I was rereading Ron Edwards' fantasy hearbreaker essays, and they prompted the question in the thread title.
Of course, 5e can't really be a fantasy heartbreaker - it doesn't tick the relevant boxes on publishing context, or design. But I was struck by Edwards' account of the imaginative content of a fantasy heartbreaker:
I don't mind a game that supports this sort of play, but I hope that this is not the only sort of play it supports. When I hear about playtest runs throught the Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth, though, I get worried.
Of course, 5e can't really be a fantasy heartbreaker - it doesn't tick the relevant boxes on publishing context, or design. But I was struck by Edwards' account of the imaginative content of a fantasy heartbreaker:
A Fantasy Heartbreaker's basic, imaginative content is "fantasy" using gaming, specifically D&D, as the inspirational text. What's D&D Fantasy? Well, it's about seting up a character starting-point with a strong random component as well as a strong strategy component, having encounters, surviving them (or not), and improving. What characters do is travel, team up, bicker a bit, walk a tightrope between cooperating and exploiting one another, suss out threats (risk assessment is a big deal), and fight with unavoidable or especially rewarding ones. Some giveaway details: gotta have elves and dwarves, gotta have underground complexes, gotta have teams of adventurers, gotta have array of tactical possibilites for combat (armor/weapons), gotta have similar array of spells, gotta ramp up the range and scope of both arrays with "experience," and gotta have a chock-full smorgasbord of threats. . .
Another issue concerns the three-plateau assumption regarding a character over time: a prolonged "weeny" stage, a brief "pretty damn good" stage, and an upwardly-spiralling "unstoppable" stage, straight out of old-school D&D. When faced with a potential threat, the first thing to do is decide whether it's out of your league, and the second thing to do, if it's in your league, is to identify its particular limiting factor relative to your own. Let's check out this issue a bit more carefully, though - I think it's central to D&D fantasy that a character must start with a very high risk of dying and very little ability to change the world around him or her, and then increase in effectiveness, scope, and ability to sustain damage, all on a positive exponential fashion.
The concept seems to be that the player must serve his or her time as a schlub, greatly risking the character's existence, in order to enjoy the increased array and benefits of the powers, ability, and effectiveness that can only be accumulated through the reward-system. An enormous amount of the draw to play a particular game seems to be based on explicitly laying out what the character might be able to do, later, if he or she lives. I want to distinguish this paradigm very sharply from the baseline "character improves through time" found in most role-playing games. This is something much, much more specific. . .
The key assumption throughout all these games is that if a gaming experience is to be intelligent (and all Fantasy Heartbreakers make this claim), then the most players can be relied upon to provide is kind of the "Id" of play - strategizing, killing, and conniving throughout the session. They are the raw energy, the driving "go," and the GM's role is to say, "You just scrap, strive, and kill, and I'll show ya, with this book, how it's all a brilliant evocative fantasy."
It's not Illusionism - there's no illusion at all, just movement across the landscape and the willingness to fight as the baseline player things to do. At worst, the players are apparently slathering kill-counters using simple alignment systems to set the bar for a given group (e.g. Deathstalkers); sometimes, they are encouraged to give characters "personality" like "hates fish" or "likes fancy clothes"; and most of the time, they're just absent from the text, "Player who? Character who?" (e.g. Undiscovered). The Explorative, imaginative pleasure experienced by a player - and most importantly, communicated among players - simply doesn't factor into play at all, even in the more Simulationist Fantasy Heartbreakers, which are universally centered on Setting.
Another issue concerns the three-plateau assumption regarding a character over time: a prolonged "weeny" stage, a brief "pretty damn good" stage, and an upwardly-spiralling "unstoppable" stage, straight out of old-school D&D. When faced with a potential threat, the first thing to do is decide whether it's out of your league, and the second thing to do, if it's in your league, is to identify its particular limiting factor relative to your own. Let's check out this issue a bit more carefully, though - I think it's central to D&D fantasy that a character must start with a very high risk of dying and very little ability to change the world around him or her, and then increase in effectiveness, scope, and ability to sustain damage, all on a positive exponential fashion.
The concept seems to be that the player must serve his or her time as a schlub, greatly risking the character's existence, in order to enjoy the increased array and benefits of the powers, ability, and effectiveness that can only be accumulated through the reward-system. An enormous amount of the draw to play a particular game seems to be based on explicitly laying out what the character might be able to do, later, if he or she lives. I want to distinguish this paradigm very sharply from the baseline "character improves through time" found in most role-playing games. This is something much, much more specific. . .
The key assumption throughout all these games is that if a gaming experience is to be intelligent (and all Fantasy Heartbreakers make this claim), then the most players can be relied upon to provide is kind of the "Id" of play - strategizing, killing, and conniving throughout the session. They are the raw energy, the driving "go," and the GM's role is to say, "You just scrap, strive, and kill, and I'll show ya, with this book, how it's all a brilliant evocative fantasy."
It's not Illusionism - there's no illusion at all, just movement across the landscape and the willingness to fight as the baseline player things to do. At worst, the players are apparently slathering kill-counters using simple alignment systems to set the bar for a given group (e.g. Deathstalkers); sometimes, they are encouraged to give characters "personality" like "hates fish" or "likes fancy clothes"; and most of the time, they're just absent from the text, "Player who? Character who?" (e.g. Undiscovered). The Explorative, imaginative pleasure experienced by a player - and most importantly, communicated among players - simply doesn't factor into play at all, even in the more Simulationist Fantasy Heartbreakers, which are universally centered on Setting.
I don't mind a game that supports this sort of play, but I hope that this is not the only sort of play it supports. When I hear about playtest runs throught the Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth, though, I get worried.
