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

[pemerton]

t's table culture priorities, right? Like we have games now that make PC Death an inherently consent-based mechanic (and I say "now" when I'm pretty sure @pemerton has pointed at some pretty old games that did that as well, as does AW).

I think you might be remembering me posting about Prince Valiant. It's not quite player consent, but there is no death without the GM deciding that it's on the table as a consequence, and the GM is encouraged not to do that unless the fiction really compels it. (Examples of this that are given include a fall from the highest tower of Camelot, being impaled by a lance, and being bitten by a scorpion.)

One thing that's kinda interesting to me is that from my little perspective over here a lot of the arguing respectful discussion in this thread is between conservatives of very different preferences around styles and systems of play. For instance, BW and the way it's structured is like, old, from a narrativist design perspective. You in particular are reaching back to the earliest days of TTRPGs on a personal level quite frequently in a way that 0 people I interact with elsewhere do (mostly because most of us weren't alive and as I noted earlier in this thread dont really give a F about Gygax; I didn't know who he was until ~3-4 years ago and didnt really know much about early D&D etc until last year when I read The Elusive Shift).

Whether I'm conservative I think is something you and others have to judge! The most recently-published system I've played is Torchbearer 2e, but it's a second edition of a Burning Wheel variant and so may not count as "recent" on some measures. The system I've played fairly extensively that I probably regard as departing the most from AD&D-esque play is Marvel Heroic RP and my fantasy hack of it, which now is over 10 years old.

I have played Wuthering Heights and In A Wicked Age only a few times as one-shots; but while these are both quite old systems (late 90s and 2007 respectively), I think that even today they have elements and ideas that many RPGers would find fairly radical.

But you're right that I also see early RPGs - including Gygax's AD&D - as reference points. One reason for this is that I feel the post-DL trend in RPGing tended to eclipse some of those earlier ideas, and also tended to obscure the extent to which Gygax's rulebooks set out a reasonably complete and playable game with a fairly definite goal and procedure of play. Which is something that I find interesting, because most 1980/90s games were lacking in this respect, and some people still think that 5e D&D is a bit underdone too.

The sort of "character crucible" play some folks here enjoy I legit really don't see that much elsewhere in the communities around PBTA/FITD, and seems to be largely best exemplified by some early PBTAs like Monsterhearts and Masks that are as far as I can tell intentionally designed around "putting your character(s) through emotional hell and seeing what happens."

I think I'm not quite as much into the "crucible" as some other posters here. But I've posted enough play examples that you can probably calibrate me in that regard if you want to! As per the reply to @Campbell that I posted not far upthread, I think that as much as, and maybe more than, the "crucible" it's about those moments of "poof, you're out of Sim" that really speak to me

"complex heroic stories where we get to pretend we can make a difference, be accepting, and have a good time" have largely become teh dominant style of play. Critical Role and Dimension 20 really opened the aperture there

I've never really done this sort of RPGing, in terms of the "flavour"/orientation of the fiction. At least I don't think I have - I'm continuing to reflect a bit on some play, including 4e D&D. If I work out I'm wrong here I'll post again about it!

 

[Maxperson]

You SPECIFICALLY stated in the quote, that you didn't care if it was quantum or not. I mean, I directly quoted you. From the player's perspective, they can never actually know if the encounter was quantum or pre-planned. It's not possible to know unless the DM tells them.

Context. That was in the context of being the DM. Quantum is not relevant to me, because I'm not the one encountering the monster. Quantum doesn't apply to players, because players in a traditional game don't encounter quantum unless you have a DM engaging in illusionism or something. A correctly rolled forest wandering monster, though, doesn't have that potential issue.

Also, what the player knows or doesn't know is not relevant to whether it's quantum or not.

 

[pemerton]

I found this an enlightening post. Where if anywhere, do you then locate differences?

Does narrativism wind up being a subset of simulationism? Simulationism in the dramatic mode, so to speak?

I'm not @Campbell, but you can see my answer to these questions in my reply to him not very far upthread: D&D General - [rant]The conservatism of D&D fans is exhausting..

From the comments on the blog post:

OK, so the psychological basis for Narrativism is artistic self-realization, right? I think that the best argument for the CA modes not being distinct modes all around is probably in this territory: the distinction between Narrativist self-realization and Simulationistic elevated understanding is sort of subtle; it’d be credible to argue that they in fact can cohere creatively in the right circumstances. (This would be distinct from technical Hybrid design; this is saying that Nar and Sim overlap as CA categories rather than there being some technical trick to make creative needs align in play.) The modes can be much more distinct if you specifically contrast subject matters, but a Simulationistic game about human psychology and a Narrativist game about human psychology can seem awfully similar. I think that the distinction lies solely in whether you’re pursuing an understanding of the subject or a personal artistic pronouncement; that is, if you’re looking to learn, or to transform yourself.

I don't think it's about "looking to learn" vs "looking to transform yourself" - that makes it sound like a psychology lecture vs a therapy session!

As per my reply to @Campbell, I think that the difference is whether the player is proactive about an emotional thematic issue.

This can be pretty subtle in the actual moment of play - for instance, when I (pemerton the player) decided that Aedhros would help Alicia, had I stepped out of inhabitation? Or was I going with the "flow" of Aedhros? I can't remember now. My play report says that I "went for the mouldbreaker award" (ie for the dramatic roleplay of a conflict in Beliefs, Instincts, traits etc), but that doesn't necessarily mean "author" stance - maybe I was in "actor" stance, realised where that was taking me, and then thought about it in "mouldbreaker" terms.

Had I been concerned to use some external reference to decide what Aedhros would do, we could definitely say that I was oriented in a "sim" fashion, rather than getting proactive. But judging the other way is not so clear, I think. At least to me.

I am not Campbell, but as I read it it the external expression might be almost identical, but the purpose in the persons mind is different. The one pursuing a simulationistic agenda want to feel like the character, and learn about how they perceive the world. Someone pursuing a narrativistic agenda will want to express how they perceive the character.

As I've posted - especially in my reply to Campbell - I don't agree with this.

I think my BW play counts as "narraivist" and not "simulationist" in its agenda, but I 100% want to feel like my character. When I'm playing a BW character, I am not expressing how I perceive the character - that's actually something I would regard as a sim orientation, because it sets up some external correctness condition (ie did I properly express the character) and an important property of a simulation is that there is some sort of correctness condition (either for its process, or its output).

The difference, in my view, pertains to the element of proactivity, vs fidelity to an external standard.

D&D seem to be better geared toward princes play than I thought as it provide the tools to do cool stuff with the character that can be applied at all time.

I do agree that this is one thing 5e D&D seems good for, and even oriented towards.

 

[Maxperson]

I am unsure the "GNS" distinctions are fully helpful. I think D&D culture has more specific terms that are more useful when talking about the D&D game.

Gamist ≈ mechanics
We all know what "mechanics" means: roll a d20 for "success", and sometimes other dice for damage or healing, and for some styles "grid counting", plus other simple-but-versatile mechanics, such as damage type and creature type. D&D gamism strives to be as simple as possible but not simpler.

Narrativist ≈ story telling + character (identities, desires) + "adventure"
Here narrativism encompasses various aspects of "story telling". The game organizes around the players as the center of the multiverse, the protagonists. Thus all adventures are quests to express the character concept and its identities and to fulfill the desires, values and ambitions, of the character. Meanwhile the encounters themselves are timed in a way to approximate a story structure. The structure includes an intro into what the setting is, a vague sense of the challenges ahead, and "meeting the heroes" during the lowest tier, then struggles in a strange fantasy otherworld until a major achievement of ambitions around middle tier (9-12), then progressing into all-or-nothing "saving the multiverse" at the highest tier. The struggles themselves are encounters, typically combat encounters, that relate to the identities and desires of each player character. All of this is story telling. In addition to the story structure expounding on the protagonists, the narrative descriptions of each encounter, the narrative immersion by the players as they interact spontaneously with each scene, and the DM narrative adjudication of the outcomes of these player spontaneities are also part of narrativism.

Simulationist ≈ "sandbox"
Here "sandbox" refers to a DM creating a world that exists independently from the player characters. These world phenomena preexist. Simulationism uses sophisticated mechanics to represent these phenomena, that tend to be predeterined, with automated responses, scripts, and other mechanically determined outcomes − whether players interact with them or not. Videogames work this way, with preprogrammed encounters, that players may or may not run into.


A different question is who creates the world that both narrativists and simulationists explore: the DM, rotating DMs, the players, the dice, the tables? It could be a DM adjudicates a narrativist adventure, or the players decide what goes into a standbox or how a phenomenon reacts to the player characters.

There's wrong stuff here.

Gamist =/= mechanics. Gamist = treating the game as a game. For example, the player knowing and using weaknesses, AC, etc. for monsters the PC would have no way of knowing about. Mechanics exist in games of all types, not just gamist ones.

Simulationist =/= sandbox. You can in fact have a sandbox game that doesn't attempt to be simulationist and is gamist or narrativist. And you can have a non-sandbox game that attempts to simulate things to a great degree.

 

[pemerton]

If whatever die roll that could have alerted Thoth to the rescue attempt on a failure (had he not been preoccupied) now instead has some other complication tied to it just to avoid a "nothing happens" failure, that would undermine the value of the players' strategizing and risk-mitigation efforts.

But not if the successful distraction of Thoth grants a bonus to the subsequent roll to not alert him.

 

[pemerton]

Why do you care if 4e didn't feel like D&D to them? It was certainly a pretty radical departure of design from what came before and after.

This is contentious.

In the way PCs are built - stats, feats, the components of a character's "race" - is heavily derived from 3E D&D. And the way hit points, saving throws and other features of combat work is, to me at least, heavily reminiscent of Gygax's AD&D. I feel that 4e really pays out on Gygax's promise that hp are about luck and divine protections and the like, rather than "meat".

For me, 4e D&D is the version of the game that actually gives me what I wanted from D&D when I first learned about it and played it.

 

[pemerton]

Further, by your logic, the exact same thing happens in D&D. You can't ever meaningfully eliminate the chance of missing on attacks, hence, you're never rewarded for clever approaches in combat.

I've noticed a certain trend in this discussion that, when it comes to identifying features of D&D, combat doesn't count.

There is a possible historical reason for this: in the classic game, where the goal is to beat the dungeon by getting all the loot out of it, exploration is the key to finding and extracting the loot; and combat with wandering and guardian monsters is a means to that end. Combat is handled via a wargame-y process (originally a strictly wargame process, namely, Chainmail). Whereas the exploration stuff is handled by free back-and-forth conversation, with dice rolled only in certain non-entirely-clear cases where either (i) it glosses over an unelaborated in-fiction process (eg of looking for a secret door; disabling a trap) or (ii) it reflects some sort of basal lack of certainty in a causal process (listening at a door, bashing in a door, etc).

As soon as combat becomes an end in itself - eg the first time a player ever had their PC challenge an irritating NPC to a duel - then the point you make gained its full force! Why should combat, as an arena of conflict which has its own interest and merit, be any different from other arenas of conflict in the way that the game handles it?

 

[pemerton]

I am so sorry, I do not manage to parse your question, and need to put my children to bed. I will try to get back to this and make a new attempt at parsing it if you have not clarified in the meantime

I reiterated the imagined instance of play of Apocalypse World, where the PC breaks into Dremmer's storeroom and encounters Pattycakes the cook. And then asked - to myself, so apologies for that! - why the players would feel that the fiction/world is independent of them, given that they can surely infer that, but for the 7 to 9 Act Under Fire result, the GM would probably not have narrated Pattycakes's presence in the same way.

And my answer to my own question was: the world/fiction feels independent to the players, despite their knowledge, because it is not under their control. For instance, it is the GM who tells the player that someone is coming; an, when the player has their PC enter the storeroom, the player encounters Pattycakes as a separate (imaginary) being, whose responses are not under the player's control.

 

[Enrahim]

That soft move would likely assign some mechanical penalties as well not just colour consequence. Particularly in a game like D&D where the primary language for most players is mechanics.

Of course there is going to be mechanical consequences. But what consequences would you have in mind that wouldn't feel like "going soft" compared to falling down? (In particular in a high-risk climb)

No. They've had 50 years, there is no excuse anymore. They have a website where they can dump basic advice for free and update wheresoever necessary. They advertised modular design we got next to nothing. Let's stop dumbing down our society.
I refuse to accept this premise because it's blatantly false and sets a low bar on poor misconceptions.

But they have fixed it! In 5ed there are no specified result on a failed athletics check to climb. Rejoice!
(And what premise do you think is blatantly false? That rules matching player misconceptions sell better than rules trying to teach players the real deal? That would indeed be surprising news to me!)

I'm not sure I understand you clearly here. Could you perhaps rephrase please.

I think having a friend sharing with the group "you know - falling while climbing complicated cliffsides, even if untrained and not properly secured, is actually a lot less probable than you might think. Maybe we should look for alternative outcomes of a failed climb check?" Would be considered a very nice, and appreciated by everyone in the group.

However if the rulebook states: "As it turns out that falling is an extremely unlikely outcome when climbing, you should not narrate that as a consequence of a failed climb check", that at least give me a very different feel. If I read that in a rulebook my initial gut reaction would likely be something along the way, "I feel like this game takes itself too seriously and imposes too many detail rulings I need to remember. I think I'd rather look for something more intuitive to play."

Yes. I love the bolded part because I have used it a handful of times and it works. You don't want to use it too much in a session because it may slow things down (one of the cons).

Yes that balance between the effect and time consumption is a tricky one. An interesting experiment might be to take it really far. As an expected player facing procedure it might slow down the game drastically initially; but the question is if after a while this routine could be so worked in that a simple "So.."(2 second pause) would be enough, and not feel particularly disruptive?

 

[Hussar]

Uh uh. You have no ability to shove false words into our mouths. We are saying it's quantum because the player's die roll causes the cook to be there or not be there and we only find out after the box(die roll) is opened. Not because we're saying it's objectively wrong.
/snip

And we're saying that there is absolutely no difference between one completely arbitrary die roll resulting in an encounter and another completely arbitrary die roll resulting in an encounter. Your forest encounter teleports all over the map, so long as the PC's are somewhere in that forest, at 6 pm, they will have a specific encounter that is determined by your random die roll. Doesn't matter what they are doing, zero context. So long as they are in the forest at 6 pm, they will have THAT encounter. Camping? Fishing? Forced marching? Playing a song? Doesn't matter. Hiding in the trees? Sleeping in tents? Lying out on the ground? Doesn't matter. It's 6 pm and you WILL have that encounter. Full stop.

Quantum.