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On Skilled Play: D&D as a Game
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<blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 8291651" data-attributes="member: 42582"><p>You seem to be treating as equivalent (i) <em>players can shape the fiction so as to bind the GM</em> and (ii) <em>players can engage in skilled play</em>.</p><p></p><p>I don't think I agree. The former - ie (i) - is true of Prince Valiant and Burning Wheel. Neither of those systems grants the GM unbridled framing and reframing authority by looping soft moves ad nauseum nor the means to soft move the game into whatever gamestate they feel is best served by their will at the moment. In both of them players can exercise significant control over the gamestate. For instance, in my Prince Valiant game the PCs defeated but didn't kill some Huns, converted them to Christianity, and then recruited them to be the light cavalry auxiliary of their warband. This additional force has then been very helpful in subsequent battles as they have crossed Anatolia and travelled to Cyprus.</p><p></p><p>There is little resource use or optimisation in Prince Valiant, but some - eg one of the players expended a Storyteller Certificate at a key moment to defeat a "dragon" (a giant crocodile), and this depended on him being able to confront it in the water which he was able to do because he had previously made decisions to build up his athletic ability (via the Agility skill) in anticipation of just this sort of thing. The PCs being dragon slayers ensured their welcome reception by the Emperor at Constantinople, which was important for them gaining permission to cross Anatolia on their crusade.</p><p></p><p>But I don't see that it is very helpful to characterise this as "skilled play". I think it's good play, in the sense that it is engaged with the fiction and with the system and (at least for the participants) produces fun RPGing. I don't know what Greg Stafford would think of it, but I assume it falls at least broadly within the bounds of what he envisaged Prince Valiant play should look like. But to me it looks nothing like Gygaxian play or any sort of descendant of it. For instance, notions of "risk" and "reward" are doing basically no work. Yes, the players make decisions that earn their PCs Fame and hence enable them to improve their PCs, but while not quite the same as the XP pacing mechanism in 4e it comes pretty close - it's hard for me to imagine non-degenerate Prince Valiant play which won't earn Fame, because (p 31) "Fame is the cumulative measure of a character’s actions . . . accumulated by performing deeds, both in combat and in peaceful endeavor" and non-degenerate Prince Valiant play consists in the performance of deeds either in combat or peaceful endeavour!</p><p></p><p>Dungeon World has more moving parts than Prince Valiant. And I can see how there is cleverness in players using these to establish binding fiction. But I'm not seeing the risk/reward dynamic and how that feeds into the basic play experience. In Gygaxian play, if I play poorly my PC will die; and if I play too cautiously (eg never opening any doors for fear of what might be behind them) I will earn no XP and my PC will not advance, and I'll be stuck in a situation of boring play where nothing happens. I think the "gig gud" phrase may already have been used in this thread - and it has a truth about it in the Gygaxian context, in that if I don't git gud then play will just suck.</p><p></p><p>But is this true in DW? I don't think it's true in Prince Valiant. I don't think it's true in BW (I love playing BW and I haven't git gud - my PC's skills have not advanced much, and my comparison here is my GM who is the spreadsheet optimiser I mentioned upthread who, when he plays BW, has his PC's skills and stats climbing at a pretty steady clip). My reading and limited experience of DW play makes me wonder whether it's true there as it is in classic D&D.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="pemerton, post: 8291651, member: 42582"] You seem to be treating as equivalent (i) [i]players can shape the fiction so as to bind the GM[/i] and (ii) [i]players can engage in skilled play[/i]. I don't think I agree. The former - ie (i) - is true of Prince Valiant and Burning Wheel. Neither of those systems grants the GM unbridled framing and reframing authority by looping soft moves ad nauseum nor the means to soft move the game into whatever gamestate they feel is best served by their will at the moment. In both of them players can exercise significant control over the gamestate. For instance, in my Prince Valiant game the PCs defeated but didn't kill some Huns, converted them to Christianity, and then recruited them to be the light cavalry auxiliary of their warband. This additional force has then been very helpful in subsequent battles as they have crossed Anatolia and travelled to Cyprus. There is little resource use or optimisation in Prince Valiant, but some - eg one of the players expended a Storyteller Certificate at a key moment to defeat a "dragon" (a giant crocodile), and this depended on him being able to confront it in the water which he was able to do because he had previously made decisions to build up his athletic ability (via the Agility skill) in anticipation of just this sort of thing. The PCs being dragon slayers ensured their welcome reception by the Emperor at Constantinople, which was important for them gaining permission to cross Anatolia on their crusade. But I don't see that it is very helpful to characterise this as "skilled play". I think it's good play, in the sense that it is engaged with the fiction and with the system and (at least for the participants) produces fun RPGing. I don't know what Greg Stafford would think of it, but I assume it falls at least broadly within the bounds of what he envisaged Prince Valiant play should look like. But to me it looks nothing like Gygaxian play or any sort of descendant of it. For instance, notions of "risk" and "reward" are doing basically no work. Yes, the players make decisions that earn their PCs Fame and hence enable them to improve their PCs, but while not quite the same as the XP pacing mechanism in 4e it comes pretty close - it's hard for me to imagine non-degenerate Prince Valiant play which won't earn Fame, because (p 31) "Fame is the cumulative measure of a character’s actions . . . accumulated by performing deeds, both in combat and in peaceful endeavor" and non-degenerate Prince Valiant play consists in the performance of deeds either in combat or peaceful endeavour! Dungeon World has more moving parts than Prince Valiant. And I can see how there is cleverness in players using these to establish binding fiction. But I'm not seeing the risk/reward dynamic and how that feeds into the basic play experience. In Gygaxian play, if I play poorly my PC will die; and if I play too cautiously (eg never opening any doors for fear of what might be behind them) I will earn no XP and my PC will not advance, and I'll be stuck in a situation of boring play where nothing happens. I think the "gig gud" phrase may already have been used in this thread - and it has a truth about it in the Gygaxian context, in that if I don't git gud then play will just suck. But is this true in DW? I don't think it's true in Prince Valiant. I don't think it's true in BW (I love playing BW and I haven't git gud - my PC's skills have not advanced much, and my comparison here is my GM who is the spreadsheet optimiser I mentioned upthread who, when he plays BW, has his PC's skills and stats climbing at a pretty steady clip). My reading and limited experience of DW play makes me wonder whether it's true there as it is in classic D&D. [/QUOTE]
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