Let's Talk About Core Game Mechanics

[pemerton]

Then you misunderstood. I was talking about the dice roll, about why the randomizer was there at all.

I don't feel that I've misunderstood. You assert that the randomisation represents causal elements in the fiction that have not been detailed.

I think that that is true only for a small range of RPGing, and as per my post upthread (#308) even in those RPGs it's far from straightforward (because the ideal in those RPGs is that everything is detailed).

 

[pemerton]

Don't get me wrong, I understand his point as well, but I don't think assessing the elements in isolation here is helpful (or maybe as helpful as he seems to).

I think the notion that the dice represent unspecified elements of the fiction - which I've heard a bit, certainly not just from @Thomas Shey - pushes strongly towards a "task resolution" approach to action resolution. For the reasons I gave upthread, it is a confusing issue even within super-simulationist RPGs like RQ and RM. (And that is based on experience, not just analysis.)

Whereas I find that Vincent Baker's account opens up a wider range of approaches to resolution - not just task resolution but, for instance, conflict/intent-based resolution of the BW sort, or "specify who gets to say what" sort of approach of AW. And solves the puzzle "What do the dice stand for?" by telling us "Nothing. They're a non-representational tool."

It's like the RPG equivalent of Kant working out that existence is not a predicate, or Wittgenstein (in the Tractatus) working out that logic, although symbolic, is not representational. What appeared to be puzzles get dispelled, and a clearer sense of what our procedure is doing, and is for, emerges.

 

[pemerton]

Obstacles, DCs, whatever - mechanics for adjudicating action difficulty - are all playing the same role, that of presenting an obstacle that cannot be overcome via roleplaying but that the player will have to subject his character to risk in order to achieve.

I think I posted the example, upthread, of a RPG that still uses obstacles/DCs, but that uses a non-random-in-the-moment mechanic: perhaps the player has to spend enough points to match the DC (Fate tends in this direction), or spends cards/dice from a pre-dealt hand (like Saga or DitV). This different sort of mechanic takes a very different approach to risk. In the Fate version, it leans towards neo-trad rather than story now because of that. (I don't know about Saga; and DitV is clearly story now but still uses randomisation differently from, say, BW.)

I don't think anyone would say that the Saga cards, or the play of the cards, is representational. Which is a good reason, I think, to regard the dice roll that the cards replace as also non-representational.

 

[Fenris-77]

I think I posted the example, upthread, of a RPG that still uses obstacles/DCs, but that uses a non-random-in-the-moment mechanic: perhaps the player has to spend enough points to match the DC (Fate tends in this direction), or spends cards/dice from a pre-dealt hand (like Saga or DitV). This different sort of mechanic takes a very different approach to risk. In the Fate version, it leans towards neo-trad rather than story now because of that. (I don't know about Saga; and DitV is clearly story now but still uses randomisation differently from, say, BW.)

I don't think anyone would say that the Saga cards, or the play of the cards, is representational. Which is a good reason, I think, to regard the dice roll that the cards replace as also non-representational.

And again, I disagree with you for the reasons I posted upthread. I am unconcerned with both the precise nature of the randomization and the method that is used to decide on task difficulty, and I was not indexing any of the specific systems you mention. My argument, simply, is that a decision by the player is what creates the opportunity to roll the dice, so I'm quite happy to identify the roll itself (or the cards, or whatever the heck) with the decision by the player that generates the mechanical moment in which they are rolled.

Anyway, I understand your point of view, I just don't think there's a lot of explanatory juice in saying anything about 'the roll' in RPG play without the context that creates and contains it. Shrug.