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

[AlViking]

Fair. I was just shocked at how quickly he opened it.


PC went off the road to investigate something, found himself in a ditch (failed to notice it while trying to focus on his target). The ditch housed an abandoned foothold trap, his fall luckily saved him from getting caught, but clipped his boot tearing the one side in the fall.
Had it been a complete failure I'd have had his foot caught.

Ah, not seeing a trap makes sense.

This is where I'd check out by having two party members fail a climbing check and take falling damage. To imagine that happening in real doesn't pass the immersion test for me. Having a player cut their hand on the jagged rocks yes, or lose an item in the rough climb yes, suffer a minor scar (per lingering injury table) against the rockface yes etc but 2 characters falling taking silly falling damage and climbing again doesn't work for me anymore.

It's almost never two party members falling, it's one party member climbing to the top and dropping a rope or if they have a climber's kit putting pitons and attachment points for the others. As far as multiple people falling? I had that happen in a session I played recently. The only reason they didn't fall further was that we had taken the precaution of tying off to each other and my barbarian making a strength check to not fall with them. We also made notes to buy a climbing kit or two when we get back to town.

It may not work for you, it worked for our group and was a fun moment. I think that's a big part of what makes D&D popular, that we have significant leeway on how we run our games.

Guards are a possible complication but yes I would need more context to just drop a guard in. If it was a wall being climbed in an urban environment, perhaps being spotted by someone taking out the trash would be more reasonable. I dunno one would need more context on the location and persons normally in the area.

There are a lot of things I'm going to consider as risks but they are not directly related to a failed check for something like picking a lock. There may be other checks that failure leads to other complications. Failing a stealth check is an obvious one but could also be a perception check to notice a nosy neighbor, lack of investigation or information gathering or similar.

The risk will be related to what precautions the characters take, how long they take and the neighborhood and setting. In some neighborhoods if someone spots you they'd just get their buddy and sit on the stoop and watch. In some cases if you're breaking in the neighbors may have sending stones to alert the residents of the dwelling you're entering because the inhabitants are the head of a powerful organization. In others it might be a cause for alarm but it's not like in you can just dial 911 to get help in most campaigns. Whether there is a city guard outside of wealthy neighborhoods is also going to vary wildly, at least in my game.

I just want the result of failure to follow the fiction and failure should never mean the players at a complete loss as to what they do next. Even in the rare case that what they do next is pursue some other objective. At the same time if the cost of failure doesn't logically follow from the failure, once or twice is just bad luck. Happens all the time? It's a game I don't want to play.

 

[Enrahim]

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?

Ok, I think I have a torch to throw here. If this blog post is correctly describing the situation system doesn't matter.

That would explain why the system matters focus of forge failed to grasp the creative agenda, and the current difficulties with "classifying" existing systems.

The key issue - if this is right curiosity about the system is a valid creative agenda. As such any system is supporting the creative agenda of examining itself as the subject matter.

This was essential in what made me cry when I read this blog post. I realised that me being very into competative games, narative games and simulations isn't an expression of a split agenda. All of them are fueled by my completely dominating simulationist agenda.

I absolutely love trying out new games, and I am usually quickly able to play them on a quite competent level. I have won prices playing board games I had never played before. I also am really fond of 4eds complex tactical system and the interesting teamwork and optimalization abilities in it. I always interpreted that as a gamist preference. Now I realise it is actually my simulationist agenda at play. I am really not interested in winning to win - I am trying to win because that is what the game is about. I am a decently competent chess player, but when I play it if there are no obvious move better than others I always go for the move that bring most chaos, and seem interesting to explore further.

I am also fond of a good story. I find it really cool how modern narrative games are structured to drive narratives that are relevant to the characters. That would indicate a narrative streak, right? However I find myself completely uninterested in actually telling the story - what I want is to participate to see where it go. Thanks to the structure I was contributing major parts of my vision to the story, but getting those things off my chest was not the why of me being there - I was there because I was curious about what would happen.

What could be argued is that there might be some tools that is making most sense for someone with a simulationist agenda. But even this is dubious.

To take the poster boy: World simulation is great if you are curious about how something might "realistically" play out. But it can also be useful as a recognizable and system that can be gamed; or to create a more believable backdrop making your creative expression resonate more.

And world simulation is far from universally useful for someone with a simulationist agenda either. If you are curious about life on the astral plane I do not think it would be very helpfull..

 

[Eric V]

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.

I think the conservatism also shows in the description of "It was certainly a pretty radical departure of design from what came before and after"; 4e still had levels, the 6 stats, roll d20 and try to roll high, recognizable classes, hit points, coloured dragons, and on and on. "Radical" would have been, say, using an entirely different set of character stats, and using a dice pool of d6s.

 

[Eric V]

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)

"Your weapon belt snags on a sharp rock and you watch in horror as your blade falls with a clang to the bottom."
Or, same idea, but the potion belt, so the upcoming combat has no enhancing potions.
Or, enemies above are alerted, so they get a surprise round once the hero gets up there.

As a player, none of that would feel "soft" to me...in fact, if this were PF2E, I'd consider spending a hero point on the climb check.

 

[AlViking]

I think the conservatism also shows in the description of "It was certainly a pretty radical departure of design from what came before and after"; 4e still had levels, the 6 stats, roll d20 and try to roll high, recognizable classes, hit points, coloured dragons, and on and on. "Radical" would have been, say, using an entirely different set of character stats, and using a dice pool of d6s.

Every character having AEDU structure was a very fundamental change. For casters they could no longer cast the same spell multiple times in an encounter unless it was at-will (also a new idea). Fighters (outside of a supplement I never purchased) had always just used weapons to attack with, never had things like auras of damage or the ability to force pull. Add in things like skill challenges. That doesn't mean they didn't share some characteristics.

I could go on the game we played was significantly different from what came before or after. Whether it was good, bad, radical or minor is a matter of opinion. It felt like a completely different game to me with some cosmetic similarities in a way that previous editions and 5e did not.

 

[Enrahim]

"Your weapon belt snags on a sharp rock and you watch in horror as your blade falls with a clang to the bottom."
Or, same idea, but the potion belt, so the upcoming combat has no enhancing potions.
Or, enemies above are alerted, so they get a surprise round once the hero gets up there.

As a player, none of that would feel "soft" to me...in fact, if this were PF2E, I'd consider spending a hero point on the climb check.

The context here was that falling was too unrealistic. I find the two first less plausable myself, but maybe @AnotherGuy can provide insights in how he feels these.

The last one seem very situational. It also is flirting with the issue of having a failure indicate failure narrate something that is more relevant for a different skill.

But I at least the last one I agree would generally not be soft balling. It might actually be worse than falling.

 

[zakael19]

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

Yeah, I'm not sure that BW seems to do this as much as TB2 (or at least MBC's TB2?)? But it's a preference of play and how the GM frames scenes and makes moves as things snowball, along with some innate design choices that many games have moved away from in that sphere since to provide a different experience.

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!

Oh, I dont think you have as much. Some of the 4e stuff you've talked about running seems to fall into that system's core expectation that the players are heroes that are capable from L1 of facing challenges and changing things, but I dont think it's sounded nearly as explicit as what I tend to see presented.

I really do think that for western gaming culture, the increasingly openly queer and non-white male demographics have brought their own desires to see marginalized peoples get a freaking win in their fiction, along with a lot more games that are interested in community and positive relationships and all sorts of stuff.

 

[Enrahim]

Every character having AEDU structure was a very fundamental change. For casters they could no longer cast the same spell multiple times in an encounter unless it was at-will (also a new idea). Fighters (outside of a supplement I never purchased) had always just used weapons to attack with, never had things like auras of damage or the ability to force pull. Add in things like skill challenges. That doesn't mean they didn't share some characteristics.

I could go on the game we played was significantly different from what came before or after. Whether it was good, bad, radical or minor is a matter of opinion. It felt like a completely different game to me with some cosmetic similarities in a way that previous editions and 5e did not.

I would still argue that the change from 2ed to 3ed might be considered even more radical. We were going from a non-tactical dungeon crawler to a character builder with a tactical combat mode. 4ed was still a character builder with a tactical combat mode.

 

[zakael19]

It's not about failing the dice roll, it's about how to deal with the fact that you fail sometimes because we all fail sometimes. Do you get upset or just accept failure, figure out what went wrong and try a different approach?

In any case I'm not going to argue about it I just don't see the issue being failure, it's how you deal with failure. If you never fail we might as well be handing out participation trophies.

No, it's about what failure means for play. My players fail to get their full intent all the time. We had a crap ton of 6-s rolled last Monday. What we show is that a) you're not failing because you do something a competent person in that situation wouldn't do for laughs, b) that failure doesnt mean that play slams to a halt necessarily, and c) the fiction still evolves because by god you did something interesting and the world will do something interesting back, because we are playing games to have an interesting conversation.

5e fail-forward may play out differently because of some inherent design differences in d20 task resolution, but it doesn't have to if you frame the rolls. Just go read (or watch, if you must) some fiction where thievery is on the table and you'll see that "oops all locked doors" just doesnt really show up standalone.

Since this has gotten truly absurd, here's a recasting of the whole dang thing. You are allowed to say "I dont like it because failforward sucks" but this is I think way more reasonable to actual play:

Yarin is a thief of some sort. He's approaching the town mansion of the evil merchant Uzvek, needing to retrieve an artifact from somewhere within the house. Because he's a halfway competent thief, he's cased the place during the day and done some other stuff within the game's procedures for gathering info.

We can resolve the following escapade via conflicts to see what happens. For instance, scrambling over the low stone fence doesnt need a roll unless there's an obstacle a competent thief would face (say: magicked guard dogs). So: "as you climb the fence and pull yourself to the top, you can hear the snuffling sound of one of those dogs you saw when you cased the place out...what do you do?"

Or, we can know that the dogs are there and leave them out for now. "Ok, you climb the fence and see the kitchen door in the moonlight. Looks like it's quiet for now. What do you do?"

And if Yarin says that he creeps over to the door ("it's locked, right?"), keeping a wary eyes and ears open for problems we can frame the conflict out to "Yeah, cool so as you get to work with your picks you can hear the ticking of claws and a muttering guard in teh distance. You've got limited time here...what do you do?" And if Yarin says that he's going to try and pick it in a hurry (instead of anything else he could do here), we have a framed conflict (will you win and get in and away from the guard dog, or lose and get discovered and have to deal with something new?).

Or we could frame the conflict around sneaking across the grounds of the mansion (if this was Blades, I might do that instead), and elide the door lock entirely. The conflict is "do you get inside without being noticed."

Because stakes are clear, the player knows within the fiction what the possible complications are. On my door+guard example, on a 7-9 partial I might offer a choice between a cost and a consequence here (maybe something like ok, you get in just as they're rounding the corner, you can either drop your locrkpicks in your haste to get in, or the dog is going to start growling and searching around outside and the guard is going to be alerted).

 

[AlViking]

I would still argue that the change from 2ed to 3ed might be considered even more radical. We were going from a non-tactical dungeon crawler to a character builder with a tactical combat mode. 4ed was still a character builder with a tactical combat mode.

Maybe, but most people focused on dropping THAC0 as "the big change". We had also been using a lot of the supplements like S&P so for me it didn't feel like gameplay was that much different. It also likely depended on what your focus is in gaming. I tend to envision what my character was doing as if it were a novel or a movie, so going from a fighter that just kind of slapped on armor and hit things to having one that could use rain of steel and become the Tasmanian Devil, it was a pretty radical departure.

It's all just opinion and point of view. I thought gameplay was changed significantly, about the only other edition change that was close was from OD&D to AD&D.