Not a Conspiracy Theory: Moving Toward Better Criticism in RPGs

[Thomas Shey]

As I just said in my last post, I think it's because in trad play, each roll is very tied to the character's performance at the given task. Each roll in PbtA and FitD (and similar games) is less about that and more about how the overall attempt goes. It's factoring in many elements rather than just the character's skill (stats) and effort (die roll).

I think that's a perfectly sound analysis--but as I noted, its hard to get people to view failure in traditional play as not about player incompetence as is (even though some parts of the random die roll have to be factoring in outside influences that are below the level of depiction in almost all cases), so the people who have issues with that are not going to suddenly be better about it when the die roll is doing even more heavy lifting.

 

[prabe]

Quick, related anecdote seems relevant!

Last night in our Stonetop game, the group is on a long and harrowing journey to the far north of The Great Wood with the goal being to prevent The Golden Oak, which has been untended for centuries due to an unfulfilled and forgotten Stonetop covenant, from fading from their world (and into the equivalent of The Feywild).

While tracking (reverse engineering their charted course since they slew them last session) some fey giants to what they hope will be Danu's Causeway (the means to traverse this world to get to the fading tree), they encountered a large group of massive (as in size Large to Huge) magical bucks with prismatic antlers in full rut for the mating season. One of those was corrupted by the putrefaction of The Darkness Underfoot. All of the bucks occupied with their own clashes and giving this sickened buck a wide berth, the corrupted beast charged the group in an open, deforested area.

This was a result of a 7-9 on their tracking move; they track the Fey Giants but a significant change in situation occurs to stall the tracking.

They all attempted to haul ass, get to the treeline and get away from the blighted beast and this earth-quaking, tree-splintering rut.

On their Struggle As One, they got a collective 7-9 result. They have a large group of NPCs with them (Wisent the Air Spirit, Henry, Cliff, Voistek, Tooth, the Blessed's two remaining wolf companions Finn and Thorn) including a pair of of trusty Draft Horses Delly and Hoss. So we have Success with Consequence. They get the slow NPCs on the horses and scatter and all of the other NPCs get away.

However, The Blessed and The Heavy are stuck because of how much time it took to get the big, lumbering Tooth on the back of Hoss and get them out of danger. The massive, corrupted buck is bearing down on them and is going to trample them without intervention. Its still at Near range so The Blessed can act with his Far range Danu's Grasp (the equivalent of "Entangle" with some other stuff).

The Blessed's player gets a 6-. He marks xp and I make a hard move. The vines are too slow, the creature too powerful, and the buck vomits a corruptive line of Scarlet Putrefaction at Gavin The Blessed. This is a big damage, magic attack w/ No Armor Applies + Grabby tag (it entombs you in a putrefying cocoon that will infect you if you don't break out immediately; think Aliens).

@hawkeyefan (who plays The Judge; a Paladin of Knowledge, Harmony, Rebuker of Chaos), saw the trouble with Tooth, Hoss, Gavin, and Trys (the Heavy). So instead of shepherding everyone to safety, he makes a beeline for his friends to try to protect them.

Someone is taking this Scarlet Putrefaction attack. Cullen ( @hawkeyefan 's character) throws himself in front of the attack, interceding to save his (fragile compared to Cullen) friend. This could be a Defend move (of which Cullen has an array of moves to amplify it and broaden it) or it could be a Defy Danger; the Danger here being Scarlet Putrefaction to Gavin...the Defying it meaning "intercede to take the blow in Gavin's stead."

@hawkeyefan has a Defy Danger move (The Tower Eternal) that turns any 6- result against Magic/Supernatural into a 7-9. So he elects to go with that instead of Defend. He ends up getting his 7-9.

Gavin is safe as Cullen barrels into him, knocking him out of the way, taking the blow instead. Cullen takes damage and is cocooned in a putrefying shell. I let him decide on either worst of 2 dice for damage or to mitigate the putrefying shell (Grabby tag) effect. He elects to go with worst of 2 dice for damage.

I think Cullen took 4 of his 19 HP? He's entombed in a putrefying cocoon (he has a thematic resource that can get him out of this automatically, but he's also very capable of bursting it with Defy Danger...but he has to or he'll become infected with the Scarlet Putrefaction) with the corrupted buck bearing down on him.

But Gavin is safe.

@hawkeyefan , did that feel like "a failure?" Did the Tracking move of 7-9 feek like "a failure?" Did the Struggle As One (collective Defy Danger) move of 7-9 feel like "a failure?"

Did the rest of the play of our evening feel like it was downstream of/a signature of "failure?"

I'm confident some folks here would feel "failure" (all the way down). But that is just an autobiographical idiosyncratic component of their mental orienting and processing. Its not an objective outgrowth of the system or the play.

There was at least one player who gave an after action report that referenced the dice persistently cacking and cited that event as an example.

 

[hawkeyefan]

I think that's a perfectly sound analysis--but as I noted, its hard to get people to view failure in traditional play as not about player incompetence as is (even though some parts of the random die roll have to be factoring in outside influences that are below the level of depiction in almost all cases), so the people who have issues with that are not going to suddenly be better about it when the die roll is doing even more heavy lifting.

Sure, I get that. It is hard.

What makes it harder is when someone who has managed to do that themselves tries to offer some insight on how to do so, and then other people just constantly point out how hard it is and do everything they can to shut the very idea down.

Your constant pessimism does nothing for the conversation.

 

[Aldarc]

Consider this... when an enemy hits a character in D&D, we don't generally consider it a failure, right? It's more that the enemy succeeded in hitting us, not that we failed to defend ourselves. But what if D&D worked differently; what if rather than enemy attack rolls, players instead made defensive rolls? How would that alter our perceptions? We'd almost certainly start looking at a low defensive roll that results in an enemy hitting us as a "failure" and not categorize it as the enemy's success.

Here is where I would point to the Cypher System as an interesting point of comparison. It leans heavily into being a traditional game; however, the GM never rolls, only players roll, including for defense against enemy attacks and abilities.

 

[Campbell]

I think that's a perfectly sound analysis--but as I noted, its hard to get people to view failure in traditional play as not about player incompetence as is (even though some parts of the random die roll have to be factoring in outside influences that are below the level of depiction in almost all cases), so the people who have issues with that are not going to suddenly be better about it when the die roll is doing even more heavy lifting.

Sure it can be hard to see. For many people those differences won't matter, but the underlying context of what a roll is and what it corresponds to in the fiction is just different. This is another apples/oranges thing.

As far as addressing where these complaints usually come from games like Apocalypse World are a very poor fit if you enjoy displaying your character's competence as a fundamental part of the play experience. Not because the characters are incompetent (quite the opposite usually), but because the game highlights their struggles rather than overcoming problems.

 

[Manbearcat]

There was at least one player who gave an after action report that referenced the dice persistently cacking and cited that event as an example.

I suspect by, "that event", we're drawing upon not a singular move made, but the sequence of moves made + an extremely dangerous situation (made up of multiple dangerous foes with high damage expressions, ignore armor attacks, Grabby and Forceful Tags, Debility or Scarlet Putrefaction Injury). And not just the sequence of moves made, but also the resultant damage rolls. That is very far from "a 7-9 (success with complications) yields failure-feeling (and/or "failure-materializing") play.

So you're talking:

* 6- by Gavin on Danu's Grasp.

* 6- by Trys (the player in question you're referring to) on Defend (Cullen). However, she has a move Guardian that lets here hold 1 Readiness even when she gets a 6- on Defend. So she has to spend that 1 Readiness to turn the attack from Cullen to herself. Without any further Readiness (for instance, Cullen gets 3 Readiness on a 7-9 AND shuts down Forceful tag...so he can basically dominate play with a 7-9 Defend result), she can't reduce the damage of the attack or mitigate the Trample (Forceful tag).

- Then Trys rolls an 8 on the 1d10 (+3) for damage = 11 - her 2 Armor for 9 damage. And she can't shut down Forceful because of her only having the 1 Readiness from the her 6- Defend move. So now she is trampled and on the ground under the giant buck.

- Then she Roils With Anger for another 6-. However, the Complication that she was able to chose didn't bring about a problem for her allies because she was far away (having been trampled and dragged) from them at that point.

So, right there alone, we're not talking about a 7-9 result. We've got a lot of confounders. We've got 3 x 6- results and a huge damage roll.

Another confounder is that we had 4 more 6- rolls in the course of the events. However, @hawkeyefan was able to amend those from 6- to 7-9 (via Cullen's currency of Diligence from his Chronicling) + 2 x Inspiration (gained from a Journey move where the NPC's Cliff and Delly the horse raised the spirits of the fellowship) currency spent to raise 2 x NPC's Struggle With One results from 6- to 7-9. If those 6- weren't turned into 7-9 (Success with Complication), things would have daisy chained even more considerably than the did.

And this is before a later exchange between Trys and the Corrupted Buck where she only managed a 7-9 on Clash and then, again, rolled enormously high on the counterattack damage against her (but then immediately rolled a 10+ on her Defy Danger Con against the Scarlet Putrefaction).

---

So, on the whole, while the input is certainly appreciated. There are far too many confounders (successive 6-'s, 2 x huge damage rolls on 1d10, and not to mention 4 x 6- results turned into 7-9 results by currency which were significant in perturbing the unfolding situation toward a trajectory of "success" rather than "defeat") here to support the claim "7-9 move results are/feel like failures." A singular move might. But the play of last night is basically the entirety of the bell curve of play put on display (I would say on the whole, last night was very "bell curve-ey" but with 2 x huge damage rolls against Trys). It was probably 20 % 6- results, 60 % 7-9 results, 20 % 10 + results.

The dice probably did feel "cacked" for them. But I think part of that is because they've been rather fortunate over the course of this 1 year long game!

And they won. It was absolutely awesome. And they've found respite, Kept Company with each other (earning Loyalty all around the NPC groups by Paying Their Cost) and picked up the trail of the Hagr (Fey Cyclops).

 

[Xamnam]

@FrogReaver @Xamnam This idea that we can't judge cultural or artistic products without judging those who like them or engage with them is just weird.

I wrote out a big long point by point response, pretty much just reiterating what I said before, and I realized I was coming at it from a very unhelpful front, so I'll try and respond simply and shortly.

I agree with your statement here. Or to rephrase it slightly, I do think you can criticize cultural/artistic productions without inherently judging those who like them. In addition, I'm not against comparing things, or saying that something serves a specific purpose better than another.

However, I think, when dealing with humans, even when we're trying to elevate dialogue intentionally and everyone is on board, it is easy to respond to emotionally to things. If the goal is better communication, then taking the steps we can to mitigate that (especially if they are low cost and don't muddy the point being made) is a worthwhile and noble goal.

Even if you personally don't hear a criticism of your choices, and by extension you, in someone saying "This thing [you like/are advocating for/are defending] is bad," (and hey, good on you for that) it is a common reaction, and one that has a sensible, understandable reasoning behind it.

So, if we know that people can and will have negative reactions to that sort of comment, let's avoid it. That's my point. Because, fundamentally, is just saying something is "bad" ever important (as opposed to saying something is bad at X, or I don't like what it's trying to do)? There are two uses where that shorthand seems to have some specific extra intrinsic value. 1. The person using it actively wants to be emotionally dismissive of something. It's lack of value is so obvious and apparent it's not worth detailing why it is. 2. The people in discussion all share largely the same opinion, and this is well-trod ground that doesn't need to go over again. Neither of those seem productive in light of what this thread is about.

I like things that have flaws. I can acknowledge their flaws. I know other people won't like them for those reasons, and probably for other reasons that I hadn't previously considered. But if I like something, it's because I think it has at least some facet of value. If we're talking about it, I want to have a conversation about the reasons why you don't like it and why I do. Something simply being described as bad doesn't lead to that nearly as directly, and is more likely to get someone's hackles up.

So much for being short.

 

[hawkeyefan]

So, on the whole, while the input is certainly appreciated. There are far too many confounders (successive 6-'s, 2 x huge damage rolls on 1d10, and not to mention 4 x 6- results turned into 7-9 results by currency which were significant in perturbing the unfolding situation toward a trajectory of "success" rather than "defeat") here to support the claim "7-9 move results are/feel like failures." A singular move might. But the play of last night is basically the entirety of the bell curve of play put on display (I would say on the whole, last night was very "bell curve-ey" but with 2 x huge damage rolls against Trys). It was probably 20 % 6- results, 60 % 7-9 results, 20 % 10 + results.

The dice probably did feel "cacked" for them. But I think part of that is because they've been rather fortunate over the course of this 1 year long game!

And they won. It was absolutely awesome. And they've found respite, Kept Company with each other (earning Loyalty all around the NPC groups by Paying Their Cost) and picked up the trail of the Hagr (Fey Cyclops).

Yeah, I think it’s fair to say that the dice weren’t always with us last night, for sure. Luckily we were able to mitigate some of that with use of Diligence and Inspiration.

But the dice not being with us didn’t translate, in my mind, to the characters failing. It translated to “oh crap, this is really dangerous” but I never felt like “Cullen and Trys just can’t do anything right”.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Sure, I get that. It is hard.

What makes it harder is when someone who has managed to do that themselves tries to offer some insight on how to do so, and then other people just constantly point out how hard it is and do everything they can to shut the very idea down.

Your constant pessimism does nothing for the conversation.

It's doing exactly what I intend; hosing down the idea that because people already used to the idea of success-with-complications are not bothered by it no significant percentage of other people will. Otherwise, your response has seemed an offhand dismissal of those people as irrelevant. You don't get to ignore that point just because its inconvenient for you, nor do I feel obliged to let you because you don't like my doing so.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Here is where I would point to the Cypher System as an interesting point of comparison. It leans heavily into being a traditional game; however, the GM never rolls, only players roll, including for defense against enemy attacks and abilities.

On the other hand, I should note that it leans pretty heavily into GM fiat, so its not offloading many of the die rolls a GM might have made to complicate a situation on the players. Whether that's an improvement is in the eye of the beholder (I don't think so) but it at least has to be kept in mind.