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

[AlViking]

Which is why we have parties spending hours or entire sessions, real time, trying to figure out "simple" puzzles.

For the record I have never been in a game where we spent hours, much less entire sessions, trying to figure out a puzzle. I'm not even a big fan of puzzles where it's solely down to the players to solve. Especially some of the weird math puzzles that we'd just hand to Jeff to solve because he knew how to do them and the rest of us had no clue. In those cases it's not that we wouldn't have incorrect guesses, we wouldn't have any guesses at all. I don't use them, and the last time I encountered one was over a decade ago when I was playing a series of modules for LFR written by the same author.

Even if I had people in my group that enjoyed puzzles like that 99.9% when we talk about failure we aren't talking about literal puzzles. Unless you're @Lanefan, puzzles that take hours or even entire sessions to solve the percentage of puzzles that take more than a few minutes are approximately 0.

 

[clearstream]

If ‘game’ is a construct with alot of human judgement calls, not just about strategies and tactics, but around the exact nature of the opposition, timing, and what precisely occurs next (as every RPG is) then I don’t think such a construct can be analyzed as if it’s one invariable thing, which is what most analysis seems to strive for.

So I think you are mostly right, but it’s not due to its complex tool-like nature IMO, though it’s not an absolutely terrible analogy. It’s because so much of the game is left undefined to only later be defined by the participants. It’s how they feel in those gaps that makes for their unique experiences.

It's akin to saying that a chisel and a piece of wood is a sculpture of the Madonna. It could become one, once the chisel is put in use by a woodcarver interested in sculpting a Madonna. Certain types of chisel are better or worse, and even at times necessary or unnecessary, for certain carving styles... but a carver who sets out to carve a Madonna doesn't normally wind up with a fruitbowl no matter how suitable their chisel might be for carving one.

Analogies aren't my strong suit, just in case you're in any doubt on that score...

 

[FrogReaver]

It is one version of player agency, yes. There are others. To assert that this is the only possible form of player agency would be incorrect.


Only if everyone at the table is agreed that such events are an acceptable part of the gameplay experience, and is of the specific mindset and approach such that repeated totally preventable setbacks and problems and (etc., etc.) are a good and desirable part of the experience.

This is not only far from universal, I would say it is quite uncommon in most gamers--not totally unheard-of, but certainly far from typical. Just as there are things you agree not to do because it would be crappy inappropriate behavior at the table, others have different standards for what is crappy inappropriate behavior at the table, and some of them see it as a perfectly good and worthwhile agreement to skip over the "sooner or later" part and just start from a group that has "set a tone for themselves" so that things don't need to "settle down" but are in fact settled from the start, unless-and-until something beyond the pale occurs (and even that would probably be addressed, at least partially, through discussion between players (with or without the GM).

For a lot of gamers--I would argue the majority--whining "but it's what my character would do!" when everyone glares at you because you did something that annoyed, frustrated, or upset the other players will get the perfectly appropriate response of, "Well then, because YOU are completely responsible for deciding what character to play, then you chose to be an enormous cowpie, and we aren't really interested in dealing with your bovine feces." Blaming the character as though that somehow removes any responsibility from yourself is ridiculous--100% of the beliefs, thoughts, preferences, and choices belong to and come from you, the player of the character. "It's what my character would do!" acts like, because the character isn't identical to you, you're somehow completely innocent for any dickish things your character does, when...no, you're literally 100% responsible for those things.

"Don't be a dick" is generally a widespread basic minimum of human decency. If we add "to your friends", and then apply that to characters? "Don't be a dick to the other players" means...sure, you can play a character who is just a big jerk in general, but their big jerk behavior better be mostly directed outward, or not so egregious as to invite a death glare from other players.

That, too, is a version of player agency--one that has begun from a different agreement between players, and thus has a different space of play.

I think you go too far here. There are characters that will be perfectly fine in say 99% of all possible circumstances. I don’t think it’s the players fault when such a character encounters external circumstances (other characters or dm crafted scenarios) that perfectly push those buttons. I think this is a much different scenario than choosing a character that is 100% going to cause such issues.

 

[FrogReaver]

It's akin to saying that a chisel and a piece of wood is a sculpture of the Madonna. It could become one, once the chisel is put in use by a woodcarver interested in sculpting a Madonna. Certain types of chisel are better or worse, and even at times necessary or unnecessary, for certain carving styles... but a carver who sets out to carve a Madonna doesn't normally wind up with a fruitbowl no matter how suitable their chisel might be for carving one.

Analogies aren't my strong suit, just in case you're in any doubt on that score...

The key here seems to be there’s some medium, the stone with alot of gaps/possibilities. That aligns to what I said, it’s the purposeful gaps in rpg rules where players/dms can have input on things beyond strategy/tactics.

Edit to add: I think there’s some question on how gapful some RPG’s are compared to others. Some may not have enough Freeform gaps to create a Madonna (though ASCII art shows alot is possible with very little) so maybe I overestimate how many gaps there needs to be to produce a semblance of something.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

I'm thinking of the game-as-artifact, which will can include mechanics, illustrations and examples, setting, relatings of play and so forth. Everything a player receives with the artifact and that can go on to inform their use (including their determination that the game can be used in a way that can satisfy their interests.)

While the various aspects of a "game-as-artifact" are relevant, taking such an absolutely holistic view makes it a hell of a lot harder to actually talk about design in any sense whatsoever. Because now "game" means so many completely disparate things that all have to be integrating together at the same time, and all of them need to be interconnecting and supporting each other, and so many of them work by completely different rules.

Font and font setting and layout. Illustration and art and color design. Cartography and geography and climatology and geology and ecology. Politics and economics and sociology and psychology and religion and philosophy.

And not one single one of those things has anything to do with game design, as in, the actual process of crafting a game. It has everything to do with crafting a world, certainly, but the world is, if you will, "post-design" in terms of building a game that has rules.

It's like asking someone to produce the full tarot deck, with all of the major arcana, all the symbolism and meanings and art style and (etc., etc.), all on top of the complicated rule interactions between those various cards, from whole cloth, immediately after saying "I think I feel like making a card game." Yes, all those many different things are good for the game's impact on players, for its overall success and longevity, for its ability to inspire, and more. But such an overwhelmingly holistic view makes it a hell of a lot harder to actually examine any of those pieces. Yes, the holistic experience is what the player will have.

But we cannot design games all at once, from the ground up, to contain everything the player will experience. We must, necessarily, design them piecemeal, furtively, sectionally. It is essential that we finish the most utterly critical tasks first, and then the next-most-critical tasks, etc. until the whole is complete. And, unfortunately, many of the things the player will experience first are things that genuinely need to be done last if the game is going to end up actually good and worthwhile as an experience. Trying to start your game design by paying artists to make really awesome art, and then hoping that your design happens to pay off on whatever the artist felt like drawing? Not a good idea.

 

[FrogReaver]

While the various aspects of a "game-as-artifact" are relevant, taking such an absolutely holistic view makes it a hell of a lot harder to actually talk about design in any sense whatsoever. Because now "game" means so many completely disparate things that all have to be integrating together at the same time, and all of them need to be interconnecting and supporting each other, and so many of them work by completely different rules.

Font and font setting and layout. Illustration and art and color design. Cartography and geography and climatology and geology and ecology. Politics and economics and sociology and psychology and religion and philosophy.

And not one single one of those things has anything to do with game design, as in, the actual process of crafting a game. It has everything to do with crafting a world, certainly, but the world is, if you will, "post-design" in terms of building a game that has rules.

It's like asking someone to produce the full tarot deck, with all of the major arcana, all the symbolism and meanings and art style and (etc., etc.), all on top of the complicated rule interactions between those various cards, from whole cloth, immediately after saying "I think I feel like making a card game." Yes, all those many different things are good for the game's impact on players, for its overall success and longevity, for its ability to inspire, and more. But such an overwhelmingly holistic view makes it a hell of a lot harder to actually examine any of those pieces. Yes, the holistic experience is what the player will have.

But we cannot design games all at once, from the ground up, to contain everything the player will experience. We must, necessarily, design them piecemeal, furtively, sectionally. It is essential that we finish the most utterly critical tasks first, and then the next-most-critical tasks, etc. until the whole is complete. And, unfortunately, many of the things the player will experience first are things that genuinely need to be done last if the game is going to end up actually good and worthwhile as an experience. Trying to start your game design by paying artists to make really awesome art, and then hoping that your design happens to pay off on whatever the artist felt like drawing? Not a good idea.

I view the world as one inherently part of the game. It cannot be separated from the design, or at least you’ll get bad results if you do.

 

[Enrahim]

Is it right to understand that when you say "question" that is akin to when I wrote upthread of play's proper subjects? What we want our play to be concerning or about. And here to question may be to speak, to act, to narrate character actions, to write and sketch etc, including in advance of or between sessions of play? That is, the question might not be articulated in the form of a question, but rather in what players lean in to address etc.

Why must participants align in advance? Further on you suggest that

Which gets at a nagging doubt I have about GNS, i.e. observing players moving between modes within a session or across a campaign. But doesn't this mean that questions can develop during play, meaning that we should be less worried about aligning on questions at the beginning. As were we worried about having different questions in mind, we should also worry about players going off-piste during the session. And were we worried about having no questions in mind to form our play around, we can still be confident of their arising?

I think what you ask here is what I tried to address with

Each of step 2a, 2b and 3 can spawn new questions that need to be addressed using this structure before returning to this initial question.

And

The setting of the question I guess corresponds to framing the scene. This is generally not decided trough play but rather a function of the social contract. In case of disputes here, using meta channel would be the appropriate way to resolve those.

That is the "question" in this model is much more granular and dynamic than my understanding of what your concept of "proper subjects" entails. It is the immediate questions that are directly adressed in play. Note that this can be layered, so in the constructed example the question about what they do in the library could be a question spawned by trying to resolve if they manage to find an ancient scroll in a dungeon, which again could be a part of trying to find possible answers to what they can do about the Arch Lich.

Also the alignment can happen in many different ways. Session 0 conversations and agreeing on a base setting, tone and themes are typical foundation on a large scale. The most common on an in game scale is likely the mentioned process of frame setting. And some times it sort of happens spontaneously, like when a character instigates a bar fight. This is what establishes the immediate context of play, and I guess you agree it is a bit hard to envision a well functioning RPG without some common understanding of the current context of play?

Elsewhere I've proposed that games are tools (and note in that respect their concrete characterisation as tools in contemporary game designs such as Daggerheart) and that they are used to fabricate play. (There is a paper by Aarseth on games as mechanisms that is worth reading in connection with this.) So in saying that I am saying that play is that which emerges only on account of the specific player engagement with the specific game, with tremendous variation possible even with the same game.

Obviously the questions (or interests) players have in making that engagement -- especially with a complex tool, one with many parts that can be used in whole or part, and with different emphasis on parts -- will inform what game is played at their table. And equally obviously, that play can change over time without changing game.

This observation seem compatible with this proposed model.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

I think you go too far here. There are characters that will be perfectly fine in say 99% of all possible circumstances. I don’t think it’s the players fault when such a character encounters external circumstances (other characters or dm crafted scenarios) that perfectly push those buttons. I think this is a much different scenario than choosing a character that is 100% going to cause such issues.

Perhaps.

But I have found in every single case, in my own personal experience, where a player's response to others' ire is "but it's what my character would do!!", it is being used as a blatant fig-leaf excuse for behavior that was knowingly disruptive, harmful, and in violation of the group's play expectations--usually ones that had been explicitly spelled out.

Yes, I do think it is possible--much less likely than 1%, more like one in a million--for a player to be engaging perfectly in good faith, following motives that up until this moment have been perfectly fine, to coincidentally fall into a situation where it is so difficult to come up with a reasonable response that wouldn't be disruptive, that the player has no other choice. But in such a situation, the player would not launch into that behavior, and then try to justify it after the fact with "but it's what my character would do!" They would instead start from the outset with an out-of-character discussion, explaining "look guys, I cannot see ANY way out of this that wouldn't do something likely to upset someone. Can we talk about that?"

Under those circumstances, there is no need to make an excuse, fig-leaf or otherwise, because the player is going in clear-eyed and is doing the appropriate thing, getting out in front of the problematic scene, signposting it, and looking for alternatives or at least ways to soften the blow. If none can be found, even with the whole group collaborating, then what happens, happens. I've never seen such a situation, but I admit that it's at least theoretically possible, albeit exceedingly rare.

In the vast majority of situations, however? It's a player being a tool and thinking they can get away with it because they have a perfect, unassailable excuse when it's actually an admission of fault.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

I view the world as one inherently part of the game. It cannot be separated from the design, or at least you’ll get bad results if you do.

So D&D is a bad game then?

Because the rules of D&D inherently are not specific to a single world, and never have been. That's why we talk about "implied" settings rather than inherent ones. All the way back to Gygax, we have had a D&D specifically engineered to NOT be specific to a single world, but to be a semi-generic structure within the limits of a class-based, fantasy roleplaying game.

Or, if you prefer, 13A would then be an objectively better game than any edition of D&D, because it does actually have a setting woven into its rules that cannot be simply extracted. It takes extensive effort, not quite a total overhaul but a pretty significant one, to totally strip out the Dragon Empire from 13A.

Is it really the case that the world--again, as @clearstream expressed it, where it includes all of the setting information, geography, history, culture, religion, ecology, etc.--is so totally inseparable from a game's design that not having that instantly tanks the design experience? I can't see how anyone who followed the 5e playtests, and feels that 5e is (or at least that 5.0 was) a good game, could make that argument. The 5e rules do not have anything more than the lightest hint of a "world"--they are rules, with a limited baseline of fantasy flavor, specifically engineered to be able to embrace a breadth of worlds as different as Theros, Eberron, and Toril.

 

[FrogReaver]

So D&D is a bad game then?

Because the rules of D&D inherently are not specific to a single world, and never have been. That's why we talk about "implied" settings rather than inherent ones. All the way back to Gygax, we have had a D&D specifically engineered to NOT be specific to a single world, but to be a semi-generic structure within the limits of a class-based, fantasy roleplaying game.

Or, if you prefer, 13A would then be an objectively better game than any edition of D&D, because it does actually have a setting woven into its rules that cannot be simply extracted. It takes extensive effort, not quite a total overhaul but a pretty significant one, to totally strip out the Dragon Empire from 13A.

Is it really the case that the world--again, as @clearstream expressed it, where it includes all of the setting information, geography, history, culture, religion, ecology, etc.--is so totally inseparable from a game's design that not having that instantly tanks the design experience? I can't see how anyone who followed the 5e playtests, and feels that 5e is (or at least that 5.0 was) a good game, could make that argument. The 5e rules do not have anything more than the lightest hint of a "world"--they are rules, with a limited baseline of fantasy flavor, specifically engineered to be able to embrace a breadth of worlds as different as Theros, Eberron, and Toril.

There are many worlds which d&d does poorly. People craft ones that work well with the system.

But maybe more to the point, I’d view each d&d world as a separate game.