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

[TwoSix]

Double post.

 

[TwoSix]

When you adopt narrativist definitions of story as the only possible definition of story then sure.

When someone says their main goal is to play to find out then I think it’s fair to categorize that as playing to find out what happens next, which to me is about ‘story’.

Now you are right that what happens next is incidental in traditonsl play, but I’m not saying it’s my primary concern. The primary concern is to overcome obstacles.

That makes sense.

My only concern is that usage might elide some of the distinctions between, say,

A) Playing a trad game sandbox.
B) Playing Stonetop.
C) Playing a Pathfinder-style adventure path.
D) Playing Fiasco.

C and D both have a focus on "telling a story", as I evaluate it. (Although C is more about creating a plot, and D is more about generating scenes that lie within a narrative structure.)

For A and B, I view both as being primarily concerned with generating emergent events. Those events can be relayed into a narrative after the fact, but the game isn't really concerned with how "story-like" that emergent story actually is.

 

[FrogReaver]

That makes sense.

My only concern is that usage might elide some of the distinctions between, say,

A) .
B) Playing Stonetop.
C) Playing a Pathfinder-style adventure path.
D) playing Fiasco

C and D both have a focus on "telling a story", as I evaluate it. (Although C is more about creating a plot, and D is more about generating scenes that lie within a narrative structure.)

For A and B, I view both as being primarily concerned with generating emergent events. Those events can be relayed into a narrative after the fact, but the game isn't really concerned with how "story-like" that emergent story actually is.

A) Playing a trad game sandbox is focused on players making objectives, modifying them when applicable and playing to overcome whatever obstacles that sandbox has placed in the way of their objective. The what happens next aspect is present here as in all RPG’s but it’s more incidental than the focus here.
B) I don’t know enough about stonetop to really comment on it.
C) I would classify this more as playing through a story.
D) I don’t think this does a great job of differentiating between fiasco and narrativist games, but that’s not really the purpose of the distinction in the first place.

 

[Enrahim]

Your theory roughly matches the idea of noetic satisfaction proposed some years back as a core agenda of simulationism. Examples were given of self-identified simulationists displaying noetic satisfaction when they observed accuracy to historical references. For me, Eero Tuovinen's more general take improved on that with

Simulationist play attempts to experience a subject matter in a way that results in elevated appreciation and understanding. The Shared Imagined Space is utilized for intensely detailed perspectives that sometimes surpass the means of traditional, non-interactive mediums.​

​

So where the noetic satisfaction idea (at least in its earlier form) appeared limited to accuracy to real world, Tuovinen's take opened it up to any subject. He avoids any distracting psychological or neurological theorizing: it's enough to elevate appreciation and understanding... including of subjects found only in fiction.

With Tuovinen's ideas in mind, I think in terms of neo-sim. That means both that design innovations by the avant-garde are available for simulationist purposes, and some limiting assumptions about simulationism are abandoned (or counted misapprehensions.)

I cannot express how happy I am you brought this blog post to my attention! I was actually crying halfway trough.

So trying to formulate my new thinking in light of this new profound insight: I think the illusion of a somewhat independent world, and the joys associated with it behaving in ways resonating with us is universal to all modes of roleplaying games. However I am now discarding my thesis that the conflict we see blossoming up now and again is due to the priority given to this particular kind of joy. One important thing I felt was off with is before is that we would then talk about a conflict between a relatively passive experience, and active artistic expression.

The active pursuit of understanding and insights driven by curiosity is however a completely different beast. In one way it would be a bit strange if the disruption of a passively experienced illusion should lead to the level of passion we see here. However having the thing your entire activity is revolving around actively understanding corrupted is something entirely different. Try to run a monster truck trough a carefully teaspoon by teaspoon dug and fine brushed archeologic dig site, and see how happy the scholars are afterwards (Hey, it is just some track marks, no big deal huh? Did you see how high I jumped when driving over that now crumbled wall! Totally worth it!)

 

[TwoSix]

I cannot express how happy I am you brought this blog post to my attention! I was actually crying halfway trough.

So trying to formulate my new thinking in light of this new profound insight: I think the illusion of a somewhat independent world, and the joys associated with it behaving in ways resonating with us is universal to all modes of roleplaying games. However I am now discarding my thesis that the conflict we see blossoming up now and again is due to the priority given to this particular kind of joy. One important thing I felt was off with is before is that we would then talk about a conflict between a relatively passive experience, and active artistic expression.

The active pursuit of understanding and insights driven by curiosity is however a completely different beast. In one way it would be a bit strange if the disruption of a passively experienced illusion should lead to the level of passion we see here. However having the thing your entire activity is revolving around actively understanding corrupted is something entirely different. Try to run a monster truck trough a carefully teaspoon by teaspoon dug and fine brushed archeologic dig site, and see how happy the scholars are afterwards (Hey, it is just some track marks, no big deal huh? Did you see how high I jumped when driving over that now crumbled wall! Totally worth it!)

Yea, I had read that article a few years back, but I totally forgot about how coherent and encompassing it is.

 

[Eric V]

As a once-in-a-VERY-long-while subversion, maybe.

More than once in a single campaign? No, absolutely not going to "love" that.

Yeah, I loved reading it...but if it were a supers game and I was a player? Yeah, no.

 

[pemerton]

Patron encounters would be category 4 local uneven random quantum. The probability of meeting the patron is dependent on the action the players are taking (in this case devoting time to search), and the location of the patron is not determined by the resolution if not found (hence local). It is not weirdly entangled (7), as the difference in probability is easily understood as following from what happens in the fiction.

Then I'm back to not knowing what RPG you have in mind as using "weird entanglement".

I have never myself encountered anyone using a weirdly entangled encounter as a procedure. The only place I have ever seen this proposed is as a hypotetical possibility to resolve the cook in kitchen question from a pick lock skill, that has plagued this thread the last dozens of pages. Someone seem to think that is a valid and relevant interpretation of the fail-forward principle. Surely you havent missed this?

The screaming cook doesn't exhibit "weird entanglement". Setting aside many of the aspects that have been discussed (eg the plausibility of the cook being present, whether the hard move follows deftly from a soft move, etc), the basic structure is straightforward: the player fails their roll, and as a result the GM frames them into an unwanted encounter.

This is even a thing in D&D: for instance, it is the narration of the final failure in the example skill challenge in the 4e Rules Compendium.

Yes, this is strongly speculative on my part. But it is based on what I have heard from others.

I would be extremely interested to hear what you feel is not matching your experience?!

I can add that I think there are ways to play the game where these concerns are not in conflict with each other, and might even reinforce each other. Might that be a thing you are reacting to? My statement was meant as a commentary to why I think we are observing the kind of arguments I have often see around potential conflicts, and hence conflict was assumed.

I've reread you r posts, but haven't worked out what the concerns are that are in conflict. One concern is for the independence of the fiction. What's the other?

Anyway, consider this example:

So what was the character doing? Maybe they're the advance scout for the assault on Dremmer's compound:

First, let's imagine the player recites their PC's knowledge - it's a bit artificial as an example of play, but provides some context.

"I know that Dremmer has a storeroom at the edge of the compound, with a gate for taking deliveries. There's a fancy electronic lock on it, so it's not well guarded. I reckon I can crack that lock and sneak in."

The GM nods: "OK, so you're at the gate to the storeroom. It's locked like you expected. It's not well guarded, but that doesn't mean no one ever comes by here. You haven't got all night."

"OK, I bust out my tools and work on the lock, as quickly as I can."

"That Acting Under Fire, and the fire is - you'll be spotted before you're in." The player rolls, and succeeds on a 7 to 9. The GM offers an ugly choice: "You get it open, but you can hear someone's coming. And you can't see yet what's on the other side of the gate. Do you go through into whatever's there? Or wait to see who comes?"

The player decides to go in. "There's someone in there with a torch. Looks like Dremmer's cook Pattycakes, come to grab a fresh bag of chowder powder. What do you do?"

At this point the player has a few choices, but let's suppose that, whatever they do, it fails on a 6 or less. And so the GM narrates that Pattycakes spots them and screams.

What makes the fiction feel independent to the player? That it is not under their control - eg it is the GM who tells the player that someone is coming; and then, when the player has their PC enter the storeroom, that Pattycakes is a separate being, whose responses are not under the player's control.

 

[Maxperson]

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

I missed the original post by @clearstream, so I don't have any context for why he wants to analyze something like this. In all my time playing I've never seen or heard of something like that situation. It's like a Goldberg Mousetrap.

A DM randomly determining the duration? Sure. Waiting until after it's over to do it? Who the hell would do something like that? This seems like a very white room hypothetical.

 

[Maxperson]

Now that was a Nat-20 Jump check for that leap of logic.

Sorry, but, no. That's not how that works. Just because your arguement is without merit says absolutely nothing about the quality of your game, just that you are not very good at fashioning a logical argument. And, since I, at no point, said any die rolls were without merit, your entire argument, again, fails badly.

But, sure, keep shifting the goalposts.

That doesn't fly, either. From the very first instance, I was talking about from the player's perspective. On top of that, at no point did I ever say or imply that I don't care if it's quantum. It's not. Not from the perspective I've been using since moment one. The DM's perspective isn't relevant. The encounter isn't about him and never was.

 

[Maxperson]

In the initial example (which came from a website) there was no mention that the break-in took place at night. That detail was added later.

I didn't see the original example, but I assumed the party wasn't being stupid and trying to pick a lock in broad daylight or when people would be likely to be walking around after dark. My bad for not realizing the PCs were morons.