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

[Lanefan]

I realize I have another great example of alternative to pure fail forward in trad.

The scenario was that I was DMing and the party had found a full body mirror with a riddle. If they didnt correctly solve the riddle the mirror attacked. They failed, and the mirror attacked. They managed to subdue the mirror though, and hence managed to get in some new attempts before it broke lose again. They again managed to subdue it and made another incorrect attempt. At this point I had a timeout, and asked if they wanted to go on, or if I should let something interesting happen. They were all unanimously and enthusiacally confirming thew wanted to go in with the riddle. So a couple of rounds later they managed to find a satisfactory answer to the riddle, and they got the reward.

Pay attention that if I as a DM had followed the (so called) narrarivistic technique of fail-forward here without asking, that would have undermined both the players' desire, and indeed their power to decide over the narrative.

Worth noting here that the players eagerly embraced the frustration of being unable to solve the riddle. Good on them!

@Faolyn , any thoughts here?

 

[pemerton]

It actually does imply that, even though I know from prior interactions that you didn't dislike all previous versions of D&D. If you say that 4e finally gave you what you wanted from D&D, that means that the prior editions didn't give you what you wanted. Most people dislike things that fail to give them what they want out of it, so the implication is there in your statement.

If something doesn't give all that one wanted, perhaps it gives some of it. Perhaps it surprises by giving something different. Perhaps at the time one doesn't know anything else is possible.

The phrase "X finally gave me what I wanted" or "X finally give me what I was looking for" is not that uncommon. And someone who uses it is not implying that they disliked everything up until they experienced X.

Sure, but not fulfilling the "promise of D&D" seems like it would be a pretty big deal.

Sure. That doesn't mean that everything prior was disliked.

 

[zakael19]

I realize I have another great example of alternative to pure fail forward in trad.

The scenario was that I was DMing and the party had found a full body mirror with a riddle. If they didnt correctly solve the riddle the mirror attacked. They failed, and the mirror attacked. They managed to subdue the mirror though, and hence managed to get in some new attempts before it broke lose again. They again managed to subdue it and made another incorrect attempt. At this point I had a timeout, and asked if they wanted to go on, or if I should let something interesting happen. They were all unanimously and enthusiacally confirming thew wanted to go in with the riddle. So a couple of rounds later they managed to find a satisfactory answer to the riddle, and they got the reward.

Pay attention that if I as a DM had followed the (so called) narrarivistic technique of fail-forward here without asking, that would have undermined both the players' desire, and indeed their power to decide over the narrative.

I mean, the fiction changed on each failure (the mirror attacks), they use the mechanics to reset and make choices, and you had a robust metachannel open.

Sounds pretty solid and fail-forward to me . (this is partially a joke)

 

[Lanefan]

This isn't true - it wasn't common but swarms and mobs also had this property. And for the same reason - to keep a certain monster relevant at higher levels while putting a cap on mechanical complexity. It's an example where 4e made a difference in degree, but not of kind.

I always saw swarms as just a mechanically-useful way of handling hundreds or even thousands of tiny creatures - biting ants, bee swarms, Pied-Piper-esque numbers of common rats, etc. - that each individually had 0.05 of a hit point and each did 0.1 hit point damage on a hit but en masse could still pose a fairly major threat at times. The individual creature still is what it is but it's only in aggregate that they matter much beyond the very basic nuisance of getting bitten or stung.

I've never really used mobs as such; even if there's lots of minor foes attacking a party I'll still roll individually for them as much as I can. As such, each individual monster still is what it is, its stats and hit points etc. don't change because of what it's doing or who it's fighting.

 

[pemerton]

Not sure what that has to do with anything under discussion.

You, @FrogReaver and @Maxperson are all asserting that I said or implied that I disliked D&D prior to 4e. @Faolyn is pointing out that you're wrong.

 

[pemerton]

There was no in-world causation for the guard showing up in Pemerton's example of their song.

the link to the example, the connection is obviously stated.

I'm taking that you are referring to this: "My singing attracted the attention of a guard, who had heard the word on the street, and didn't like the look of this rag-clothed Dark Elf."

I don't know why that is seen as not involving an in-fiction causal connection.

 

[Lanefan]

sounds like a lesser success/reduced effect to me.

It's a true fail, because you don't and can't get to the top - there's no way forward. But the consequence isn't as damaging (well, not right away anyway) as having a fail simply result in a fall; instead, you're stuck, and your options are to let go and fall, try to climb back down (at considerable risk) or waiting there until someone can bail you out.

A think I like about FITD games is you can make that an outcome, and then ask the player if they want to burn their Stress to resist it - narrating out what that looks like.

Yeah, sorry, but I'm very much against that sort of metacurrency. I don't like 5e's Inspiration, for the same reason: it's far too meta (or far too blatantly gamist, depending how you look at it).

 

[Maxperson]

So what did your post have to do with what I said?

The "" around metagaming and the declaration that there is only the game is a statement that metagming doesn't exist. It's okay if you want to ignore metagaming, but it does exist. I was just correcting the obvious error there.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

It's far more implied in AW (eg: talking about asking questions and building on them, that's not 1st person answers a lot of the time, the moves that are full of meta-channel stuff like the "Read A...", talking about turning questions back onto the group at large, etc); but most newer games are far more explicit about the "around the table" side of the conversation. BITD onward especially you generally see a straight up "Keep the Meta Channel Open" entry in the GM side of things. Now, you're pretty much always addressing the characters to make it clear that the answer should be from the character's POV or is emanating from their understanding of the world, but the conversation itself is going meta for a bit - and of course FITD games have a lot more procedures with greater or lesser degrees of fictional entanglement you're talking through.

I think that generally Blades looked at all the pitfalls of new PBTA play and tried to address a lot of them via design and guidance (AW's guidance being intentionally provocative and somewhat obtuse at times for people walking into that space of the hobby).

I personally found the AW advice to be crystal clear. I think it is fine to say that AW doesn't care that much. Like, you can follow its instructions and stay very much in character the vast majority of the time, or you could do it in 3rd person. DW doesn't actually say 'never use 3rd person' either, but it DOES say you are always addressing the characters, not the players.

 

[Gimby]

I always saw swarms as just a mechanically-useful way of handling hundreds or even thousands of tiny creatures - biting ants, bee swarms, Pied-Piper-esque numbers of common rats, etc. - that each individually had 0.05 of a hit point and each did 0.1 hit point damage on a hit but en masse could still pose a fairly major threat at times. The individual creature still is what it is but it's only in aggregate that they matter much beyond the very basic nuisance of getting bitten or stung.

I've never really used mobs as such; even if there's lots of minor foes attacking a party I'll still roll individually for them as much as I can. As such, each individual monster still is what it is, its stats and hit points etc. don't change because of what it's doing or who it's fighting.

Right, but the fact is, they existed. The concept that a creature could have different stats depending on who it was fighting and who it was accompanying was established pre-4e - that you didn't like them, or didn't use them, or rationalised them away doesn't stop them existing. As I said, the difference isn't in kind, it's in degree.

-edit Bats, for example, have stats both as individuals and swarms in 3e