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On Skilled Play: D&D as a Game
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<blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 8280904" data-attributes="member: 42582"><p>I don't understand the rejecters, or what principle/concept they are applying.</p><p></p><p>I am closely following the actual accounts of how to play the game given by Gygax, Pulsipher, Moldvay et al. For them, the difference between spell load-out and gear load-out is simply that these generate different resource constraints (eg the former runs into level-based and spell-book based limits; the latter runs into encumbrance and gold-based limits) and hence create different opportunities for optimisation.</p><p></p><p>I think [USER=82106]@AbdulAlhazred[/USER]'s post over the past few pages really bring out both the scope and limits of "skilled play" as an approach to RPGing. One thing to notice about them is they focus on the process of play - eg what counts as an adequate action declaration?; and how does the GM adjudicate that? - rather than on procedurally irrelevant questions like whether a move in the fiction is "mundane" (poking with a 10' pole) or "magic" (casting a spell).</p><p></p><p>To elaborate on that last sentence: notice that, in Gygaxian play, what is special about a Wish spell is not that it is magic (that is important flavour/colour for determining when wishes become available, who can grant them, etc; but is basically irrelevant to the process of resolution) but rather that it gives a player (close to) carte blanche to rewrite or add to the fiction without having to engage in the typical procedures of "skilled play".</p><p></p><p>We can then step back from Wish to other spells to see the extent to which they elide some standard procedure of play: eg Passwall or Dimension Door circumvents (to a degree) the standard skilled play of geography and architecture; Rope Trick or Leomund's Tiny Hut circumvents (to a degree) the standard skilled play of managing the duration of an incursion into a dungeon; Continual Light completely circumvents the skilled play of light sources; etc. This brings us back to Unseen Servant which doesn't circumvent anything at all as far as I can see; nor, as far as I can see, does Transmute Rock to Mud.</p><p></p><p>I'm not sure which cases you have in mind. I think that inviting a GM to extrapolate from <em>the floor of this cavern has turned into thick, deep, oozy mud</em> to <em>the bugbears who were standing on the floor of the cavern are now slowed by if not stuck in that mud</em> isn't really manipulative. Nor is <em>I'm standing behind the chest as I lift its lid, so the darts that fire from its inside can't get me</em>.</p><p></p><p>As [USER=82106]@AbdulAlhazred[/USER] and I have said, the range of situations in which this sort of extrapolation of the fiction works is constrained, and depends on a degree of convention to make it work.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="pemerton, post: 8280904, member: 42582"] I don't understand the rejecters, or what principle/concept they are applying. I am closely following the actual accounts of how to play the game given by Gygax, Pulsipher, Moldvay et al. For them, the difference between spell load-out and gear load-out is simply that these generate different resource constraints (eg the former runs into level-based and spell-book based limits; the latter runs into encumbrance and gold-based limits) and hence create different opportunities for optimisation. I think [USER=82106]@AbdulAlhazred[/USER]'s post over the past few pages really bring out both the scope and limits of "skilled play" as an approach to RPGing. One thing to notice about them is they focus on the process of play - eg what counts as an adequate action declaration?; and how does the GM adjudicate that? - rather than on procedurally irrelevant questions like whether a move in the fiction is "mundane" (poking with a 10' pole) or "magic" (casting a spell). To elaborate on that last sentence: notice that, in Gygaxian play, what is special about a Wish spell is not that it is magic (that is important flavour/colour for determining when wishes become available, who can grant them, etc; but is basically irrelevant to the process of resolution) but rather that it gives a player (close to) carte blanche to rewrite or add to the fiction without having to engage in the typical procedures of "skilled play". We can then step back from Wish to other spells to see the extent to which they elide some standard procedure of play: eg Passwall or Dimension Door circumvents (to a degree) the standard skilled play of geography and architecture; Rope Trick or Leomund's Tiny Hut circumvents (to a degree) the standard skilled play of managing the duration of an incursion into a dungeon; Continual Light completely circumvents the skilled play of light sources; etc. This brings us back to Unseen Servant which doesn't circumvent anything at all as far as I can see; nor, as far as I can see, does Transmute Rock to Mud. I'm not sure which cases you have in mind. I think that inviting a GM to extrapolate from [i]the floor of this cavern has turned into thick, deep, oozy mud[/i] to [i]the bugbears who were standing on the floor of the cavern are now slowed by if not stuck in that mud[/i] isn't really manipulative. Nor is [i]I'm standing behind the chest as I lift its lid, so the darts that fire from its inside can't get me[/i]. As [USER=82106]@AbdulAlhazred[/USER] and I have said, the range of situations in which this sort of extrapolation of the fiction works is constrained, and depends on a degree of convention to make it work. [/QUOTE]
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