Manbearcat
Legend
You're good. There is nothing actionable in it, so you're just missing some theory crafting and self indulgent pontificating.
Full marks for consistency!
You're good. There is nothing actionable in it, so you're just missing some theory crafting and self indulgent pontificating.
That's fine, I don't have enough interest in the Forge stuff to dive into researching the Forge or to start my own thread about it, just enough to react and think critically about specific propositions like what you posted.@Voadam
I don’t wish to turn this thread into a deep dive analysis into Forge Incoherency Hypothesis (where I agree...where I disagree), but to address your thoughts above would take a VERY high word count (and derail the thread hard). My inquiry was basically to ask folks who already have a deep grasp of the hypothesis and developed opinions around it to let me know if there was an unrealized proxy war happening here.
But if you want to discuss Forge Incoherency Hypothesis and how it does or does not apply to 5e, I’ll gladly entertain that conversation if you want to PM me about it or start a new thread specifically about it (that conversation will be intense and volatile and overwhelm anything else)!
As a player I am a singularly 'focused on getting results', in a narrative sense, vs worried about which mechanics are invoked. So, when I see a super effective move that I can make, which then FOLLOWS UP with "and you now get to pick from all these cool effects the exact one you want" my answer is "hey, this meets all my needs." When I played a fighter in DW I just spammed Defend Another all over the place. It is easy to reliably invoke and is amazingly effective. Now, if I played the same fighter with YOUR wimpier version of DA, I'd have to work harder to leverage my high hit points and lots of DR, etc. into keeping the rest of the party in one piece. It probably would require more thought and more energy to do it.This is a very interesting and unexpected take.
In a singular move you have a limited resource that entails a decision-point between 4 powerful effects:
* Damage (that will reliably kill a mook or remove a substantial chunk of most creatures HP at mid level)
* Control (dictating enemy attacks to a tank is a huge control effect)
* Buff (+1 forward is powerful in DW)
* Mitigation (halve damage + armor turns most attacks into nothingburgers)
This is a move that allows a decision-point to toggle between Leader/Striker/Defender Stance or aspects of all 3. Do you think a 4e Fighter that had that kind of multivariate punishment (which you could build towards but not get to how powerful/versatile Defend is) for Mark violation would yield a less cognitively demanding/potentially skillfully deployed PC (again, across a hefty population of decision-points with this Mark usage)? It seems your answer is “<nuanced> yes.” I wonder if the player-base and the designers who felt that 4e was/is a more tactically robust and cognitively intensive game (and those that decried the game because it didn’t have “a simple Fighter”) would agree with you.
EDIT - Is your take a version of “5e Wizards with all of their choices/capability at low level (say, level 3) are less cognitively demanding/less potentially skillful (they’re EZMode) in application than their AD&D/Basic Wizards counterparts?”
@Manbearcat curious, where in GNS would you put Dungeon World? lol.
OK, no disagreement there, but it is very much simulating B/X at a narrative level too, though I suppose GNS doesn't really talk about simulationism in terms of one game simulating the narrative of another... Pity, it could be more convolved! lol. I guess, like you, I never really bought some of the tenets of GNS, though it seems to have mostly been born and died during a time when I was oblivious to what was going on with RPGs...Big N. Medium (or just north or south of the equator, depending upon the session) G.
EDIT I believe the hypothesis that the agendas or modes are necessarily incoherent doesn't drive reliable intuitions, and might lead to resisting important alternatives. So that there is unlikely to be an unrealised proxy war happening here such as might be thought to arise if the hypothesis amounted to a robust statement about our gaming reality.@Voadam
I don’t wish to turn this thread into a deep dive analysis into Forge Incoherency Hypothesis (where I agree...where I disagree), but to address your thoughts above would take a VERY high word count (and derail the thread hard). My inquiry was basically to ask folks who already have a deep grasp of the hypothesis and developed opinions around it to let me know if there was an unrealized proxy war happening here.
But if you want to discuss Forge Incoherency Hypothesis and how it does or does not apply to 5e, I’ll gladly entertain that conversation if you want to PM me about it or start a new thread specifically about it (that conversation will be intense and volatile and overwhelm anything else)!
You don't think with the fronts and such, some S?Big N. Medium (or just north or south of the equator, depending upon the session) G.
There's some kind of dissonance here. I have been leaving each round of discussion on this thread with new or better formed ideas, and new points of reference, that I have been actively using as I develop my next 5e (via FG), multi-DM campaign.You're good. There is nothing actionable in it, so you're just missing some theory crafting and self indulgent pontificating.
The 'S' in GNS refers to simulating SOME GENRE (or maybe more specific material, I mean you can go as specific as you want there). I think you could make a case that DW has an agenda to simulate classic dungeon crawl narratives. I really am not knowledgeable enough about it to make any statement as to whether or not that qualifies in 'GNS Theory'.You don't think with the fronts and such, some S?
EDIT This is where the word agendas can be quite helpful. Often one reads a post suggesting RPG X is unsuitable for Y and someone turns around and says, well we are doing Y with it. When I read DW, I think about the pithy expression of a game world that can be done using its concepts. So I might feel less committed by the DW rules to N and get right onto some S even if the DW designers had N as their big agenda (using the language of GNS).
The S is misleading. It's less about simulating, and more about exploring to understand. Immersion, abetted by, but not necessitating, any mechanical simulation. In particular, in my view there is no need to be simulating some genre. That's a red herring.The 'S' in GNS refers to simulating SOME GENRE (or maybe more specific material, I mean you can go as specific as you want there). I think you could make a case that DW has an agenda to simulate classic dungeon crawl narratives. I really am not knowledgeable enough about it to make any statement as to whether or not that qualifies in 'GNS Theory'.
I'm just saying, that is why it is called 'simulation' as in faithfully adopting the elements of a particular genre and reflecting them in your game. I understand that 99% of the world completely misconstrues this term. I merely was pointing out that DW actually DOES go out of its way to adopt and cloak itself in D&D genre elements (IE the classes are pretty much stock D&D classes, equipment, armor, crawling in dungeons, kitchen sink fantasy of a certain sort, specific types of monsters, etc.).The S is misleading. It's less about simulating, and more about exploring to understand. Immersion, abetted by, but not necessitating, any mechanical simulation. In particular, in my view there is no need to be simulating some genre. That's a red herring.
EDIT But you can use DW to serve any agenda, and it some concepts in DW are very suitable for a sim agenda IMO.
For me, it is too abstract and doesn't capture the real variety of games very well. I'll try and explain why (there may be some reiteration of earlier posts).In any game you have a conceptual maximum permissible number of moves that are constrained by the ruleset.
<snip>
At its most primordial level, playing skillfully is sorting through possible permutations of the move-space
<snip>
Do we at least agree with the above conception of skilled play? If not, can I get some clarification on disagreement?
By way of general agreement:If only we had some other pithy phrase to discuss games where the point of play is to prove you are skilled by overcoming challenge. One might call it something like Step On Up. That would be crazy though.
On this measure I don't see that there is much RPGing (other than maybe pretty railroad-y play) that doesn't permit of skilled play.
But then "skilled play"usesloses its utility as a label for a particular agenda and approach. And I at least want a label for that agenda and approach so I can keep clear of it! ("Gamism" won't do the job because (i) on ENworld that word is normally used quite differently from its Forge usage and (ii) gamism in the Forge sense includes gambling as well skilled play.)
EDIT: My typing is suffering with older age.
I had more thoughts about this.Approaching play from the perspective of what would Ragnar do is something I consider different in character to Jon what are you going to have Ragnar do to defeat this challenge. This often gets lost in many of these discussions.
I've snipped your second question, about the parameters of the DW "defend" move, because I can't add anything useful to the discussion about that between you and @AbdulAlhazred.Let me ask you a few things:
1) You have a moveset consisting of a possible 10 moves (let us just say 10 to keep things manageable) in a given situation where the configuration of the shared imagined space is thus (vs this or that or any other arrangement of elements of the fictional positioning...if it was this or that configuration, there would not only be a different number of permissible moves but there would also be, at least in part, variance within the subset of moves).
a) If you then include a thematic coefficient to each of those 10 moves (ranging from thematically degenerate to thematically coherent to thematically potent sufficient to trigger mechanical effect), would that make the cognitive workspace of managing that moveset and navigating that singular decision-point less or more demanding/intensive (cognitively)?
b) Then, would it be correct or incorrect or not applicable to make the claim "as it pertains to skill, managing the cognitive workspace of that decision-point has increased?"
I've finally caught up on this thread; and I'll finish my battery of replies with this one.5e wizards are certainly easy mode compared to 1e wizards. Now, low level... Eh, maybe you spend more time on analysis and choosing when to spend slots in 5e. OTOH spell selection is vastly easier. HIGH level play, the 1e wizard (Magic User) is quite a bit trickier to play. You have to do a LOT of prep. Questioner of All Things layers his prep. He's got Staff of Power to deal with a lot of minor utility stuff, and then a couple other items which cover other basic needs, as well as certain contingencies. So then there's the fun question of picking the right mix of potions, scrolls, and memorized spells so as to provide additional contingency options, backups for things that might get expended etc. OTOH my 5e Transmuter could rely much more on simply having the ability to use go-to spells multiple times and that a number of utilities can be left to rituals. He found far less need to plan out exactly how each spell selection fit into the whole kit.
If the goal is 'overcome this NPC by any means available' then skilled play entails using any means necessary.From what you write I think you get my point though, right? That although you can roleplay your character and engage in "skilled play", "skilled play" doesn't care if you roleplay your character. That is orthogonal to it.
I liked your post, but also it leads me to a conundrum. @pemerton suggests thatIf the goal is 'overcome this NPC by any means available' then skilled play entails using any means necessary.
If the goal is 'overcome this NPC without lying' then skilled play entails that lying should be avoided.
This is how RP choices can constrain play while still allowing for skilled play - by shifting the 'goals of play' such that the new goal becomes 'overcome the obstacle while maintaining Roleplay Constraints'.
So I think roleplaying the character does matter in General Skilled play even if it didn't matter in Gygaxian Skilled play, due to the subtle differences in goals.
5e D&D doesn't open up the same sort of scope for skilled play in this respect as does classic D&D or (as observed by my D&D friend 30 years ago) Rolemaster.
Yeah, 1e certainly makes playing a magic user hard. I mean, the cognitively difficult part at low level is probably more figuring out "How can I make my 3 marginally useful spells (because that's all I randomly got in my book) do some useful work? Should I take 'Affect Normal Fires' or 'Mending' because I'm definitely taking 'Shield' as my first spell! How do I make my only 2nd level spell, 'Fools Gold' useful? Of course there is huge variation, if the DM let you capture some fat spellbook from a bad guy, then it is more a question of 'when do I unleash web?' and that's not so hard... So maybe 5e's 3rd level Wizard is a bit more involved, he's got more options DURING PLAY, but it could be easier to decide what spells to memorize.Third, conclusion: I readily accept your proposition that 5e D&D doesn't open up the same sort of scope for skilled play in this respect as does classic D&D or (as observed by my D&D friend 30 years ago) Rolemaster. I don't know where Dungeon World would fall into this matrix of evaluation. I think that Burning Wheel retains, from its FRPG heritage, some elements of "clever use of spells" but not under the same sorts of constraints or optimisation parameters as classic D&D or RM.