Indie Games Are Not More Focused. They Are Differently Focused.

[doctorbadwolf]

Well, that'll vary by taste and expectation, I think. I personally like when there are at least some social mechanics that come into play. D&D does have a few, but they're almost always cushioned by the label of "magic" or some similar explanation. I like when social interactions can be engaged in a similarly tactical way as combat or any other game element.

Sure, and I dislike social tactics mechanics. I find they are more restrictive than helpful.

I know what you mean here, but there are also plenty of folks who don't allow plenty of things. "No drow PCs for the love of Gygax!!!!" and "Dragonborn over my dead body!!!!" and "Core rulebooks only!!!!" and "I"m GM and it's my game, you either play this way or buh-bye" and other similar sentiments are very common.

On forums, sure. At actual tables? I’m doubtful.

And of course, most other games similarly encourage making the game your own.

This is why I said earlier this seems more an RPG quality than a D&D one.

I’m not even gonna touch that one again. I disagree.

Okay, so without changing the rules, let's say I want to run a campaign that will have literally zero combat. If a fight ever breaks out, it's resolved with like one roll and you add your level, and the GM sets a DC. If you pass, you win, if you don't you lose and the GM narrates what happens on a loss.

But the focus of the game is going to be courtly intrigue. Subterfuge and espionage and doublecrosses and secret meetings and all of that are going to be the kinds of events and actions that drive the game.

From what you're telling me, without changing the rules, D&D is just as suited to this kind of game as it is to a more standard heroic fantasy adventure game? D&D can handle this change because it's so flexible?

I never said D&D is just as suited to any given thing as a bespoke game made to do that thing.

To me, a game that's so flexible wouldn't wind up ignoring 90% of its rules due to a change like this. Nor would it be as dull as the resulting game would likely be.



I wouldn't really agree.

In combat, I can do all kinds of things. There are a ton of actions described in the rules for me to do.

And all manner of restrictions and procedures that limit what you can do.

In a social encounters, generally there is one process. A DC is set by the DM, a check is made, and success or failure is determined by the DM.

Which allows you to do anything, by providing a process for determining success or failure, with optional rules and advice for making that non-binary when appropriate.

Barring a high level of familiarity and player facing details shared by the DM, a player in D&D has no real idea of how likely it could be that he could, say, make an NPC angry enough to attack him. It's entirely up to the DM if that is even possible, and then if it is, what the chances are by establishing DC, and so on.

Sure, I would agree that 5e would benefit from just making the DC ladder in the DMG the default, and putting more information about how resolution works in the PHB where players will see it, and describing the rules and processes of the game in a more player facing way.

The PHB should also spell out setting DCs based on different things, like if you’re forcing a save against taunting using deception, why not just make it a Cha save vs a DC of 8+Cha mod+prof? It’s the same formula for every other save DC, just spell that out for players in the damn PHB.

So the idea "anything is possible, it all depends on what you want to try and do....you can try anything!!!" is true in theory, and so I get your point, in practice it's usually far from the case. And as a result, social actions like that and the role they play are diminished.

In practice, IME, it is almost always actually the case. This is probably the primary source of disconnect. Even mediocre DMs, IME, using 5e, will either have fairly consistent answers to how resulting is going to work, will use player suggestions, or both.

What would not help, IMO, is going back to the rules establishing everything you can do and what it’s DC is.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

We're talking about separate things in each of our posts. And I'm not talking about "immersion" in my post. That is something I don't do. So first, what I'm talking about:

Having a cognitive state being thrust upon you or being (mundanely) afflicted with something that you would otherwise not wish to have had thrust upon you/been afflicted with.

I’m aware that this is what you’re talking about. When responding to it, I am also talking about it. It is possible to just..do that, when a thing happens that would result in that. A game literally cannot force you to be afraid, or experience despair, or feel anything at all. You buy in or it doesn’t happen, regardless of system. All a game can do is force you character to adopt a mental state, and ask you to roleplay that.

This could be despair or frustration or anxiety or trepidation. Whatever it is, you're caught in the orbit of something and you don't have the (lets call it) emotional/mental escape velocity to change the relationship of you to thing.

This is not performative. This is a state where you have no veto nor volition to exercise.

Firstly, but tangentially, that isn’t something I actually see literally any value in, as a gaming experience.

Very scary delves (Torchbearer is excellent at this) done right can do a fantastic job with trepidation and anxiety and sometimes despair and frustration. However, this is different from Dogs in the Vineyard where the traumatic/complicating features of your Traits and Relationships collide with combustible conflicts that are waiting to turn into outright conflagrations (and you're dutybound to confront them so there is no out). (i) When you deploy a Trait or a Relationship w/ a d4 attached to it (even if that isn't the only die) AND the conflict escalates to lethal violence, you're very likely to endure Long-term Fallout where your character erodes out from underneath you. (ii) Further, the conflict resolution mechanics are meant to test you in a "how far are you willing to go to see this through" kind of way whereby, there are going to be a lot of conflicts that force you to escalate from "just talking" to "violence" because of the forces arrayed against you + the way the dice have fallen.

(i) and (ii) combine to create a very particular "caught in the orbit of something beyond you" sensation to play that is akin to Amygdala Hijack. No, it is not the same thing...but they are kindred.

Yes, I’ve played games that do these things. what you’re describing in Torchbearer is rather separate from, say, the game mechanics telling me that my character is horny and flustered because another character rolled well. Mechanics that lead to a particular type of tension are great, if everyone buys in. I hope you won’t claim that Dogs In The Vineyard is a super versatile and flexible game because it does this? Hell, Call of Cthulhu engenders a certainly hopelessness by way of every move you take making you less capable (simplification, obv), but by doing so it makes it harder to tell stories with that game that aren’t the type of story it is built to tell. That isn’t a bad thing, which is why I don’t understand why some folks get bent when someone says that some games are less flexible than others, or that purpose built games like DiTV or CoC are less flexible as written than D&D 5e.

I have not and will not read or engage with a section of a post where you start by telling me what I’m talking about. If you didn’t intend to try to tell me my own mind, feel free to rephrase and I’ll take a look.

 

[Campbell]

There's a reason why I am not claiming that one approach is more flexible than the other. The constraints are different. When we're playing a game that has mechanical teeth and aligns good play with player your character with integrity there's a social freedom to just do that. It gives a sort of permission to go to places that you would not have in normal group contexts. Because the game removes the player or GM's responsibility for how the story turns out. I am more free to act out in Masks because I can point to my sheet and say I have to if I want to clear Angry.

If you want to understand where I'm coming from you have to try to leave your improvisational storytelling play priorities behind. You have to imagine instead that you don't want to direct the story or be responsible for how things turn out. That you just to focus your energy on playing the world with integrity and seeing what comes. You have to be willing to see that making decisions about what success means can be an imposition. That it interferes with your emotional connection to the fiction.

I fully see how from the perspective of someone who enjoys an improvisational style it can be an imposition. Please try to see the other side of the coin.

 

[hawkeyefan]

I never said D&D is just as suited to any given thing as a bespoke game made to do that thing

I didn’t mention any other games at all.

I asked if D&D is as suited to the court intrigue setting I described as it is to a fantasy adventure game. What do you think?

And all manner of restrictions and procedures that limit what you can do.

But social or exploration encounters also have those in place. It’s just that they’re not rules heavy.

And as I said, I think the more important thing here is how having clear rules can promote creative play, while having (perceived) unlimited options can be a barrier. Especially when the rules that support these elements are not very robust.

Which allows you to do anything, by providing a process for determining success or failure, with optional rules and advice for making that non-binary when appropriate.

I don’t think it allows you to do anything. It allows you to declare whatever action that may be scene and genre appropriate, and then see if the GM allows it.

Hell, Call of Cthulhu engenders a certainly hopelessness by way of every move you take making you less capable (simplification, obv), but by doing so it makes it harder to tell stories with that game that aren’t the type of story it is built to tell.

Actually, I ditched the horror rules and now I use Call of Cthulhu for every genre and setting. It’s totally flexible!

 

[doctorbadwolf]

There's a reason why I am not claiming that one approach is more flexible than the other. The constraints are different. When we're playing a game that has mechanical teeth and aligns good play with player your character with integrity there's a social freedom to just do that. It gives a sort of permission to go to places that you would not have in normal group contexts. Because the game removes the player or GM's responsibility for how the story turns out. I am more free to act out in Masks because I can point to my sheet and say I have to if I want to clear Angry.

If you want to understand where I'm coming from you have to try to leave your improvisational storytelling play priorities behind. You have to imagine instead that you don't want to direct the story or be responsible for how things turn out. That you just to focus your energy on playing the world with integrity and seeing what comes. You have to be willing to see that making decisions about what success means can be an imposition. That it interferes with your emotional connection to the fiction.

I fully see how from the perspective of someone who enjoys an improvisational style it can be an imposition. Please try to see the other side of the coin.

I’m tired of this BS. I have played several such games. I am not coming at this from a position of ignorance. I just disagree with your conclusions, and with what I can figure out of your definition of the term “flexible”.

You keep bringing a past argument about system style preferences into it. I’m not interested in relitigating that argument.

Do you agree or disagree that within the game D&D 5e, combat is more focused than social challenges?

 

[aramis erak]

From my perspective there's no meaningful difference between a body of shared social expectations surrounding a game and a written rule in a rulebook. Both constrain our behavior at the table. In a game where the rules are enforced by the play group they have the same force. Often in traditional gaming culture the unwritten parts of the play culture almost have more influence then what's written in the books.

A big part of this is a difference in how we see games. From my perspective games are about the greater culture of play they engender. The point of any game is that it alters our existing social arrangements temporarily. That while we play it we take on the roles and objectives of the game.

Here's the rub... Many games' cultures are only engaged with after learning from the rulebooks sans game culture.
A few do try to establish a culture in the rulebook... Hero System does, by giving Everyman Says sidebars for engaging the math. Burning Wheel does by directly making it about "How We Play" explicitly in the cores. Moldvay and Mentzer both do, as well...

 

[pemerton]

This makes me wish I had more than just today off to get back into this thread...

Like so many things, folks are talking about how much you can hack other games, and how the game is built with a setting in mind but you don't have to use it, and stuff like that, but the idea that DnD relies on pre-established setting just flies right by without challenge.

Like...either the default assumptions of a game matter even if they aren't technically hard-coded into the rules text, or they don't.

You may be using pre-established setting differently from me.

I'm referring to preparation. D&D relies on preparation to resolve action declarations: eg in order to resolve the declaration I look for a secret door, someone needs to have decided whether or not a secret door is present. In order to resolve the declaration I search for a burning brand, someone needs to have decided whether or not a burning brand is present.

And reading on, I see @hawkeyefan made the same point.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I didn’t mention any other games at all.

I asked if D&D is as suited to the court intrigue setting I described as it is to a fantasy adventure game. What do you think?

Out of the box? Depends on your system preferences, but probably not for most groups. I’d rather do intrigue in an open ended skill system where action and reaction aren’t prescribed than in a system prescribed by “if, then” mechanics. What’s this got to do with comparative flexibility, though?

But certainly 5e can do it, and I wouldn’t consider it a big deal to add intrigue rules depending on what I wanted out of it.

But social or exploration encounters also have those in place. It’s just that they’re not rules heavy.

Right, there are rules, but less or more depending on what part of the game you’re dealing with. The sweet spot for me is between 5e combat and 5e skill stuff, but both are close enough. Combat needs more design oriented toward getting players to improvise and just think of things to do and try to do it, but D&D is what it is.

And as I said, I think the more important thing here is how having clear rules can promote creative play, while having (perceived) unlimited options can be a barrier. Especially when the rules that support these elements are not very robust.

As long as your “can be”s are oriented toward different players and groups having different preferences, expectations, and…natures in terms of what inspires and what restricts, sure.

Somewhat funny to me, is that on one hand, I’m being told (not by you, to be fair) that D&D is a highly narrowly focused game, and on the other hand that it is too loose and that restricts creativity.

At the same time, I’m being told that culture of play and social expectation are basically rules, but then also told that the task resolution system of 5e has no definition, as if culture of play and social expectations don’t help define the shared understanding of what will and won’t work, what methods will be used to determine outcomes, etc.

I don’t think it allows you to do anything. It allows you to declare whatever action that may be scene and genre appropriate, and then see if the GM allows it.

Same thing. No (good) game is going to allow literally anything. You can’t randomly decide to fly in any game that doesn’t assume dream logic or something similar, for instance.

Actually, I ditched the horror rules and now I use Call of Cthulhu for every genre and setting. It’s totally flexible!

Okay.

 

[Sithlord]

D&D is best for playing D&D. And possibly Dresden (ducks for cover)

 

[doctorbadwolf]

You may be using pre-established setting differently from me.

I'm referring to preparation. D&D relies on preparation to resolve action declarations: eg in order to resolve the declaration I look for a secret door, someone needs to have decided whether or not a secret door is present. In order to resolve the declaration I search for a burning brand, someone needs to have decided whether or not a burning brand is present.

And reading on, I see @hawkeyefan made the same point.

No I’m using it the same as you. It isn’t required. I explained that in a previous post.