Improvisation vs "code-breaking" in D&D

[Celebrim]

It could form the basis of an interesting retro-stupid ironic Heartbreaker like Encounter Critical, only with more charts and much less roleplaying.

At one time, I considered evolving Fairy Chess into an RPG. You'd take a piece. It would have certain moves. Maybe it would have some special moves 4e style that would recharge over time. Things could take a certain number of hits, and have a certain chance of attacking successfully, and so forth. Monsters would be fairy chess pieces of their own. The dungeon would be a vast complicated board. I think that game would meet H&W's definition of a true RPG. Ironically, I'm not entirely sure it would meet my definition of it.

I think a good example of what H&W thinks a true RPG and how it should play is the RPG introduced by the game Card Hunter, both as the play of that game (which resembles an elaborate sort of fairy chess) and as the meta-story that the game is about. Now, I don't actually consider Card Hunter a true RPG, but in the color background for the game (which is very well done BTW) the players supposedly playing the game do consider it a true RPG. I can't help but hear H&W's posts in the voice of the power gaming veteran Card Hunter ex-champion cousin in that game, who is continually bemoaning that kids these days don't understand that the game is meant to be a true test of skill and not some sort of mere fun. There's even one Card Hunter adventure where the cousin is excited because the perfect DM has been invented - a computer.

 

[howandwhy99]

Obviously you're wrong.

I"m not seeing anything to respond to here for the last few posts. I mean, you refuse to wonder why 1000s of books with weighted stats for an intricate design pattern were published for a game and choose to call them story instead.

Again,
A game is a pattern players play to achieve objectives within them.
A puzzle is a pattern puzzlers puzzle to solve.
A story is a fiction storytellers make up

Puzzles and games are similar because players must have a design to interpret. Whereas storytelling is a different culture altogether. That you blindly deny any and all evidence tot he contrary that D&D is a game, not collaborative storytelling means there's nothing left for us to share.

 

[Umbran]

At one time, I considered evolving Fairy Chess into an RPG. You'd take a piece. It would have certain moves. Maybe it would have some special moves 4e style that would recharge over time. Things could take a certain number of hits, and have a certain chance of attacking successfully, and so forth. Monsters would be fairy chess pieces of their own. The dungeon would be a vast complicated board. I think that game would meet H&W's definition of a true RPG. Ironically, I'm not entirely sure it would meet my definition of it.

So... Robo Rally?

 

[Zak S]

That is not the only possible means of effecting a realistic character. Perfection, however, is far from realistic.

In the case we're describing, a character's tactical choices are only perfect if the player's are and the player is as imperfect as all humans.

Some players seek to avoid character death. Others are quite prepared to take great risk for potentially great reward. This is covered in detail above.

Yes, but the point is your assertion that highly tactical players always treat their PCs as disposable bits (and therefore somehow less "real" than angstgame PCs)that they're unattached to and not invested in is totally wrong.

You're exaggerating your own preferences and pretending/assuming they cover the whole human race.

That is what we were discussing.

My taste in RPG’s is definitely for characters with personalities, and not simple pawns on the board. That is my preference for RPG’s. That someone may prefer to reduce the RPG to a boardgame is fine – I also like a lot of boardgames.

You have an Excluded Middle fallacy here, which ignores a very common situation:

A player ISN'T playing Apocalypse World but is instead playing D&D and playing tactically WHILE STILL playing a character with a lot of personality. Much like real-life soldiers try to engage in encounters tactically while still possessing personalities.

This happens all the time and for reasons you're leaving unexplained you're either unaware that this happens or pretending it doesn't.


It looks like you are saying one cannot have a personality without being angsty. My taste in RPG’s is definitely for characters with personalities, and not simple pawns on the board. That is my preference for RPG’s. That someone may prefer to reduce the RPG to a boardgame is fine – I also like a lot of boardgames. But a boardgame has different goals than an RPG, which is a common “introduction to new gamers” topic in RPG books. If I want a boardgame, I will play a boardgame. If the goal was to play an RPG, that is what I came to play.



“infallible” typically means “cannot lose”. The potential these characters will lose makes their stories worth reading. They are highly competent. They are not infallible.

“infallible” typically means “cannot lose”. The potential these characters will lose makes their stories worth reading. They are highly competent. They are not infallible.

EXACTLY like the PCs we are describing.

If all tactical players were infallible, you couldn't pit them against each other in contests because neither side would ever lose, and you can.

I can accept your statement as long as I classify most of the Internet as “not rational”.

Most of the internet isn't rational.

Your own experiences are generalized into discussions here and in the AP thread, for example.

I don't know what you're trying to say here.

You are claiming a common kind of player/PC combination (tactical player who plays a tactical PC with lots of plausible personality) doesn't exist. This directly contradicts observable reality. It isn't rational. It is like saying trees don't exist.

I don't know why you're doing this, other than you're own experiences have been limited and it compels you to make hyperbolic statements in order to exaggerate a personal preference for games like AW into something that sounds more profound and objective than it actually is.

I never did that or anything like it.

 

[Celebrim]

So... Robo Rally?

I own Robo Rally, and yes, it would be I think the same sort of game, but cooperative rather than competitive. With either an RPG style referee or else, like Robo Rally, a tillable set of boards or some other means of generating content.

But, while I love Twonky and company, I don't think Robo Rally is much of an RPG.

 

[Celebrim]

I"m not seeing anything to respond to here for the last few posts.

You wouldn't.

I mean, you refuse to wonder why 1000s of books with weighted stats for an intricate design pattern were published for a game and choose to call them story instead.

I'm not refusing to wonder that. I'm wondering if you could give us a few examples of those "1000s of books", because I have no idea what you are talking about. What does "weighted stats" mean in this context? What "intricate design pattern" are you referring to?

 

[howandwhy99]

With respect, this is a non-sequitur.

No one is disputing that D&D depends upon the GM to manage backstory - drawing maps, generating content etc. But in Gygaxian "skilled play" the goal of play isn't to work out what method the GM used to create all this stuff. The goal, rather, is to work out the details of this stuff. From the players' point of view it is irrelevant whether the GM chose to put a troll in room 3 of level 4, or whether that was the result of a random roll.

"Skilled play"? "code breaking"
Do you believe in either of those things or just like air quoting?

Deciphering the mental pattern of a game is a mental gaming. It requires actual ability
Performing the physical pattern of a game is physical gaming. It too requires actual ability
Inventing anything isn't a game at all.

And most importantly, the method is the details. There is no difference.

No DM is "managing backstory". DMs are expressing the design behind the screen. Generating the map, the stats, everything is calculating the code of the game from algorithm to function - to map.

The goal of D&D (most gaming really) is to figure out the pattern of the game to achieve points within it. High XP scores in D&D represent highly proficient players. If you have any desire to be good at D&D as a player, you need to pay attention to the what the DM is saying. Or likely a monster will come along and kill your character while you're not paying attention. That's not a "competitive DM" delusion. The DM isn't even allowed to make stuff up. It's the game design progressing forward as game time is spent at the table - the key resource of D&D.

The function of the random tables is to help the GM generate content. But - to repeat - having played this game for over 30 years, and having read a lot of material for it (including material going back to the 1970s before I started playing) I have never heard it suggested that the goal of play is for the players to work out what random tables the GM is using to generate content.

In what fever dream are predetermined random tables unavoidably necessary in order to collaboratively invent a story? And yet they have been for D&D for decades. Because storytelling isn't gaming.

The process I am telling you, the process of actual game playing and D&D, requires all the published products D&D resulted in for decades:

The need for referee maps - dungeon geomorphs, monster & treasure assortments, even campaign settings.
The need for modules - wargame-like situational puzzles balanced to the game's design and campaign map (gameboard)
The need for dice - Variance determiners expressing alterable odds through game playing
The need for a screen - hiding the generated code behind a screen with player attempts to move about within and decipher it.
The need for memory / mapping by players - of course learning is the primary behavior of all games and puzzles. Player mapping / note taking are strategies for playing the game well.

I don't think you want to pay D&D. I don't think you want to play games. You've been convinced that narratives are what you want by narrative absolutists. Please stop perpetuating the myth stories are game, play or D&D.

 

[Umbran]

Except is doesn't as can be evidenced by a new "discipline" used to study games as "games have never been studied before", which begins by not treating them actual games, but as narratives. Mass cultural conformity and suppression of ideas.

"We don't need no education. We don't need no thought control. ... Hey, teacher, leave them kids alone!" is what you're going for here?

Well, Pink Floyd is all well and good, but the song shows an extreme misunderstanding of academia. Really, if you want *conformity*, the last place you want it ensconced is in academic studies - the only way for an academic to stand out is to have something new and different.

Plus, "mass cultural conformity"? Have you somewhere presented a citation that there's some significant number of folks actually majoring in "game studies", and that they are *all* in this purported narrative-first form? Or did you just pull it up out of nowhere?

Edwards has disavowed The Big Model as wrong? That's news.

Edwards switched from GNS to Big Model. While BM does include several aspects of GNS, it also tosses out several aspects of the earlier theory, in favor of new ideas. In making that switch, there's an admission that GNS was not, "Teh Troof!" as he had effectively asserted for years prior to that.

I"m not seeking to propose a model on how all games everywhere should be thought of and spoken of, a complete redefining of game terms instead of an honest canvasing of their use.

Every time you are told that "game" doesn't mean what you assert, you reject it, and you insert your own very narrow definition. I don't see how you can consider that an "honest canvasing of their use", when you reject any use but your own.

History has been forgotten. Most people I know in the hobby for only 10-15 years have no understanding at all of why any of the things that used to be in the game could ever be conceived as being needed. Why is it mandatory for play to use dice? maps? minis? hidden information? note passing? awarding XP?

Have you considered that your own understanding of history may be a tad limited or inaccurate? Or that they have no understanding of why they are needed because we have learned in years past that they aren't, in fact, strictly *needed*?

But don't pretend RPGs are what the Forge sought to subvert them into "all along".

From my own experience, and from the rather cogent testimony of others (Celebrim, for example) it seems pretty obvious to me that RPGs have always been multi-faceted, rather than single-faceted as you present. The Forge didn't actually generate anything new - everything in GNS theory existed well before Edwards came on the scene. And The Forge didn't even get all of it!

So, no "pretending", but there's way more to the RPG story than what you present. Sorry.

I am not dogmatic as to what framework I (or anyone) uses to look at the facets of games. In fact, I strongly advise that you consider that analysis of games is akin to the Blind Men and the Elephant.

With respect, we are all the arbiters of history. It is up to each and every one of us to insure things like this contemporary cultural genocide against gamers and game culture doesn't occur.

Hyperbole. Save "genocide" for when people actually die, please and thank you.

Or, do you just want to go ahead and Godwin the thread already, to get it over with?

 

[Umbran]

I feel like when you let one part of running the game have too dramatic an impact on the others it starts to mask deficiencies. The pain I feel when I frame a boring scene or design a lopsided combat encounter is important, and lessening that impact in adjudication hinders my ability to see that. Likewise if I mask a poor ruling by changing up content midstream it's hard for me to see that impact in a meaningful way that will improve my rulings in the future. Pain is part of the process. I might slightly improve play in the moment, but it hurts my ability to improve the way I run the game in the long term. It's all about being as honest as I can with myself, honing my skills, and improving the bell curve of play.

If I, as GM, was the only one feeling the pain, I'd agree with you. Certainly, continuous improvement and adjustment is a thing a GM should shoot for.

But, no matter how much theory I talk here, I'm ultimately a fairly practical and service-oriented GM. I don't want a table of six players to have a lousy night because I can't find another way to learn from my mistakes.

 

[Manbearcat]

I think we need to stop talking about the way Edwards, and others were talking and thinking about games 10+ years ago unless we are talking about the games they were making back then. Even then we have to be careful, because the initial set of essays were formative. They provided grounds for discussion that resulted in games that don't correlate directly to the initial theory. I'm part of the Indie+ community on Google+, have watched John Harper's design talk Hangouts, and have read some of Vincent Baker's recent theory posts. There is very little mention of story or narrative. It's all focused on we want a game where players do x - how do we get there?

This thread has left this post in the dust, but I have a second and wanted to respond to this.

I know this is the direction that the indie movement is going today, and I understand the impetus to do so. That being said, I hold that there will always be value in examining play priorities. It is important not just at the design phase, but also for each and every participant at the table both before and during play. Generally speaking, recognition that one component of one thing can complement or be at odds with another thing is very valuable. Zooming in further still, understanding how one system cog or one genre trope or one behavioral approach coheres or conflicts with another is essential if you are aiming for producing as much seamless functionality (with respect to whatever your play priorities are) as possible in your table experience.

Fundamental engineering precepts apply to games (be it American Football or TTRPGs) as much as they do building a structure or deconstructing the chain of events that led to a catastrophic loss. A forensic knowledge base helps you to broadly understand the spectrum of phenomena at work. You can then dig down deeper to their component parts and evaluate interactions. Now you can apply that understanding to create.

Even if the Forge did not create a better understanding of play priorities (and a wariness of their competing interests/tensions) or how specific GMing techniques (eg GM Force/Illusionism) impact play with respect to those play priorities, the approach to introspection, analysis, and transparency was, and remains, valuable and relevant.