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

[EzekielRaiden]

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.

I think this captures my feeling on the subject as well, both as a player and as a GM.

As a player, I don't see or feel any difference between "the GM has revealed their notes which say that Pattycakes is behind the door" and "the rules call for a certain procedure, which invites the GM to reveal that Pattycakes is behind the door". Both of those seem equally independent of me-the-player. And this is why I would bring up the example of wandering monster tables. That seems to meet all the descriptive characteristics: it's something that isn't in the GM's notes, which gets called forth by a procedure (a roll), and in the vast majority of cases that procedure is triggered by actions the players took. The only difference, as far as I can tell, is that the dice were rolled by the player in one case, and by the GM in the other case. I don't really think the hand which throws the die makes a meaningful difference in whether the world is independent of the players. It's not like the players are making the dice say anything, any more than the GM is. It's still an element of the world, independent of the players.

 

[Enrahim]

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.

Ah! Ok! In that case I guess my response is that I agree

And this framing of the situation I think is very good to give another formulation of the problem situation. If the player start getting the idea that they indeed was (to some extent) in control of someone coming, and the response of Pattycakes, then that hurts the sense of independence.

In this case the idea could be that if they had been listening on the door instead that could have caused there to be no guard patrol coming, and possibly there being no Pattycakes in the game at all. If this idea is further pursued, then they can start feeling like them deciding to pick lock or listen are indeed (partially) controlling parts of the world in ways they feel uncomfortable with.

 

[Enrahim]

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.

We are back to quantum again. Time to bring back the taxonomy

It turns out that there are a lot of different types of “quantum” at play in RPGs. I think it might be good for conversation to have a taxonomy of them. So here goes.

Our situation is that last session it became clear that in the next session the group is planning to move through a forest using one of the two well known paths (A and B), but they have not yet decided which. This forest is known for having a particularly ferocious Ogre roaming it. What are possible approaches to decide if the group encounters it as they move through the forest?

1: The classic locally deterministic quantum: Once the players commit to a path, the Ogre appears on that path.
2: The local evenly random quantum: Once the players commit to the path, the GM flip a coin to see if the Ogre is on that path.
3: The global evenly random quantum: Once the players commit to the path, the GM flip a coin to see which path the Ogre is currently guarding.
4: The local uneven random quantum: Once the players commit to the path, the GM rolls D20. If the players chose path A the Ogre is there on a 5 or lower, if they chose path B the ogre is there on a 15 or lower.
5: The global uneven random quantum: Once the players commit to the path, the GM rolls D20. If the result is 5 or lower, the ogre is on path A, otherwise it is on path B.
6: The oversaturated local random quantum: Once the players commit to the path, the GM rolls D20. If they chose path A the Ogre is on the path on a 15 or lower. If they chose path B the ogre is on the path on a 10 or lower.
7: The weirdly entangled local quantum: If a character is declared to “be alert” while moving through the forest, the player rolls a D20. On a 6 or higher the Ogre is on the path. If no one makes such a declaration it is not on the path.
8: The ultra local random quantum: While the party is traveling through the forest, roll D6 every hour. On a 1 they encounter the ogre.
9: The even random stocking: Before the session the GM flip a coin to determine which path the Ogre is on.
10: The uneven random stocking: Before the session the GM roll D20. On a 5 or less the Ogre is on path A, otherwise it is on path B.
11: The deterministic stocking: Before the session the GM decides where the ogre is.
and as a bonus
12: The anticlimax: There is no Ogre to encounter, as the last party passing through already has slain it, and its remains have been consumed by forest beings.

Which of these do you find acceptable? Which are unacceptable? Why?
I have quite a few thoughts about this myself, but I guess this post is long enough as is.

Did you miss this? There were a few people answering it, but the overwhelming response was that most types of quantum in this taxonomy is fine though not everyone uses them. 1 and 7 is standing out as particularly problematic.

 

[FrogReaver]

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.

This may also help explain the reservations about giving traditional DM roles to players.

 

[FrogReaver]

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.

How is saying '4e D&D is the version of the game that actually gives me what I wanted from D&D' not agreeing that it was a radical departure from what came before, even for you?

IMO some people love it because it was a radical departure and some people hate it for that.

 

[FrogReaver]

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.

Yep. In play we often have to decide what our character does and if we treat the game as a game then we might arrive at one answer and if we treat the game as a simulation we might arrive at another.

 

[clearstream]

Here is what he says about Pendragon, in the blog:

Pendragon is a prime example of a [substantial exploration] game, as the purpose of its existence is to be this massive exegesis and love letter to the Matter of Britain. If the players don’t appreciate it yet, they will. Aside from folklore studies, the game features [GM story hour] in a big way. The character player side is interesting in that it’s [subjective experiencing + dollhousing] without as much as [princess play] focus as you’d normally expect; the characters are intentionally relatively generic.​

Here is what he says about "substantial exploration":

“Substantial exploration” is a type of game that involves a major external reference source. This is not just a big pile of GM notes; every player may or may not be familiar with the source material, but either way, exploring this material is core to the game’s creative purpose. . . . a game could conceivably be completely about substantial exploration creatively. You might have some player characters, I don’t know, adventuring and stuff, but that’s just the excuse, and what we’re really into here is [the material]​

He does allow that Pendragon isn't completely about substantial exploration: it also has the player-side elements he mentions. But I think you're right to say that he doesn't go into this in real detail. Ron Edwards said a bit more about it 20+ years ago, in his review of Wuthering Heights and also this in the "right to dream" essay (where he is comparing Pendragon Traits and Passions to The Riddle of Steel's Spiritual Attributes, with a side discussion of GURPS behavioural disadvantages):

a character in Narrativist play is by definition a thematic time-bomb, whereas, for a character in Simulationist play, the bomb is either absent (the GURPS samurai), present in a state of near-constant detonation (the Pendragon knight, using Passions), or its detonation is integrated into the in-game behavioral resolution system in a "tracked" fashion (the Pendragon knight, using the dichotomous traits). Therefore, when you-as-player get proactive about an emotional thematic issue, poof, you're out of Sim. Whereas enjoying the in-game system activity of a thematic issue is perfectly do-able in Sim, without that proactivity being necessary.​

I think that this fits with what you say about "a legacy of embedding character mentality into the mechanics of the game to help us immerse into our characters . . . that inspired Narrativist designs".

If I've understood your properly, this seems to agree (at least roughly) with what I said about the "thin boundary" between "simulationism" and "narrativism" when it comes to these aspects of character psychology, and the way mechanics pick them up in various ways.

I think this also fits with Edwards - given how easy it is to "get proactive about an emotional thematic issue", the transition "out of Sim" to narrativism seems easy to do.

In my own play, I look at how I play Aedhros and Thurgon, and the pleasure that I get from that inhabitation, and think about where it fits in this "simulationist"/"narrativist" contrast. I think I'm mostly on the "out of Sim" side of things, because of a degree of proactivity about emotional thematic issues, but I don't think it's a huge distance that we're talking about here. When it comes to Aedhros, I can almost pin it down to one moment of play:
This is where Aedhros's attitude to Alicia started to change. She hasn't become a surrogate for his dead spouse (and it would be pre-emptive to say "hasn't yet become"), but his contempt reduced and sympathy increased.

I feel that's an example of a "poof, you're out of Sim" moment.

Might a distinction then be drawn between

One job of the game mechanics is to provoke and frame proactivity about an emotional issue​

​

And

​

One job of the game mechanics is to represent and demand engagement faithful to the subject​

​

With the obvious scope for overlaps or segues between them.

 

[FrogReaver]

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?

Maybe. I kind of lean that way but am not committed. Though, I think it might also help to keep in mind the difference between Emulation and Simulation.

Emulation meaning only the external output needs to 'match' the thing being emulated.

Simulation meaning the the internal states and external outputs need to 'match' the thing being simulated.

In a skill check we have a few key elements, what the skill represents, what the roll represents, the outcome space (often binary pass/fail but not limited to that), and what specific outcomes can occur.

In games that do Fail Forward right, we find that skill checks represent internal and external elements (seemed we actually reached consensus on that point earlier). So for example, lockpicking (or whatever skill) represents not just how well your character picks a lock but also how well he avoids complications external to picking the lock while picking the lock. That alone is enough to place this in the emulation category. I think something also could be said about what specific outcomes are allowed here, but I don't think it's necessary to kick off this idea.

So a game that doesn't have skills represent things external to the character, those would be simulations. Or at least simulations in regards to the skills.

It's not inherently wrong to emulate instead of simulate. There's pros and cons to both methods! But if you like/want/expect a simulation and I give you an emulation you are going to be disappointed. You'll try to explain that as, 'but the internal states don't match' which isn't a concern for emulation, and thus the idea that 'the internal states you don't see matching aren't real, because they have no bearing on how emulation works'.

 

[The Firebird]

When it comes to the classic inspirational literature, my gold standard for climbing urban walls to sneak into somewhere important is REH's Tower of the Elephant. There are guards, and lions, and other guardian creatures.

Given the pace at which REH wrote, he must have been making most of this up simply as he went along! It's a good model of the sort of things a GM might aspire to dream up when GMing in a 'fail forward" style.

Hmm... Howard claimed to write things in a single sitting in his correspondence, but many of these claims are contradicted by his other notes and drafts. There is an extant early draft of Tower of the Elephant, although I've not read it. Many drafts/outlines are available for his other works as well and the idea that he wrote any of this as an improvisational DM would does not seem well supported imo.

 

[AlViking]

I love how you've turned "it's good when events continue moving forward when you fail" to "these damn MILLENIALS think you should NEVER FAIL!"

i have no idea how so many people in this thread are just completely ignoring the actual topic to to -CENSORED- themselves about how Good And Pure And Noble their style of gaming is. when asked "hey you should consider the merits of this other way of playing" like 8 people in this thread respond "this is a personal insult to me and anything other than rigorously prepared or randomly rolled occurrences is a moral failure and generates a failure of a game"

Mod Edited

My millennial nephews were the one who told that they called participation rewards "Good breathing" certificates and that they considered them a joke. As far as failure I think learning that failure is not the end of the world, that everyone else fails now and then and that you pick yourself up figure out what went wrong and move on, is a good thing to learn.

As far as others not agreeing with me - SHOCKING! People on the internet disagree? Who knew. When it comes to the OP? I agree. I don't understand why people complain about the art or minor changes to the rules, we've adopted the 2024 rules for our games. On the other hand, I am quite open that I do not want to play a narrative style game. As a GM I don't feel any need to "move the story forward" on a failure, the players should accept the failure and figure out alternatives; in my game there will always be alternatives.

Meanwhile I will never tell people that they are wrong to like something I do not. It's not an insult to me for someone to want something I do not, it's only an insult when they start yelling and using derogatory verbiage instead of just stating that they disagree and explaining why.