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

[Campbell]

I feels this ties back to something @AlViking said upthread, where he believed that Trad-gamers try immerse themself into the character whereas the other side treat the character as some sort of avatar.

I suspect there is some truth to that but it is not the whole story there is also:
- Trad-gamers believe immersion comes from knowledge limitation in an attempt to mimic RL in order to play a character true; whereas
- the Narrative side freely gives the meta knowledge in an attempt get it out the way, and allow the player to rather focus on the truth of the character.

A Trad-gamer is concerned with the numbers, the game prioritises the numbers, and thus meta knowledge is hurtful to immersion.
To a Narrative gamer the stakes, character bonds, win/loss conditions etc are in a sense more important than the numbers, therefore the meta knowledge doesn't lessen their character's truth.

Those that play Narrative games can please correct me, but that is how I understand it with my limited knowledge based solely on conversations here.

For @Lanefan the meta-knowledge being revealed is akin to cheating, because it is assumed a player cannot play their character true having that information, which, IMHO, is not a good reflection on the game.
It is 1 of my personal frustrations I have with D&D.

The sense of being there, in character, is deeply important to me (like maybe most important thing at times). However, that also includes, access to my character's intuition about the world around them, which to me should be different from my own intuitions.

There's also the matter that the games my group plays feature a very different sort of fictional norms than typical D&D play. The characters are almost always in fictional circumstances that they are deeply comfortable in and know a good deal about. Because they are going about their lives, interacting with places they know and with people they know for the most part. Even when these details are new, they are the sorts of things characters are with.

We're also usually dealing with the sorts of fiction where the setting is acting on the characters as much as they are acting on it. The stakes are often pretty clear because someone is trying to get information from them, ingratiate themselves or in some other way are actively doing stuff that's pretty apparent.

In a blog post, John Harper lays out the 4 C's of character that apply in the sorts of scenarios I generally deal with (in these games) :

Connected: The character has relationships (positive and negative) with other significant characters in the situation.

Committed: The character has a stake in the outcome of the situation, and will stay to see it through.

Capable: The character has the capacity to affect change in the situation by taking decisive action.

Conflicted: The character has beliefs and goals that are in conflict. They must make choices about which are more important, and which must be abandoned or changed.

So, you are dealing with situations you give a damn about so likely so knowledge of, people you have spent time around before, are capable of handling (so have mostly useful intuitions about and have some beliefs you are conflicted about). Things are familiar rather than foreign so telegraphing tends to enhance that sense of being there in the moment rather than detract from it.

Part of all this includes like ceding like your character's intuitions about their environment in part to the GM (and making that part of your immersion).

In other words, we have the information our characters should have. We just design the scenarios / scenes so that's enough.
Because we are dealing with familiar situations (familiar to our characters but not to us) the telegraphing actually helps us to get in the right headspace.

TLDR different play processes were developed with different sorts of fiction in mind.

 

[Eric V]

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

He doesn't seem to think so, at least not to the point of saying he disliked them.

Maybe 1e-3e didn't give him what he felt should have been the D&D experience based on that particular forward, but it doesn't mean they weren't fun in their own way, or that he disliked them.

Maybe now people can stop telling @pemerton how he felt about AD&D...

 

[Eric V]

If I couldn’t like things despite recognizing them as flawed or somewhat dissatisfying, I would never go to family functions.

Amen.

 

[Eric V]

Well, it certainly looked like a big deal. And for the 4e fans I heard from on this very site, you's think it was some kind of answer to their tabletop prayers, so I'm not sure that describing 4e's changes as "not a big deal" can be universally applied here the way you are doing it.

They weren't big deal changes in terms of how radical they were (abandoning the 6 stats, using a dice pool instead of a d20, no classes, etc.)

The changes were very pleasant in what they accomplished, however.

 

[zakael19]

The sense of being there, in character, is deeply important to me (like maybe most important thing at times). However, that also includes, access to my character's intuition about the world around them, which to me should be different from my own intuitions.

There's also the matter that the games my group plays feature a very different sort of fictional norms than typical D&D play. The characters are almost always in fictional circumstances that they are deeply comfortable in and know a good deal about. Because they are going about their lives, interacting with places they know and with people they know for the most part. Even when these details are new, they are the sorts of things characters are with.

We're also usually dealing with the sorts of fiction where the setting is acting on the characters as much as they are acting on it. The stakes are often pretty clear because someone is trying to get information from them, ingratiate themselves or in some other way are actively doing stuff that's pretty apparent.

In a blog post, John Harper lays out the 4 C's of character that apply in the sorts of scenarios I generally deal with (in these games) :



So, you are dealing with situations you give a damn about so likely so knowledge of, people you have spent time around before, are capable of handling (so have mostly useful intuitions about and have some beliefs you are conflicted about). Things are familiar rather than foreign so telegraphing tends to enhance that sense of being there in the moment rather than detract from it.

Part of all this includes like ceding like your character's intuitions about their environment in part to the GM (and making that part of your immersion).

In other words, we have the information our characters should have. We just design the scenarios / scenes so that's enough.
Because we are dealing with familiar situations (familiar to our characters but not to us) the telegraphing actually helps us to get in the right headspace.

TLDR different play processes were developed with different sorts of fiction in mind.

I love how Stonetop’s end of session bakes in this emphasis on relationships, it’s so fun to pause and reflect - and it means you should be always trying to form new or change your existing ones and really capture that.

Hx and Strings do a great job of representing the same mechanically as well.

I think this is the one area in which the shift from PCs to amalgamated Crew as the center of gravity makes Blades feel less intertwined for me. Players can absolutely bring it, but mostly the game doesn’t have the mechanical reinforcements that PBTAs do. It’s interesting to see the trade offs in design made to facilitate cohesive “party” play.

Your point about ceding intuition via mechanics is interesting. I know that in his recent version of Read a Sitch Baker added those parenthetical notes by each question eg: “who’s in control here? (how do I know?)” to really reinforce that this is something fictional the character is intuiting about the world they see; the other character they’re interacting with, etc. It invites the GM to also put themselves in the character’s POV and head for a second and go “this is what you know/see and why.”

Quite often depending on the circumstance and context, I might take a moment to ask a revealing question about the player while we’re inside their head like that, just continually fleshing out my model of them. Fun stuff.

 

[Eric V]

In don't really see how this is so mysterious.

Because it isn't.

 

[Maxperson]

Well, no… the quotes were around the “metagame”… a concept that makes no sense for those games. It’s all part of the game.

Insert a bit about reading to respond here if you like.

In your haste to mock me, which you like to do fairly often, you flubbed it. This is what you said...

"First is you stop caring about the “metagame”. There’s just the game.

Second, you telegraph danger ahead of time. Or at the very least, you establish what the likely risk is, the stakes of the roll. You let the player know “okay this sounds like a Stealth roll… what’s at risk here is discovery, so don’t fail!” and then you have them roll. I would likely be a bit more descriptive in the nature of the discovery… but that may not be necessary.

Then they roll, and if they fail, you already know the consequences… so you follow through on that."

There's nothing about other games there, and you shouldn't assume that people have read all the posts in this very quickly moving thread. When you read to respond, which you also do fairly often, my posts are self-contained and don't need you to refer other posts.

Apples and oranges dude.

 

[Maxperson]

Honestly… we’ve talked about this so many times. I understand your concern. But having actually played games that way for years now, I can assure you that your concerns are simply unfounded.

Perhaps if you took one of these games and tried to play with your group, and you and everyone else ignored the actual guidance in the book and kept playing the same way you always play RPGs… then yes, I suppose your fears would make sense.

But if you ran the game per the intended rules and principles, and your players played per the intended rules and principles… then there would be no such issues. The games work perfectly well!

This really goes back to what @Campbell said about judging each game as its own thing, on its own merits and according to its goals and methods.

Just because metagaming is incorporated into the rules and guidance of those games, and you are okay with it happening, doesn't make it not metagaming. It's just sanctioned metagaming that nobody in your group cares about.

 

[hawkeyefan]

In your haste to mock me, which you like to do fairly often, you flubbed it. This is what you said...

"First is you stop caring about the “metagame”. There’s just the game.

Second, you telegraph danger ahead of time. Or at the very least, you establish what the likely risk is, the stakes of the roll. You let the player know “okay this sounds like a Stealth roll… what’s at risk here is discovery, so don’t fail!” and then you have them roll. I would likely be a bit more descriptive in the nature of the discovery… but that may not be necessary.

Then they roll, and if they fail, you already know the consequences… so you follow through on that."

There's nothing about other games there, and you shouldn't assume that people have read all the posts in this very quickly moving thread. When you read to respond, which you also do fairly often, my posts are self-contained and don't need you to refer other posts.

Apples and oranges dude.

Max, go back and read what I was responding to. You can click on the name in the quoted bit to go back to the previous post. Then do it again. This will give you the context you meed to actually accurately comment on what I was talking about.

In relation to the thief/cook example, @Lanefan had talked about the need to split things up into multiple rolls… one for the PC and another by the GM for the NPC. I then commented that doesn’t have to be the case… and that in certain specific games such as Blades in the Dark, Stonetop, and Spire, the GM never rolls for NPCs.

Then @Lanefan asked how that worked… and we went back and forth on that. Clearly, that was the context of the discussion.

Just because metagaming is incorporated into the rules and guidance of those games, and you are okay with it happening, doesn't make it not metagaming. It's just sanctioned metagaming that nobody in your group cares about.

Well, it’s just part of the game and is encouraged and incorporated into play, and openly discussed and addressed by the participants.

It’s significantly different to the point that I feel comfortable saying that when you play such games, you have to stop worryibg about it… which was the original point I made.

But if you want to make claims about games you clearly don’t understand to insist that there’s still metagaming involved so you can be technically right… well, be my guest.

 

[Maxperson]

Well, it’s just part of the game and is encouraged and incorporated into play, and openly discussed and addressed by the participants.

It’s significantly different to the point that I feel comfortable saying that when you play such games, you have to stop worryibg about it… which was the original point I made.

But if you want to make claims about games you clearly don’t understand to insist that there’s still metagaming involved so you can be technically right… well, be my guest.

It's an actuality, not a technicality. If there is restricted federal land, it doesn't matter if you are a federal employee allowed onto it, it's still restricted federal land.

Metagaming doesn't cease to be metagaming just because you are allowed to do it and/or don't care about it.