Not a Conspiracy Theory: Moving Toward Better Criticism in RPGs

[Campbell]

I'd disagree here... I think 5e sets down the fundamentals of gameplay and the fundamentals of its play loop but leaves the details as well as the application up to the individual DM or table.

I would agree with this, but from my perspective so does Apocalypse World. The fundamentals of its play loop are just different.

 

[hawkeyefan]

I'd disagree here... I think 5e sets down the fundamentals of gameplay and the fundamentals of its play loop but leaves the details as well as the application up to the individual DM or table.

It’s likely we’re quibbling more about what’s fundamental. That the GM sets DCs for ability checks is fundamental for sure. Are the DCs to be openly shared with players prior to a roll? You’d probably say that’s a detail left up to the GM… I’d say that’s a fundamental thing that is not stated specifically.

But whichever label we put on it, my comparison to Blades still holds. Blades gives specific advice on that kind of stuff, and in any instance where it offers more than one way to do things, it explains the pros and cons of each way.

 

[FrogReaver]

I would agree with this, but from my perspective so does Apocalypse World. The fundamentals of its play loop are just different.

Where do you see the GM principles of AW factoring in here?

I view them as constraining when a dm can use a process established within the basic play loop.

 

[Thomas Shey]

I would argue that the ratio is closer to 50:50. After all, unlike virtually any game, you can’t start play in an rpg until you make characters. And then the scenario has to be created.

Now there are a bunch of ways either of those activities can be done but the point is, until you do them you can’t play.

I actually kind of agree with the idea that until we start sitting down and watching play being played over time that criticism in rpgs will always fall very short.

Sure we can talk about some of the mechanics but critiquing a game is more than just mechanics.

While true, that's a two-edged sword; watching a game in play can tell you some things that won't be obvious in reading, but it can also distort your sense of how the game plays at the table in either direction (i.e., people who have trouble with a particular game or it works for particularly well, or in more extreme cases, people that kind of have trouble with everything or will have a good time despite any fighting with mechanics).

 

[Manbearcat]

I really, really don't want to get involved in this conversation, but it has to be pointed out.

The idea that @pemerton couldn't run 5e "correctly"...like, right now...is...quite the claim. 5e is (basically) procedurally AD&D meets some repurposed/slimmed/discretized 4e tech + Bounded Accuracy + Adv/Disadv (present in tons of games including 4e) + Exhaustion (which is ripped from TB and discretized) + Inspiration/BIFTs (discretized version of Cortex+ or Fate tech) + Concentration (repurposed and extended 4e Stance tech) + Attunement + Social Interaction Loop (ripped from AW more or less).

So you take someone who is (a) an academic philosopher/lawyer whose professional life as about textual analysis + (b) someone who has run/played tons of AD&D and 4e + (c) someone who was around during the playtest so pretty much knows all of this stuff + (d) someone who clearly thinks intensively about TTRPGs. The idea that such a person would have any trouble at all resolving a session of 5e D&D is a pretty big stretch imo.

Simultaneously, though pemerton was very equipped to run Burning Wheel, I wouldn't have given him a chance to correctly run Torchbearer a few years ago. Not until he put in the work to understand not just the significant intricacies of the system (and how/where it diverges from BW) but how the entirety of each individual play loop (Town, Journey, Adventure, Camp) connects with each and integrates into a macro play loop to create the whole experience of play of the game. And then I still wouldn't have trusted him to deftly execute both Adventure building + the game's particular requirements of the GM on handling Fail Forward (how to manage the Twists or Condition + Success model and when to deploy Gear Twists vs the various other Twists etc).

As the saying goes, "there are levels to this" (going from one edition of a game to another or even going from one game within a family of games to another). Someone with little to no exposure trying to go from 4e to AD&D or vice versa? Not an easy thing. Someone trying to execute 3.x Encounter Budgets at level 11+ cold turkey? Good luck (I mean...even the most seasoned users have enormous trouble there)! Going from a background rich with AD&D and 4e + understanding how the 5e playtest went? Running 5e for such a person is not a tall order imo (and I would think that should be cast as a credit to the designers...that was, afterall, one of their biggest aims).

 

[Imaro]

I really, really don't want to get involved in this conversation, but it has to be pointed out.

The idea that @pemerton couldn't run 5e "correctly"...like, right now...is...quite the claim. 5e is (basically) procedurally AD&D meets some repurposed/slimmed/discretized 4e tech + Bounded Accuracy + Adv/Disadv (present in tons of games including 4e) + Exhaustion (which is ripped from TB and discretized) + Inspiration/BIFTs (discretized version of Cortex+ or Fate tech) + Concentration (repurposed and extended 4e Stance tech) + Attunement + Social Interaction Loop (ripped from AW more or less).

So you take someone who is (a) an academic philosopher/lawyer whose professional life as about textual analysis + (b) someone who has run/played tons of AD&D and 4e + (c) someone who was around during the playtest so pretty much knows all of this stuff + (d) someone who clearly thinks intensively about TTRPGs. The idea that such a person would have any trouble at all resolving a session of 5e D&D is a pretty big stretch imo.

Simultaneously, though pemerton was very equipped to run Burning Wheel, I wouldn't have given him a chance to correctly run Torchbearer a few years ago. Not until he put in the work to understand not just the significant intricacies of the system (and how/where it diverges from BW) but how the entirety of each individual play loop (Town, Journey, Adventure, Camp) connects with each and integrates into a macro play loop to create the whole experience of play of the game. And then I still wouldn't have trusted him to deftly execute both Adventure building + the game's particular requirements of the GM on handling Fail Forward (how to manage the Twists or Condition + Success model and when to deploy Gear Twists vs the various other Twists etc).

As the saying goes, "there are levels to this" (going from one edition of a game to another or even going from one game within a family of games to another). Someone with little to no exposure trying to go from 4e to AD&D or vice versa? Not an easy thing. Someone trying to execute 3.x Encounter Budgets at level 11+ cold turkey? Good luck (I mean...even the most seasoned users have enormous trouble there)! Going from a background rich with AD&D and 4e + understanding how the 5e playtest went? Running 5e for such a person is not a tall order imo (and I would think that should be cast as a credit to the designers...that was, afterall, one of their biggest aims).

I think its pretty easy to "run" 5e simply because its fundamentals are simple to grasp... but that @pemerton couldn't run it wasn't the assertion being made. It was that he himself claimed one's posts in a discussion couldn't be taken seriously unless they had at least read the rules... then I asserted he hadn't read or owned the 5e core rules.

Now I've seen @pemerton make incorrect assertions about what advice, procedures and assumptions are given in the 5e rules because he has not in fact read or owned the PHB and DMG but I'm sure he could run it (just like most people could) from just the basic rules... just as some were able to run 3e from the srd... but I've seen you and him contend that both advice and recommended procedures are part of understanding the game.

 

[Grendel_Khan]

But whichever label we put on it, my comparison to Blades still holds. Blades gives specific advice on that kind of stuff, and in any instance where it offers more than one way to do things, it explains the pros and cons of each way.

Definitely agree here. Blades is specific in its play loop and guidance to a degree that, imo, makes it very hard for a lot of GMs to wrap their heads around, especially if it's your first storygame. When I first tried it about 5 years ago I was genuinely repulsed, and even years later it took me running Brindlewood Bay, and getting a handle on success-with-consequences being the default result, before I could work out how Blades both encourages and channels chaos in specific ways and phases.

I'm not saying this to show that its inherently better than 5e (whatever my personal preferences are), but its much more clearly defined and even restricted in its play loops and explanations for how to maintain them. So much so that in the Scum and Villainy campaign I'm running right now I'm getting nervous about how to bring more friendly NPCs into the mix to potentially provide narrative stakes, given that FitD are basically never hangout games, the way games like 5e can be. FitD moves fast by design, and doesn't really play well (as far as I can tell) with languid, open-ended social exploration. That's not a flaw, as I see it, just a side effect of the games generally cutting to the chase.

 

[kenada]

Where do you see the GM principles of AW factoring in here?

I view them as constraining when a dm can use a process established within the basic play loop.

I can’t speak for @Campbell, but I view them as a fundamental part of the basic play loop rather than being “just” a constraint. They’re making a trade-off. It’s true you are giving up the ability to decide how a situation will play out, but in response you get to say whatever follows when you do get to say something. There’s no need to play nice and hold back.

For example, suppose the PCs are trying to climb up a tank of dangerous liquid that melts skin (as the party has determined both from the skull at the bottom of the tank plus other experimentation). The ladder is shaky, and the tank is visibly damaged. They know that one of the things that can go long is the tank collapses, dumping its contents everywhere and possibly exposing them to it. So they attempt to climb up, triggering Act Under Fire (the pressure being the risky situation). They roll and get 6−, and the tank comes toppling down.

How would that play out in D&D? Can the DM decide ask you to make a saving throw or die on a failed skill check? Well, yes. But there are caveats. Depending on the edition you’re playing, that kind of thing is going to be more or less normative in the play culture. I think it would be highly unusual in play with modern D&D editions, and some (if not many) players at least would view it unfairly. Their understanding is that you fail to complete the task on a failed skill check, and only disabling a trap prescribes that the trap goes off on a failed check, which is not what they were rolling.

Let me be clear, I’m not saying this isn’t the kind of response you can make in D&D when you narrate what happens. In fact, the example comes out of The Incandescent Grottoes, an adventure for Old-School Essentials (it’s room 17 on the 1st floor). While the dangerous tank isn’t the defective one, it’s absolutely in the referee’s purview to say it comes down or someone falls in. However, what the principles do in Apocalypse World is remove the sense of unfairness because it says explicitly: prepare for the worst on a 6−. The MC in that case is just doing what the rules demand of them.

The way Apocalypse World integrates principles with the mechanics and uses them as part of the play loop is easily one of my favorite things about PbtA systems (including relatives like Blades in the Dark). It’s one of the things I definitely wanted in my homebrew system when I realized they let me make moves like the above without risking a sense of unfairness. I think if I had been just running OSE, the conflict from last session would have seemed like I just wanted the monsters to fight the PCs regardless, but the principles (similar to PbtA but needing to be enumerated due to a WIP system) insulate from that. I’m just doing what the rules tell me to do when I frame those kinds of consequences.

 

[Manbearcat]

I think its pretty easy to "run" 5e simply because its fundamentals are simple to grasp... but that @pemerton couldn't run it wasn't the assertion being made. It was that he himself claimed one's posts in a discussion couldn't be taken seriously unless they had at least read the rules... then I asserted he hadn't read or owned the 5e core rules.

Now I've seen @pemerton make incorrect assertions about what advice, procedures and assumptions are given in the 5e rules because he has not in fact read or owned the PHB and DMG but I'm sure he could run it (just like most people could) from just the basic rules... just as some were able to run 3e from the srd... but I've seen you and him contend that both advice and recommended procedures are part of understanding the game.

I hope we can agree on the following:

1) “Advice” is a very different beast when it comes to a DIY, “make the game your own”, discretized toolkit game like 5e D&D vs something like Torchbearer where the constituent parts of the game are deeply interlocked procedure-wise, theme-wise, advancement-wise, and in terms of both the intricate tactical overhead/upkeep and the longitudinal impacts upon play.

2) Even there, the “levels to this” comes into play. Hand-waving or ignoring the “advice” on genre conceits/tone and tailoring in 5e is a very different beast from ignoring the impacts upon play of varying Rest schedules/dynamics and combat encounter budgeting.

 

[Imaro]

The way Apocalypse World integrates principles with the mechanics and uses them as part of the play loop is easily one of my favorite things about PbtA systems (including relatives like Blades in the Dark). It’s one of the things I definitely wanted in my homebrew system when I realized they let me make moves like the above without risking a sense of unfairness. I think if I had been just running OSE, the conflict from last session would have seemed like I just wanted the monsters to fight the PCs regardless, but the principles (similar to PbtA but needing to be enumerated due to a WIP system) insulate from that. I’m just doing what the rules tell me to do when I frame those kinds of consequences.

I'm curious... how would you compare/contrast the way PbtA does this with OSE's reaction and morale rolls?