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

[Enrahim]

OK. But when talking about RPGs that use "fail forward", it doesn't seem right to say that they make a decision that is "unconnected". Like it would be weird to categorise a move in chess as breaking the rules, by reference to the rules of draughts.

I think it is important to understand why a result "feeling unrelated to" the check is a really bad thing in a certain style of play.

First, I am going to assume we are here talking about the weirdly entangled resolution style (7) as described in my taxonomy of quantum D&D General - [rant]The conservatism of D&D fans is exhausting.

This resolution style is for course unproblematic if pursuing a nartivistic agenda - indeed it has some very nice properties allowing narrative to be formed around what the themes players find interesting enough to engage in.

I think a problem here is that for those that feels that this is a bit off the obvious way to formulate their concern is in a gamist way - that the entanglement break agency as it muddles what the consequences of an action could be. However this is not a fundamental issue with the process. As most games lay out the mechanism in play it is fully possible to reason around it for someone entering the with the right mindset and experience. I think this is where quite a bit of the accusations about ""conservatism" come from.

I believe the big issue with this approach lies on a metaphysical level that is very hard to both recognise and express. This is more similutionistic in nature. It is about how for players has the concept of a paralell fantasy world with a sort of "existence" outside of ours are central to their core enjoyment of the game.

When tolkien enthusiasts try to reason around what could have happened with the blue mages, they are (normally) not trying to make up anything as dramatic as possible. They are trying to use what is known to deduce what they think would have happened as if something actually did happen with them in this fictional space. I presume everyone involved in such activities are very aware they are talking about a fictional setting, and I guess most assume Tolkien himself had not settled on an answer to this. So we are talking about people exploring a fictional space that is in one way not in anyones head, but still is atributed a sort of independent "existence"

In TTRPG we allow ourselves to go visit one of these fictional worlds trough "inhabiting" one of the creatures in that world. We get to see trough their eyes, and to some extent control their actions. This is an inteference of our world with the fictional world that I believe all TTRPG players accept. But note I stated the player controls the character to some extent. In many groups, If a player has a character behave in a way that is inconsistent with what that character is believed to be in this seperate fictional world, that is a foul. That is the player overreaching their divine duties to not interfer directly with what is happening in this fantasy world. They are bringing aspects of the real world (player actions) into the fantasy world in a too overt maner, hence tainting the experience.

And this lead me to the critisism against the weirdly entangled quantum that I do not think can be easily brushed off as conservatism or misunderstanding the entire deal: This is clearly a more overt case of something happening in the real world affecting the fictional space, than a player acting a bit out of character. Indeed it is so bad it is seriously threatening the entire integrity of the fantasy as having any sort of independence from the group that is playing.

It might be argued that this entire independence is an illusion, and that might be right. But that is completely missing the point, and might even be a bit cruel. For many this illusion is essential to what they find enjoyable with the activity.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

The very thing you frame as problematic here we would frame as a virtue.

As players we want an experience where all that is possible because it’s a better simulation of how things work in reality. The virtue is in the simulation. From a purely gamist perspective this definitely won’t make for a satisfying experience. But not all aspects of RPG play are about gamist concerns.

Sometimes we try our best and it’s just too late. Sometimes we try but slack off for a bit and then have to wonder whether our decision would have made a difference.

Oh and let’s preempt this - wanting simulation elements doesn’t mean one wants no gamist elements.

But that's the only way to get to what you're saying. That we must completely ignore the concern, because other concerns unequivocally matter more.

If we don't do that--if we recognize that gameplay matters and needs to be counted--then we cannot simply declare that the experience HAS to be geared so that every possible simulatable experience must happen. In fact, we can't declare that, BECAUSE other priorities also matter.

It has to be a negotiation. The worst, most egregious offenses against any given priority need to either be excised, or be managed in such a way that they are blunted, redirected, or made rare/unlikely/etc. The only way to get to "an experience where all [of] that is possible because it's a better simulation of...reality", we have to say that game and narrative are always less important, that simulation is categorically more important. No sacrifice of simulation, no matter how small, can be worth any gain in other priorities, no matter how large.

And if you aren't saying that, then you need to actually justify why making such scenes rare, less-punitive, etc., is such an egregious burden on simulation that it cannot be borne, and thus an onerous burden must be accepted on other priorities. You cannot simply declare that it makes simulation better--defending the change merely by saying that it makes simulation better depends on the tacit assumption that costs to anything other than simulation aren't relevant.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

How would the rat thing make sense in the fiction? Give me a good explanation and I'll consider it.

It's a place with rats. A rat could run into it and experience an animal desire, and boom, object consumed, rat's desire made manifest, no more magic.

 

[hawkeyefan]

You aren't reading to understand, just to respond. Try reading to understand. If your party is going through the forest, wandering monster rolls happen at specific intervals. Let's just say 2pm since I don't want to look it up. If the roll indicates an encounter, it will be where at the location in the forest you are at at 2pm, not anywhere else. My rolling it in advance is only so that I can make the encounter more enjoyable if a wandering monster is indicated. The party is still where they would be at when those trolls wander through, not anywhere else.

Listen, I don’t have any kind of problem with a random encounter. But it’s not any different. And your rolling ahead of time doesn’t make any difference, except perhaps to allow you more time to prep it… but process wise it’s the same.

The PCs are in a forest. I imagine a pretty big space. Your roll places the trolls in such a way that they encounter the PCs.

What happens once the encounter is triggered? Do the two groups see each other? Do you check for surprise? Perception rolls? How do you handle it at that point?

It has nothing to do with the size of the area, or any sort of predictions. Nothing is quantum for the players.

Sure it has to do with the size of the area. I mean, aren’t hexes typically six mile areas? Moving through one hex, two groups of characters could easily miss each other. But the roll says they don’t, right? You’re following a procedure of play.

And really, nothing’s ever quantum to the players, unless it’s revealed as such by the GM. The players don’t typically know what would have happened if they did Y instead of X because they didn’t do it. They only know what happened.

They can be in D&D, if you decided that skills are different than D&D presents them. Sounds like a houserule. Nothing wrong with that, but that's what it is IMO.

Sure… I’ll be the first to admit that I don’t run D&D as presented in the 5e books. Not in several ways anyway.

But that doesn’t mean that Fail Forward can’t work for someone who does. It may not always work, or maybe the GM can’t think of a reasonable way… in which case better to not force it. But there will be times when it’s perfectly useful.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

I've been in those situations several times over the decades. They're pretty rare. That said, 100% of the time the DMs told us, if you are still here in X rounds, your character will die.

But that's the point. The GM cannot do that. They don't know. Nobody does, not until after the player has finished their actions. Only then, after the player character is already dead, is the randomly-generated time revealed. So there is no known time limit.

That's (part of) why I responded to this example. I also responded to it because it clearly excises the "jerk GM" rigmarole--no one can dismiss the example on the grounds that only jerk GMs would insert such an unfair and impossible standard. It further obviates any fears of "storygame" elements, because the GM cannot be manipulating anything to generate a specific story. Finally, it helped give a demonstration of a place where, yes, perhaps some simulation benefit might be gained from including situations like this...but as you have already said, even situations like this, just with more information given to the player (and/or less randomness) are already quite rare. Meaning: it seems an ideal case for advancing the argument that, even if it is true that this kind of situation can happen in real life, the benefit gained from that level of simulation isn't actually worth the costs in other areas.

Just to reiterate, the example Clearstream wished to analyze was:

• There is a randomly-determined, hidden time limit, that even the GM does not know until they check;
• The GM will not check until after the PC's (or PCs') attempts at success have been completed, one way or the other
• If the PC(s) did succeed (e.g. beat the climb DC, killed the enemy, etc.)...but not within the hidden time limit, then they actually still failed
• The time limit is not particularly crazy, but has reasonably high likelihood (e.g. >=5%) of being either very short (e.g. 2 or fewer rounds) or very long (e.g. 10+ rounds)
• The PCs have resources, possibly true consumables (e.g. they don't replenish), which could be expended for no benefit at all
• It is not expressly required that the PCs be informed that this secret time limit exists, nor how it was determined....but later thought made clear that the GM should at least tell the players that there is a random, yet-unknown (even to the GM) time limit

If the DM will put PCs into positions like that and not inform the players of the time limit, that needs to be said to them during Session 0. If the players still opt to play in that game, they have agreed to that risk and should be prepared for that to happen at some point.

Again, it's not that they will not inform the players. Per Clearstream's hypothetical, the GM cannot inform the players, because no one knows. It has been randomly determined, but literally no one actually knows what it is until after the scene is done. IIRC, it was not fixed whether or not the GM informed the players that such a time limit was present, but afterward, they specified that it was probably better to assume that the GM had informed the players that a random time limit--which the players might unknowingly break, and thus be doomed to failure without knowing so--would be in effect.

It also wasn't specified that the example would require a single common time limit for every person, but that's speculating a bit too much further afield from what was actually said by Clearstream.

 

[Lanefan]

I've been in those situations several times over the decades. They're pretty rare. That said, 100% of the time the DMs told us, if you are still here in X rounds, your character will die.

If the DM will put PCs into positions like that and not inform the players of the time limit, that needs to be said to them during Session 0. If the players still opt to play in that game, they have agreed to that risk and should be prepared for that to happen at some point.

Huh. I never tell them how long they have unless there's an in-fiction way of their knowing it, and wouldn't consider this nearly important enough on its own to bring up in a session 0.

What they do get told right up front is that as far as possible player knowledge and character knowledge will be the same, specifically so the players can make decisions through the eyes of their characters rather than from metagame info. This specific time-clock situations falls under that umbrella: if the characters don't know how long they have then the players won't know either.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Maybe I'm not understanding then. The example I gave was of an unknown time limit that could(not would) render all those efforts null. I won't use the term meaningless, because it can still very much have meaning.

Unknown even to the GM, and randomly determined. Whether or not the players were told of this random, yet-unrevealed time limit at the start was not explicitly specified. I had assumed originally that it would not be. Clearstream later clarified that it probably should be mentioned, as it seemed unwise and harmful to spring such a "nope actually you just lose" reveal out of the blue.

Sure, it can be disappointing to fail. But disappointment doesn't mean that the game is ruined or that the journey was meaningless.

To you. Given how frequently others have deployed this response, you should really expect to get it in return when you say things like this.

More importantly, while you are correct that it doesn't GUARANTEED sour the experience, the original context--saving someone, who matters VERY much to you, from being sacrificed by climbing up a cliff face, only to learn that the victim was already dead long, LONG before you could ever have saved them, even with successful Climb checks--could be enough of a gut punch to sour the experience. Perhaps not perfectly 100% permanently, but enough that a significant chunk of people would not feel it worthwhile to continue, as the constant reminders of their failure would spread the poison further, delaying healing and possibly tainting new things that have nothing specific to do with the original situation.

Like...imagine if the PC is trying to save their long-lost brother, the only family they have left, the long-awaited conclusion to a personal story that has meant a lot to the player and which the player has invested a lot of time into. All they need to do to get to that is climb up the cliff face and save their brother. The player ends up needing three rounds to reach the top...and then they find out that the GM left the actual time limit to the dice, and the dice reveal that it was only two rounds, so this really, really important event has just been completely dashed. Sure, some stuff in the journey they've been on will still matter. But I could easily see that character's player being sufficiently devastated by that situation, and feeling sufficiently angry about the GM's choices there, that they choose to depart the table rather than continuing with a game that inflicts that kind of gotcha BS on a moment of profound importance to both character and player.

Indeed, at least for me, I would find that choice to be anti simulationist. Because it would be actively reminding me that we aren't talking about a world. We're talking about numbers and dice and funny name labels, and it turned out that the numbers and dice conspired against me, the player, in this instance. The rules, and only the rules, are the reason I failed, in a BS "gotcha" from out of nowhere at the most important moment. That would pull me right the hell out of that experience, and I'm not sure I could recover my immersion. I would instead be constantly on guard against the possibility that the game does another rugpull.

The loss of a character, even one that died a heroic death that you chose to engage in, can still genuinely sting.

Sure. But there you had the choice and embraced it. Clearly that is different from discovering that the BBEG had finished his plan half an hour ago, to reference the classic Watchmen scene.

One of the things I love about roleplaying is that it can generate any emotion, including negative ones like sadness, fear and anger. The game wouldn't feel right to me if all it could do is generate the positive emotions.

I never once said that; you are reading something in I never, ever said; that I would never, ever say; and that I am extremely annoyed you projected onto what I said.

I am, only and specifically, talking about the scenario I described in the immediately previous post.

 

[Lanefan]

The "Iike simulation and prep" is the part that's interesting. If I run a game where "the players drive the game forward and the GM just makes sure there's interesting stuff to interact with", but I don't prep, and you hate my game, why is that? What psychological desire isn't being satisfied? Is there some way to bridge that gap? Is there some minimum amount of prep that would be satisfying?

The best way I can put this is that having some player-side visible prep - setting maps, history, cosmology, maybe brief notes about a few key NPCs e.g. who the current King and Queen are, etc. - gives the whole thing a bit more sense of permanence and solidity, if that makes any sense.

If it's clear the DM is making the whole lot of it up on the fly, it feels more ephemeral and temporary.

Similar difference in feel if I walk into two pubs, one where the furniture is solid and permanent with booths and a fireplace etc. and another where the lightweight stackable tables and chairs are obviously meant to be cleared away every night. I far prefer the former.

 

[Lanefan]

A DM puts a lot of work preparing a great encounter with an Ogre. Unfortunately, the players decided not to travel in the direction of the Ogre. So the DM reuses the work of that fun Ogre by placing it somewhere else, that the players run into.

Is this "railroading" or good DMing?

Somewhat dependent on situation and-or intent.

If the players are specifically trying to avoid the Ogre it's flat-out bad DMing to put it in front of the PCs no matter where they go.

If the players don't know about the Ogre but go a different direction from where it's been placed, it's bad DMing to move that Ogre (some other group could always meet it at some other time) but sometime later you could reuse the same stat block for a different Ogre in a different place and maybe even against a different party.

On a larger scale, I've done this with adventure ideas on numerous occasions: a party turns their nose up at an adventure so I don't get to run it right then, but I'm not about to toss out all that work. Instead, sooner or later some other party is probably going to run into that adventure, or something very similar 'cause I took the original and tweaked it to suit the new situation, and thus my work doesn't go to waste.

 

[FrogReaver]

But that's the only way to get to what you're saying. That we must completely ignore the concern, because other concerns unequivocally matter more.

I'm not nearly as hardcore a simulationist as others in this thread. I definitely have other concerns and accept certain things in the name of gameplay. And from what I've read, they do too, just less of it than me.

If we don't do that--if we recognize that gameplay matters and needs to be counted--then we cannot simply declare that the experience HAS to be geared so that every possible simulatable experience must happen. In fact, we can't declare that, BECAUSE other priorities also matter.

I agree! How many times do I need to say that for you to believe it?

It has to be a negotiation. The worst, most egregious offenses against any given priority need to either be excised, or be managed in such a way that they are blunted, redirected, or made rare/unlikely/etc. The only way to get to "an experience where all [of] that is possible because it's a better simulation of...reality", we have to say that game and narrative are always less important, that simulation is categorically more important. No sacrifice of simulation, no matter how small, can be worth any gain in other priorities, no matter how large.

All I have to say is that in this particular case, what you propose to give up for gameplay concerns would be too much for me. That in this particular case, I weight what would be gained from the gameplay you propose as less than what would be lost on the simulation side FOR ME.

And if you aren't saying that, then you need to actually justify why making such scenes rare, less-punitive, etc., is such an egregious burden on simulation that it cannot be borne,

I really don't because that's not my position. If you prefer the more gamist mix, go for it!

and thus an onerous burden must be accepted on other priorities. You cannot simply declare that it makes simulation better--defending the change merely by saying that it makes simulation better depends on the tacit assumption that costs to anything other than simulation aren't relevant.

This is simply untrue. As explained above, all that is necessary is that for me in this particular case the benefits of your gamist methods are less important than the amount of simulation I'd be giving up.

And finally some advice, you may have gotten better discussion if you hadn't tried to paint me into some weird box and told me a bunch of things 'I have to do' but instead just asked 'what do you see as being given up on the simulation front by doing this specific thing?'