D&D General On Skilled Play: D&D as a Game

[pemerton]

The actor might be willing to forgo their preferred playstyle for this game. Or create a character in line with the playstyle.

The group might be willing to accept the actor doing his thing, despite that (or possibly even because) it will create additional complications for them.

I've played in groups where the actor frequently ended up wreaking havoc with our perfectly laid plans, and it was some of the most fun I've ever had. (This was not an SP game per se, fwiw.) But we established that he was going to do that in advance and we were all on board. I've also played in non-SP games where the actor did the same, but players took serious issue with it because they hadn't agreed to it.

I don't know that I can really answer that, not having the data needed.

Is the typical SP game so insistent on expecting skill carried across characters? The question runs both ways, that was a big part of my point.

I actually don't think it does run both ways. If everyone sits down to play Moldvay Basic, we know the goal of play is to extract treasure for the win. (Perhaps 38 years ago we didn't know that, for the reasons that @clearstream posted not far upthread; but now we do.) So having someone who refuses to play in that spirit would be similar to sitting down to play (say) Forbidden Island and have one player insist that s/he will only shore up a tile if she thinks that's what her "character" would do!

I think if you're sitting down to play a game, and have (expressly or implicitly) committed to doing so, it's not very friendly and can become pretty unsporting to deliberately break it or wreck it by neglecting the priorities of play. (The flipside of this is experienced players making allowances for new players: when I started play whist-type games seriously those I played with were better than me, and this manifested itself both in (i) me losing a lot at first, and (ii) them commenting on my play so that I would know how I could improve it, which I did.)

For me, this is where @Campbell's point above comes in: if we're playing a RPG where the goal is no more particular than everyone turns up and portrays their PC while the GM tells us what happens next then that "actor" player might fight right in. But that's not exhaustive of all RPGing, and I'm not really persuaded that it's a default in a normative sense - though of course it's pretty typical these days in a statistical sense.

 

[pemerton]

Not consistent with the your wizard "earning" being overly powerful at higher level needs to experience the weakness of that class/character at low levels balance paradigm is that.

I agree with this.

I think it's just more evidence that, in classic D&D, a lot of this stuff hadn't been thought through. It was being made up as they went along. @AbdulAlhazred already noted that the whole intended correlation between being a skilled player and having a character of meaningfully high level tended to break down due to weak GMing (and I think that the notion of "weak GMing" here is probably broader than "Monty Haul"); in these passages in the DMG we see Gygax struggling to work out how to preserve the correlation while also making concessions to the reality that 1st level is only fun so many times.

In the same book, on p 12, we can see him trying to cope with the tension between the promise of heroic fantasy and the reality of trying to collect coppers on the first dungeon level without being ganked by fire beetles:

It has been called to my attention that new players will sometimes become bored and discouraged with the struggle to advance in level of experience, for they do not have any actual comprehension of what it is like to be a powerful character of high level. In a well planned and well judged campaign this is not too likely to happen, for the superior DM will have just enough treasure to whet the appetite of players, while keeping them lean and hungry still, and always after that carrot just ahead. And one player’s growing ennui can often be dissipated by rivalry, ie, he or she fails to go on an adventure, and those who did play not only had an exciting time but brought back a rich haul as well. Thus, in my opinion, a challenging campaign and careful refereeing should obviate the need for immediate bestowal of levels of experience to maintain interest in the game. However, whatever the circumstances, if some problem such as this exists, it has been further suggested that allowing relatively new players to participate in a modular campaign game (assuring new players of characters of higher level) would often whet their appetites for continued play at lower level, for they can then grasp what it will be like should they actually succeed in attaining proficiency on their own by working up their original characters and gaining high levels of experience. This reasoning seems sound, and provided there is a separation of the two campaigns, and the one isn’t begun until new players have had some number of expeditions as 1st level characters, it is not destructive to the game as a whole.​

That passage is not any sort of deep expression of a design philosophy! It's an expression of thinking on the run about how to make the game work as soon as it has left the particular ecology of Gygax's table in Lake Geneva.

And to be clear, I don't hold it against Gygax that he was making this stuff up on the run (cf: I do hold it against him that he didn't bother to edit his manuscript to try and at least group discussions of the same topic together!). What I do tend to object to is RPGers who, 40+ years later, treat this stuff in the DMG as if it has Biblical significance and can never be departed from or improved upon.

 

[Vaalingrade]

Is the typical "actor" RPGer so insistent on playing in that fashion that nothing else is possible for him/her?

Well no, but if they're primarily an actor, it is going to put a celling on their fun.

I hate SP less because I am an actor and more because I'm not a fan of 'git gud' styles of play.

 

[pemerton]

Well no, but if they're primarily an actor, it is going to put a celling on their fun.

I hate SP less because I am an actor and more because I'm not a fan of 'git gud' styles of play.

I'm not into "skilled play", especially in its Gygaxian form. I think I already posted as much upthread. (And also in the "fair trap" thread.) And I'm not that good at it.

But if I turned up at a table that was playing that way, I'd do my best to be a good sport. And if we had to do some physical calculations like in the "fair trap" thread I'd be up for that! I GM a Classic Traveller game, and when the PCs were planning their ice drilling operations I was as happy as anyone to Google around a bit and spend half-an-hour or so working out how long it would take a triple-beam laser to blast through 4 km of ice. But I wouldn't want to GM that for multiple sessions straight!

 

[EzekielRaiden]

I didn't say it wasn't useful. I said that one shouldn't extrapolate from it the assumption that it won't work, since it certainly can. Whether or not it will work is entirely up to the individuals involved.

It seemed pretty clear to me that you did say that. Bold added for emphasis.

Awareness that SP and actors don't necessarily jive well can be useful if you're trying to diagnose that particular issue at your table. But it would be a mistake to extrapolate from it the reverse. An actor could play with an SP group and everyone could have a great time, depending on the individual actor and the group.

If it is useful to extrapolate in one direction and "a mistake" to do it in the reverse direction, I don't know how that isn't saying it's not useful. I don't generally think of "mistakes" as useful things.

I actually don't think it does run both ways. <snip> I think if you're sitting down to play a game, and have (expressly or implicitly) committed to doing so, it's not very friendly and can become pretty unsporting to deliberately break it or wreck it by neglecting the priorities of play. (The flipside of this is experienced players making allowances for new players: when I started play whist-type games seriously those I played with were better than me, and this manifested itself both in (i) me losing a lot at first, and (ii) them commenting on my play so that I would know how I could improve it, which I did.)

So, there's absolutely no room whatsoever for asking, "well, I know my really close friend Sam really really loves X and is not very likely to have fun doing not-X, but I want to include Sam anyway, what should I do about that?" That is, you're starting from the idea that the actor petulantly refuses to play along, rather than it being a group of friends trying to accommodate everyone's interests as much as possible without sacrificing what they value. The latter seems much more likely and realistic to me--and that's a perfectly cromulent environment for asking not just "can this player be sufficiently flexible to embrace this style?", but also "can this style be sufficiently flexible to support this player?"

I just don't get how it would be pointless to ask whether SP is also flexible, if the group is trying to be friendly to all of its players and not simply a tyranny by majority. The healthiest solution will almost certainly result in at least some tweaks in both directions. There will almost surely be fewer concessions/compromises from the SP side, because that's the system baseline and the play expectation of the majority. But if you can identify elements of SP that the players don't really mind altering or dropping that would be a real problem for your super actor-focused best friend, why wouldn't you try?

 

[pemerton]

So, there's absolutely no room whatsoever for asking, "well, I know my really close friend Sam really really loves X and is not very likely to have fun doing not-X, but I want to include Sam anyway, what should I do about that?" That is, you're starting from the idea that the actor petulantly refuses to play along, rather than it being a group of friends trying to accommodate everyone's interests as much as possible without sacrificing what they value. The latter seems much more likely and realistic to me--and that's a perfectly cromulent environment for asking not just "can this player be sufficiently flexible to embrace this style?", but also "can this style be sufficiently flexible to support this player?"

I just don't get how it would be pointless to ask whether SP is also flexible, if the group is trying to be friendly to all of its players and not simply a tyranny by majority.

I just don't think this has anything to do with "skilled play". It's no different from whether a typical 5e D&D group should worry that someone might want to play an intense, character-driven game that 5e is inherently incapable of delivering; or whether a group thinking of playing 4e should worry that there might be a friend who'd like to join in but can't handle a character sheet with more than 10 entries on it.

Skilled play isn't anything special in being something that not everyone might enjoy.

 

[Campbell]

Here's the way I look at it : If we're having a poker night we don't change poker because Jimmy does not like the way poker works. We might do something different instead if the point is to just hang out. If the point is to play poker Jimmy can join us when we play euchre.

In my experience usually what happens when we try to be flexible in this way is that play moves towards normative cultural standards of play. In other words traditional and neotraditional playstyles. That makes Campbell sad.

 

[pemerton]

In my experience usually what happens when we try to be flexible in this way is that play moves towards normative cultural standards of play. In other words traditional and neotraditional playstyles.

Which is to say - approaches to RPGing in which player decisions don't matter much to what happens in play.

 

[Manbearcat]

Here's the way I look at it : If we're having a poker night we don't change poker because Jimmy does not like the way poker works. We might do something different instead if the point is to just hang out. If the point is to play poker Jimmy can join us when we play euchre.

In my experience usually what happens when we try to be flexible in this way is that play moves towards normative cultural standards of play. In other words traditional and neotraditional playstyles. That makes Campbell sad.

Which is to say - approaches to RPGing in which player decisions don't matter much to what happens in play.

TTRPG culture is such an odd duck. You'll never experience this in sports or cards or boardgames or martial arts.

PERSON 1: "Hey guys, lets play basketball!"

PERSON 2: "But I want to go golfing!"

PERSON 3: " I know...lets compromise and combine the two!"

You can do the same thing but sub incompatible cardgames, boardgames, and a sparring session between grappling/striking martial arts. Just doesn't happen.

Even if sports are relatively compatible (hockey and soccer/futbol say), there are still going to be differences that just cannot be bridged. Play one this time. Play the other next time. No big deal. Why can't the individuals themselves be more malleable and compromise (rather than imposing a compromise, and the potential estrangement from the sought experience, of the gameplay at the group level)? Every other past-time besides TTRPGing works this way and that model has survived the collision of different play priorities just fine!

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

TTRPG culture is such an odd duck. You'll never experience this in sports or cards or boardgames or martial arts.

PERSON 1: "Hey guys, lets play basketball!"

PERSON 2: "But I want to go golfing!"

PERSON 3: " I know...lets compromise and combine the two!"

You can do the same thing but sub incompatible cardgames, boardgames, and a sparring session between grappling/striking martial arts. Just doesn't happen.

Even if sports are relatively compatible (hockey and soccer/futbol say), there are still going to be differences that just cannot be bridged. Play one this time. Play the other next time. No big deal. Why can't the individuals themselves be more malleable and compromise (rather than imposing a compromise, and the potential estrangement from the sought experience, of the gameplay at the group level)? Every other past-time besides TTRPGing works this way and that model has survived the collision of different play priorities just fine!

Has it? I think those are all simply very different games and each person plays the ones they're interested in. They might also, as you say, 'play the other next time'. OTOH I see little kids mushing things together all the time. I remember kids whacking a kickball with field hockey sticks, and other kids kicking it back at them, etc. Yeah, they had to make up 'rules' on the fly, but whatever they did was working for them!

Anyway, I think there are some fundamental differences in these activities (RPGs vs field sports) which account for the difference.