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

[Voadam]

Anyway, maybe. A nagging doubt for me is that in SP the DM and only the DM decides what works, right? I pour water on the floor. The DM and only the DM tells me what happens... if I find the pressure plate. Whereas in MSP the players get a say.

This would depend on the M.

In classic GSP it would be the DM judging based on the player choices and description. The DM decides but the player has input. DMs can do this in 5e by not calling for a check and just adjudicating the water technique.

If it is mechanics focused resolution the player rolls a search check for a defined DC or something similar and hitting the target or not means they find the pressure plate. This would be the system deciding but the player has some prior input from character build and possible current input from things like wrangling for advantage or resource usage. This can be done in 5e using an ability check and related mechanics and things like bardic inspiration.

If it is more modern games the player might have explicit narrative control "I spend a metacurrency and find the pressure plate." This would be the player deciding. This can happen in 5e with something like the success with complication option from the DMG when the player can turn a closely failed ability check into a failure with a complication later.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

To retain space for MSP ("modern skilled play" or was it "Moldvay skilled play"... I really can't recall).

Anyway, maybe. A nagging doubt for me is that in SP the DM and only the DM decides what works, right? I pour water on the floor. The DM and only the DM tells me what happens... if I find the pressure plate. Whereas in MSP the players get a say.

Having not played DW I have to rely on others testimony. From the RAW, it looks like I as player will get to say what happens, sometimes. Also, and more pervasively, only I or we as players can decide what satisfies our various fictions.

So two quite different things. I think it would be confusing to collect up under the label "skilled play" something so modally different from its traditional use. Even if it would be an embetterment!

Right, I've never tried to argue that we need to change the definition of SP, it is just a traditional term, as Snarf noted in the OP, lol. It is just basically "Whatever Gygax did." I think it is true, yes, that players are expected to have more say in 'what happens' in DW. You describe what action your PC is taking, and what its goal is, and then the GM describes what mechanics are involved.

I don't think the GM in DW has an option to say "that is impossible" for example, or to change the player-described outcome of their fiction, ONCE IT HAS BEEN TRANSLATED TO A MOVE. However, the GM does the translation. Thus a player could say "Ragnar runs up to the Dragon and slashes at it with his sword!" (his preferred fictional outcome is implicit here) and the GM could say "his sword bounces off the dragon's unnaturally hard scales, as it bites you!" (IE no mechanics, your goal was infeasible, no sword can slash through a mature dragon's armor). Now there would be a negotiation of what the Defy Danger is, or maybe Ragnar sticks his sword down the Dragon's throat next, etc.

So, the player has a certain fictional authority. In D&D you could DESCRIBE the same thing, but the result would always be "make an attack roll" (maybe initiative first). The result of that attack would be some sort of abstract outcome, maybe hit points of damage to the dragon, with the fiction being "your sword has little effect" (IE the dragon has a lot of hit points) and then it bites on its turn, etc.

D&D is pretty awkward in terms of handing off that narrative to players in any more substantive way. NOW AND THEN it awkwardly tries. So, certain monsters have several ACs, or some situation where their AC is different. Presumably this invites the player to invent a 'move' that will provoke the DM to rule that you attack that lesser AC. Something like that.

By contrast, if Ragnar's player says "I dodge the Dragon's bite!" then maybe its "Defy Danger (DEX)" and success provokes "I stab the dragon in the mouth!" and that's allowed as a Hack & Slash which Ragnar can succeed at. It might even result in damage bypassing the dragon's Armor value (DR). If this sort of action can happen in D&D it is certainly not due to any particular rules, stated agenda, etc.

And this is a bit of a problem with analyzing classic D&D. It is really very unclear what it is. If you go back to 'West Coast D&D' of the 70's, ala Arduin Grimoire and such and find surviving descriptions of play, you will see that a lot of them actually SOUND a lot like DW! But it was all up to a skilled DM and reinterpreting the entire idea of the game. Still, it wasn't like it contravened anything that was written in the 3 LBBs...

 

[Campbell]

One thing that Dungeon World does have on traditional RPGs when it comes to skilled play (of the fiction) is a much more transparent feedback loop. So in D&D (and most traditional games) there is no meaningful way to distinguish between failures of fictional positioning, failures due to GM intervention, failures due to unknowable backstory, or failures due to backend mechanics. Dungeon World's radical transparency helps us be much more confident about why we succeed or fail at any given task.

I can easily see a game that looks pretty similar to Dungeon World mechanically (in terms of player facing stuff) that is more focused on skilled play of the fiction. It just would require some pretty substantial backend changes to things like reward systems and GM procedures.

 

[Manbearcat]

It is clearly much less fictionally powerful. However I'm not sure there is a real change in SKILL. There are less decision points, so cognitively 'simpler' in isolation. However I don't believe it makes the GAME cognitively simpler. In fact it is probably creating a harder problem for the player to solve, overall.

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]

I’m just going to say this and people can respond at their discretion (or ignore it).

Some of what I’m seeing feels like a realized or unrealized proxy war for the Forge’s position of:

Two play agendas simultaneously lead to incoherent play. Therefore you can’t ACTUALLY have Narrativism and Gamism coherently designed into one system (such that play broadly and decision-points specifically cannot be an expression of both agendas).

Is that what is happening here (again...accidental or purposeful)? As most know, I agree with a considerable chunk of analysis from the Forge, but (a) I don’t agree with that particular position, (b) I believe Forge commenters are more diverse on that position than Ron was (and even he was somewhat muted it seemed), and (c) it’s empirically not true because there are designs out there that emphatically disprove (even if you don’t believe 4E or DW fit the bill) that challenge-based play and theme/premise-based play can be robustly married (Torchbearer, Strike, Blades in the Dark).

 

[Campbell]

I’m just going to say this and people can respond at their discretion (or ignore it).

Some of what I’m seeing feels like a realized or unrealized proxy war for the Forge’s position of:

Two play agendas simultaneously lead to incoherent play. Therefore you can’t ACTUALLY have Narrativism and Gamism coherently designed into one system (such that play broadly and decision-points specifically cannot be an expression of both agendas).

Is that what is happening here (again...accidental or purposeful)? As most know, I agree with a considerable chunk of analysis from the Forge, but (a) I don’t agree with that particular position, (b) I believe Forge commenters are more diverse on that position than Ron was (and even he was somewhat muted it seemed), and (c) it’s empirically not true because there are designs out there that emphatically disprove (even if you don’t believe 4E or DW fit the bill) that challenge-based play and theme/premise-based play can be robustly married (Torchbearer, Strike, Blades in the Dark).

I believe that the particular creative agendas defined in that work are not all of those that exist, but that our shared purpose or creative agenda should be coherent and clear in any given moment of play. That if in this moment of play we cannot equally serve two agendas that undercut each other. Also that we pay a cognitive burden for trying to do too many things at once. My experience with Blades in the Dark is that the particular marriage it makes feels distinct from both Step On Up and Story Now in their more pure forms seen in games like B/X and Dogs in the Vineyard.

 

[Manbearcat]

I believe that the particular creative agendas defined in that work are not all of those that exist, but that our shared purpose or creative agenda should be coherent and clear in any given moment of play. That if in this moment of play we cannot equally serve two agendas that undercut each other. Also that we pay a cognitive burden for trying to do too many things at once. My experience with Blades in the Dark is that thematic play takes a higher priority when conflicts emerge between the two agendas being discussed here. The conflict is mitigated somewhat, but still very present.

I agree with every word of that (as I’m sure you know)!

However, what I hold (and hold firmly to) is that, overwhelmingly, individual sites of play in a robust design like Torchbearer and Blades (where the design is specifically meant to marry challenge-based priorities with theme/premise-based priorities) thread that needle or do not contain incoherency (so having to prioritize theme/premise over challenge-based priorities happens at a remote level).

Agree?

Disagree?

 

[Voadam]

Two play agendas simultaneously lead to incoherent play. Therefore you can’t ACTUALLY have Narrativism and Gamism coherently designed into one system (such that play broadly and decision-points specifically cannot be an expression of both agendas).

I don't think I agree with this position of the Forge as presented here.

Take 5e ability checks like the water to find a pressure plate example above. There is a range of ways to approach this.

You can do a narrative skilled play approach and just narratively adjudicate a result off of what is described.

You can do a full on game mechanics approach and call for a perception or investigate check and be done with it so the narrative elements of the water do not matter. The pouring water is an orthogonal descriptive narrative event that does not impact the roll, it is the character mechanics that matter.

You can do a mixed approach and have a clever approach of the water result in advantage so there is still a mechanics check, but it is impacted by the skilled play narration.

A 5e DM can slide along that continuum of choices differently in different situations or based solely upon preferred tastes for adjudication.

It is designed to be able to do so.

It is possible that you mean narrative here as "character roleplay" and gamism as "overcome the challenge" but those can blend together or be different as well. I like 5e's background with two skills and a proficiency as a good enough bridge between a character concept and game mechanics for my taste, for instance. Others can be more insistent about desiring character portrayal matching mental stats or alignment or ideals and such on the character sheet. Again a continuum of options in the 5e rule set as designed.

 

[jgsugden]

Another great thread, but gosh I'm late 30 pages of reading!

You're good. There is nothing actionable in it, so you're just missing some theory crafting and self indulgent pontificating.

 

[Manbearcat]

@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)!