D&D General [rant]The conservatism of D&D fans is exhausting.

[AbdulAlhazred]

I now have to ask why, if you believe that, everyone isn't playing PbtA games? They handle this "universal issue" very well according to you, so shouldn't everyone be playing them?

People are creatures of habit and they invest in specific ways of doing things. I mean, I grew up on AD&D. While I grew tired of certain aspects of that type of game, it's still the most natural and baseline sort of way to play an RPG by default.

But of course it is more complex than that. PbtA type games, depending on how you define it, are only one of many designs that do similar things.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

My players have access to a PbtA game. They choose to play in my D&D game instead.

 

[TwoSix]

You may not plan stories in advance, but the impression I get strongly suggests to me that a major goal of play is to create dramatic character arcs, so I wouldn't say he's completely off-base here.

Because "the system is designed to create dramatic story arcs" and "the story arcs are planned in advance" is an apples-to-oranges comparison.

 

[TwoSix]

They have been doing so all along. No one has suggested the way you play is wrong for you. They have only criticised your claims that your way is objectively superior.

Except that has never happened, so.....

 

[robertsconley]

I don't know if @robertsconley is being sarcastic or not. But his repeated references to "story arcs" and "stories planned in advance" and the like, as if those are reasonable descriptions of Apocalpyse World or Burning Wheel, are a little frustrating.

Except I didn’t mention “story arcs” or “stories planned in advance.” I referred to kinds of stories, which were raised in a discussion about whether campaigns produce coherent and dramatically satisfying narratives. Your comment about stories being authored doesn’t address that.

The difference between an OD&D hexcrawl and (say) Burning Wheel can't be identified by focusing on whether or not there is a planned story. The differences are in the procedures that govern GM decision-making about (i) when to call for rolls, and (ii) the results of rolls.

I agree that the difference between my living world sandbox and Burning Wheel lies in procedures, especially how we determine when to roll and what those rolls mean. That’s precisely why the kinds of stories that emerge differ. Their underlying systems shape the emergent narrative in different ways.

Which is something that I have emphasised for years now on these boards.

And my points are something I’ve emphasized across forums and blogs for decades.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Because it isn't even necessary? I mean, @DinoInDisguise is talking about how the mindset can be applied to any game, and how even a trad game can benefit from it. It's one of the things I incorporated into my trad GMing, and I would say that it's something that's improved my game.

They didn't say it could be applied to any game. They said it should be applied to every game. Perhaps you missed that.

 

[Campbell]

You may not plan stories in advance, but the impression I get strongly suggests to me that a major goal of play is to create dramatic character arcs, so I wouldn't say he's completely off-base here.

The arcs are beside the point. What matters are the personal stakes. I don't play or run Monsterhearts to an outcome or for an outcome. The fun is in the tension and in finding out who these characters are right now. Whether the resulting narrative is compelling is far less important than if play is compelling.

 

[Micah Sweet]

The roll was pointless if they can just retry, because at that point success is guaranteed. That's why I spent half of my response to Thomas Shey talking about gambling for progress. And how if it's just a matter of rerolling until you win, just skip the rolls and move on because the outcome is predetermined. This is why traditional games, largely, require very similar responses to rolls, by the DM, as PbtA games enforce structurally. Because having no response, likely, causes the outcome to be predetermined.

This is also my response to Lanefan here;



But he clarifies;



So he's largely doing as I was intending. By limiting retries he gives the roll some weight. There is a real meaning to a failure assuming success had a real meaning to begin with.

Now obviously, if the required change is cosmetic and meaningless, the roll can still be retried ad nauseam, and the initial problem still exists. But if the change required to retry costs something, then not allowing retries is sufficient to give the roll meaning. The roll changes the status quo.

This is why rolling on a chance of success, without consequence, is a problem. And why PbtA-style reactions to failures are needed in traditional games, albeit in a slightly different form. Because the outcome becomes predetermined if you don't.

So you have to add cost to the failure of a roll, or you simply are prompting pointless rolls. The FrozenNorth post I cited demonstrates what happens when a roll has no meaningful consequence. The roll can be repeated until the players get the desired outcome, and that's a waste of time because success is guaranteed.

I hope that helps clarify what I meant. I think the response applies to Lanefan too, which is why I used his post as an example.

TLDR: Not allowing retries can often be sufficient to solve the problem I am alluding to in my posts.

EDIT: Hawkeye did a better job explaining my position than I did. Hmph!

He is limiting retries in a logical, verisimilitudinous way. That makes a difference to some of us. It's not just about results.

 

[clearstream]

It's not very similar. The rule in Apocalypse World is "if you do it, you do it". So the fiction has to be brought under the relevant description - eg is this character acting under fire?

To me it seems similar because in both cases one participant (MC, DM) has the job of saying whether to call for a roll.

The rule I talked about, that you mentioned from 5e D&D, is that the GM has to decide whether or not a declared action has a consequence. The Apocalypse World GM doesn't need to decide this: if a player-side move is triggered, then the dice will be rolled and that will yield the parameters for consequence.

Their razors differ as you say... which I thought I noted, but perhaps that was in a separate post

EDIT You might recall in the past I proposed that one kind of resolution calls for a roll because consequences are discerned, whilst another kind guarantees consequences once a roll is called for. In one consequences are an input, in the other an output.

The evidence of this thread is that, for some posters at least, it is easier to apply a heuristic of the GM decides if there are consequences than the GM, guided by the table, ascertains if something is at stake relative to some player-determined priority for their character.

I agree with your generalization (italicised) here. (To ensure understanding, what I observed as easier up front was just discerning that a character has done the thing -- hence the Codex reference -- so what I'm agreeing with you about is separate from that.) One thing that drew me to sandbox is that we kept the focus on player-determined priorities.

However, in 'classic' sandbox player priorities more often guide play through what players say their characters do, rather than GM shaping content to fit player-stated priorities. They play their part through what characters do even if players don't directly state them.

Articulating player-determined priorities better enables GM to be guided by them... and that is something that I see as part of 'neo-sandbox'.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I suggested you give it a try, yes. I didn't say you would "like my way if only you weren't too conservative to give it a try".



Listen... I get it if you don't like when people offer advice that you don't think is relevant to the topic. But given the topic of this thread, I just don't see the issue here. What are you expecting in this discussion? I mean, it's not like I'm barreling into every D&D thread and talking about narrativist games non-stop. I'm talking about it in one thread where the topic is about the conservatism of D&D.

You said, "give it a try" and "you're conservative". Are we supposed to believe that those statements have nothing to do with each other?