you find some screwed-up paper in the waste paper basket.") or else based on a fairly simple roll of the dice to determine if an attempt task succeeds or fails. Either way, the GM generally determines the consequences of both success and failure.​

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*Action resolution in combat is typically via a wargame-style resolution framework. Thus a common way of failing in this sort of scenario is having all the characters die in a fight.​

In my personal experience, a lot of D&D play (especially post-DL) is like this; so is CoC play. My experience of TMNT, Cyberpunk and Shadowrun is more limited, but has been like this. I've never played Marvel Superheroes, but can easily imagine it does not default to the above. Deadlands and Star Wars I can't comment on.

If that's what @Campbell meant, then that's what they should have said. As it was, they basically painted every non-narrative game with the same brush, saying they're the same with minor variations. This is of course disrespectful to all of them.

If you are talking about a category, name the category.

 

[Micah Sweet]

But why would you assume that my hypothetical GM narrating the magic circle of imprisonment hasn't done that?

Because they got a strong disagreement from at least one player. Clearly those two at least aren't on the same page.

 

[pemerton]

Curious: before the player failed that test, had you already narrated the Corpse Candle (or the pond, or the cavern below) as being part of the scene?

The PC was at the entrance to the "Shadow Caves", this being a vertical shaft beneath the floor of Megloss's house, which itself sat on and over the top edge of a cliff. The PCs had the following information about the caves: that Megloss's house had originally been the house of the wizard Pallando, who had built the house around a post from an Elven Dreamhouse that had been stolen by Celedhring; and that Celedhring, after entering the Shadow Caves, had never left them! One of the players conjectured a lich in response to this; and the player whose PC was subsequently distracted by the corpse candle had his PC purchase some holy water for battling the undead. (It turned out to be a barrow wight, not a lich; and the holy water was used fighting aptr-gangrs (zombies in D&D terms).)

I had noted corpse candles as a possible twist as part of my write-up of the caves. The players didn't now what I'd written up, but no one seemed to think that corpse candles were not fair game!

 

[pemerton]

Not familiar with Masks. Does it use playbooks? Because nothing says, "look how unique and special my PC is" like a playbook.

I assume so, given it is PbtA.

I don't understand how you think a playbook is different from a D&D PC sheet in this particular context, though.

 

[pemerton]

Because they got a strong disagreement from at least one player. Clearly those two at least aren't on the same page.

Which player? It was purely hypothetical.

 

[pemerton]

If that's what @Campbell meant, then that's what they should have said.

Well, I had no trouble working out what was being said. To me it seemed fairly apparent, especially in light of the second post.

As it was, they basically painted every non-narrative game with the same brush, saying they're the same with minor variations. This is of course disrespectful to all of them.

If you are talking about a category, name the category.

What category? And what name, that won't attract criticism as "jargon"? I mean, in your post you use the phrase "narrative game" which has no clear meaning that I'm aware of - I mean, I see it used to label games as different as (say) Fate and Apocalypse World - different in the sense that their processes of play have very little in common outside of both being RPGs.

 

[Corinnguard]

This doesn't really address my point.

When a GM introduces a scenario and tells you what's going on in it, and you as a player decide "my character doesn't understand this part of the situation" you have chosen to create the conditions for metagaming. If metagaming is a concern for you, then you can just accept that your character understands the situation as it was explained.

You're opting into the situation where what you're calling metagaming occurs.



No!

The reason why I don't like metagaming in 5e D&D is because it upsets the suspension of disbelief that is so vital to role-playing a character in a RPG. I am trying to operate in-character, which means I can only act on knowledge that's in-universe. If I decided to use any knowledge that my character should not know for my own personal benefit, it would be bad sportsmanship on my part. I would be cheating. And that's not who I am as a player.

5e D&D is not some indie role-playing game that deliberately supports and encourages metagaming.

You're okay with metagaming, but you don't take advantage of it by letting your character know everything you know?

 

[Corinnguard]

If the GM decides that the PC knows the information, on what basis is the player saying that the GM is wrong? Doesn't the GM get to decide these sorts of setting facts, at least in the approach to RPGing that the two of you prefer?

It's not up to the GM to decide what the PC knows in 5e D&D. The GM describes the scene and then asks the players what they are going to do next. The players then declare what the characters are going to do in the scene, and if any of their actions require a skill check, the GM will ask them to roll the dice to see what happens next.

The GM is suppose to help guide the players through an adventure, not dictate their every move by telling them everything they need to know without earning it on their own.

 

[hawkeyefan]

You don't have to understand what bounded accuracy means to play 5e and understand it. The terms in many narrative games are front and center in the rules. Understanding them and how they apply to play is necessary to play the game properly.

Yes, just as “advantage” and “short rest” and all manner of other terms are necessary to understanding how to play 5e. And just as many other terms are needed for other games.

And I'm not really a fan of bounded accuracy anyway, but since the books don't go on about it I don't have to think about in play.

That’s fine… the point is that you understand it. If you don’t like it as a design consideration, that’s fine, and if that was the topic of discussion, I’d rather hear your thoughts on why you don’t like it as a design consideration than just endlessly saying you don’t like the phrase itself.

Or it can work really badly because the traditions invented in the moment have no firm grounding in the setting. It all depends on what aspects of the game matter to you the most.

What experience do you have that supports this?

Several games I’ve run and/or played in recent years have an approach that allows for a lot of these kinds of things to be determined during play. Spire: The City Must Fall, for example, has one religion as a major focus of play. But its practices and teachings are left up to the group to decide. A few of the character classes are priests of deities other than the primary one; these are largely left to the players of those characters to decide. In addition to all this, there are dozens of other faiths, cults, and orders that can be incorporated into play and fleshed out as needed.

It plays quite well.

What counter example can you offer?

If that's what @Campbell meant, then that's what they should have said. As it was, they basically painted every non-narrative game with the same brush, saying they're the same with minor variations. This is of course disrespectful to all of them.

If you are talking about a category, name the category.

Well, wouldn’t that be why you enjoy those specific games? That they play similarly? Why is that disrespectful?

Although I’ll disagree to some extent about one of them. TSR’s Marvel Super Heroes kind of bucks the trends of trad play in a lot of ways. No classes, much less focus on character advancement, player resources allowing them to manipulate success, varying power level among PCs. It’s got some really strong narrativist elements to it.

I’m surprised to see it on your list.

Because they got a strong disagreement from at least one player. Clearly those two at least aren't on the same page.

If that did happen, wouldn’t it be best to discuss it afterward and work it out?

And what if all the other players are fine with it? Or even prefer it that way?