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

[AbdulAlhazred]

So if I know my Strength (Athletics) gives me a 45% chance to leap the chasm, while staying and fighting the hook horrors is certain doom, then rolling dice in that case would fall under "skilled play"?

Keep at it! I think you and @pemerton (as usual) have the clearest definition. Skilled Play is "application of the rules which does not elide potentially explicit fiction." The whole word 'skilled' is really very misleading. I mean, who's to say what is or is not 'clever'. It is entirely situational and subjective! The core qualitative thing is the elision of fiction. So a game which is not classic Skilled Play is one in which you don't play out every cognizable detail, but instead abstract some of them.

Combat ala AD&D is a a bit of an edge case. Clearly there is a considerable abstraction. OTOH players wouldn't really be able to delve down into the minutia of how they wield their swords, move their feet, etc. because they have no actual understanding of how to sword fight. The abstraction of attacking and being attacked, while possibly moving around, etc. seems good enough to me. It allows for critical decision points that are relevant and thematic, etc. PERSONALLY I think this points the way towards something closer to modern Story Now kind of play, where fiction (and possibly mechanics) decide what is relevant and when or if it constitutes a decision point, and then you leverage some process to move to another decision point, potentially eliding things (just describing them, or maybe not even that in all cases) that aren't relevant to the agenda. Thus DW can pass up on how the orc swings its sword, or the player can describe how he blocked a blow and ran the orc through, or whatever.

I don't really see how deploying elision in that sense is really conceptually that different from what Gary was trying to do. He's frustrated at his players for pixel bitching every door. He just never reached the point of reconceptualizing the elision process to be directly servicing the agenda. In one sense it is a small step, and in another a giant leap. Even 5e doesn't make that leap. It may not be classic Skilled Play to use its Diplomacy skill, but it is fundamentally doing the same job that OD&D does.

 

[Maxperson]

In the end it has to boil down to GRANULARITY. Here's an example: "My fighter lifts the gate." This is an ATOMIC action, it could invoke a skill check, or simply a comparison to the PC's STR ability score. Either way there's no realistic process by which to break it down into component actions. While this action might not be termed 'skilled' in that it is just an ordinary obvious application of your PC to the fiction, it is in keeping with the 'Skilled Play' definition.

The way I read skilled play as described in the DMG is not just interacting with the environment, which almost everything does in some manner, but doing so in a way which maximizes success/safety and minimizes failure/risk of death.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

"Skilled play" as used in the context of the OP and this thread is not a property of action declarations. It's a play priority - an aspiration one has for how one will successfully go about playing the game.

It contrasts, for instance, with the play priorities that underpin the DL modules, or the very different play priorities that underpin my play of Cortex+ Heroic or Prince Valiant or Wuthering Heights.

OK, agenda is definitely another valid way to look at it. Of course that means we cannot really specifically state what is or is not Skilled Play in terms of actions and such. We would have to abstract play to the agenda, and then judge. Again though, there's always those factors of granularity, and lack of a fixed and fully defined fiction. Is it really not possible to say "My agenda is that the players deploy clever and elegant fiction-based problem solving approaches" incompatible with a player saying something like "We will fight the orcs in the thrown room because otherwise they will be able to reinforce the dragon when we attack it, but the dragon doesn't care if we kill the orcs, he's arrogant and doesn't value them as allies." Isn't that equally engaging the fiction in a clever way to solve a problem? It is just more abstract in that (depending on how you use the combat system in AD&D) it might elide some specific fiction and has a highly stochastic character.

I think Skilled Play is like 'pornography, we know it when we see it.' You'll never be able to define it so you can say for sure that a given example of play is or is not clearly within its bounds.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I wouldn't necessarily focus too much on NFR as a term. That was just a quick name that I came up with more to illustrate that we shouldn't get too hung up on the terminology itself (restricting "skilled play" to only include explicit expressions of skill). While I think that "skilled play" is less than ideal as a term, it's not only unlikely to change at this late stage, but even if it were there would certainly be others more qualified than myself to coin the new term.

If everyone agreed to call this concept supercalifragilisticexpialidocious then that would work too, since we've all agreed to use that as the common term. However, it would be silly to assert that it suddenly had any relationship to Mary Poppins musical numbers as a result of the terminology. While "skilled play" certainly does encompass player skill, I'm not convinced that everything it encompasses qualifies as skill.

OTOH creating a terminology which is designed to allow analysis and analytically-based discussion of a topic is always a critical part of studying any such topic. We are, for better or worse, heavily dependent on language, both for communication and as a medium of thought itself.

 

[Fanaelialae]

OTOH creating a terminology which is designed to allow analysis and analytically-based discussion of a topic is always a critical part of studying any such topic. We are, for better or worse, heavily dependent on language, both for communication and as a medium of thought itself.

Absolutely, I just wasn't putting myself forward as an authority who ought to be doing so. Narrative Focused Resolution isn't necessarily a terrible alternative to "skilled play". I'm just saying I think that there are others, more knowledgeable about it than myself, who could probably come up with better terminology.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

I don't really see how deploying elision in that sense is really conceptually that different from what Gary was trying to do.

A few brief words are necessary to insure that the reader has actually obtained a game form which he or she desires. Of the two approaches to hobby games today, one is best defined as the realism-simulation school and the other as the game school. AD&D is assuredly on adherent of the latter school. It does not stress any realism (in the author’s opinion an absurd effort at best considering the topic!).

It does little to attempt to simulate anything either. ADVANCED DUNGEONS & DRAGONS is first and foremost a game for the fun and enjoyment of those who seek to use imagination and creativity. This is not to say that where it does not interfere with the flow of the game that the highest degree of realism hasn‘t been attempted, but neither is a serious approach to play discouraged. In all cases, however, the reader should understand that AD&D is designed to be an amusing and diverting pastime, something which can fill a few hours or consume endless days, as the participants desire, but in no case something to be taken too seriously.

For fun, excitement, and captivating fantasy, AD&D is unsurpassed. As a realistic simulation of things from the realm of make-believe, or even as a reflection of medieval or ancient warfare or culture or society, it can be deemed only a dismal failure. Readers who seek the latter must search elsewhere. Those who desire to create and populate imaginary worlds with larger-thon-life heroes and villains, who seek relaxation with a fascinating game, and who generally believe games should be fun, not work, will hopefully find this system to their taste.

Gary Gygax, DMG 9 (1979).


Successful play of D & D is a blend of desire, skill and luck. Desire is often initiated by actually participating in a game. It is absolutely a reflection of the referee’s ability to maintain an interesting and challenging game. Skill is a blend of knowledge of the rules and game background as applied to the particular game circumstances favored by the referee. Memory or recall is often a skill function. Luck is the least important of the three, but it is a factor in successful play nonetheless. Using the above criteria it would seem that players who have attained a score or more of levels in their respective campaigns are successful indeed. This is generally quite untrue. Usually such meteoric rise simply reflects an incompetent Dungeonmaster.

While adventurers in a D & D campaign must grade their play to their referee, it is also incumbent upon the Dungeonmaster to suit his campaign to the participants. This interaction is absolutely necessary if the campaign is to continue to be of interest to all parties. ...

When players no longer have reams of goodies at their fingertips they must use their abilities instead, and as you will have made your dungeons and wildernesses far more difficult and demanding, it will require considerable skill, imagination, and intellectual exercise to actually gain from the course of an adventure. ... Think about how much fun it is to have something handed to you on a silver platter — nice once in a while but unappreciated when it becomes common occurrence. This analogy applies to experience and treasure in the D & D campaign.

Gary Gygax, D&D In Only as Good as the DM, The Strategic Review April 1976.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

Absolutely, I just wasn't putting myself forward as an authority who ought to be doing so. Narrative Focused Resolution isn't necessarily a terrible alternative to "skilled play". I'm just saying I think that there are others, more knowledgeable about it than myself, who could probably come up with better terminology.

I think that the following two statements can both be true:

1. "Skilled play" is a terrible term, to the extent that it is discussing a single mode of engaging with the game and the use of the word "skilled," would normally indicate that other modes do not require skill (which is untrue).

2. The term is so common at this point that redefining it is pointless.

(If I was going to re-define the term, however, I would probably have some indication on the blurry boundary between player and character when it comes to SP, as opposed to additional jargon that is only looking at the modality of play in terms of "new school" agendas and resolution, which I think is a framing that obscures and missed the point.)

 

[clearstream]

If your internal logic has led you to the conclusion that the dominant modality of playing D&D for the first decade of the game ... wasn't a game, then I can't help you any further, and this conversation is counterproductive for both of us. Good luck!

Indeed, but that is not rationally where my argument leads: SP adherents perforce engaged with the game mechanics. It was - and is - only in the context of such mechanics that their playful pursuit became gameful.

This suggests that well-implemented SP does not require any kind of denial of the game mechanics. Rather the opposite: they should be embraced... in the mode that is valued.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

As I follow this thread I get disappointed by the concept of skilled play.
Skilled play, a game, finally I understood that Skilled play was awarded when you ultimately bypass all game mechanics. Nice. Obviously in basic puzzle in fact it requires players skill, but otherwise players clever ideas are so bias evaluated by DM knowledge, common sense, tropes and others that I can hardly qualify those clever ideas as skilled. Maybe we could use consensual play, cooperative play, but skilled it’s seem odds.

So, all these definitions are pretty slippery, in multiple ways. RPGs are somewhat complicated beasts in terms of all the possible considerations, more so than people usually realize. I think it is FAIR to say that we can generally use the definition of SP and classify some GAMES as being more or less exemplars of it. OTOH it isn't really an analytically useful definition. It works well in the terms that @pemerton stated, he can label a game as being SP-focused and say "I don't want to play that game." You can pick certain 'moves' and certain process of play and say they are (not) compatible with the idea of skilled play, but you will never be able to say with much certainty that a given bit of description of game play is exactly SP or not.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

So, all these definitions are pretty slippery, in multiple ways. RPGs are somewhat complicated beasts in terms of all the possible considerations, more so than people usually realize. I think it is FAIR to say that we can generally use the definition of SP and classify some GAMES as being more or less exemplars of it.

Completely agree with the first part. I'm not entirely sure I agree with the second part, only in that SP (IMO) tends to be more of a modality of engaging with a game than it is a game system.

Certain systems support SP better than others, but it's one of those concepts (like "role playing") that is better viewed as a modality of engagement than as the natural state of a game-system. IMO, etc.