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

[EzekielRaiden]

I'm not at all. The statement was that 'there will almost always be some other description, beyond "the lock is now open", that they hope to become true. Its failure to become true would be an in-fiction consequence of the character failing to pick the lock as they hoped.'

So if a player hopes to find 1,000,000 gold when opening the lock then if he doesn't find that then he has failed to pick the lock as he had hoped. Right?

No. But this is such a disingenuous argument I cannot reasonably respond to it. Like I genuinely do not understand how anyone seriously arguing could ever conclude this from what was said.

You are inserting, without any justification, the idea that the player may invent ANY other description, anything at all, no matter what, with no limitations, no exceptions, nothing. They can just directly declare whatever they like whenever they like no matter what.

That is clearly and explicitly not compatible with anything else @pemerton said there. Nothing--not one thing--gives even the slightest hint that the player is somehow CONTROLLING what the hoped-for-thing is. It's simply that they do, in fact, hope for something beyond "there is now an open lock". That is the one and only thing actually described in that statement. Nothing--not one thing--is said about where that hoped-for-thing came from. YOU are the one inserting this bizarre and ridiculous notion that the player, by succeeding, gets to declare anything they like. Why would you insert that? It isn't present in anything pemerton said. It isn't included in any part of the examples he gave in things like combat actions, where the player is (for example) hoping for more than literally only and exclusively "my sword made contact with the orc" or whatever. If you wouldn't reason from that to, say, "and thus the orc popped open like a piñata and a million gold pieces fell out, why would you thus reason from "the player hopes for more than literally only and exclusively 'the lock opened' " to "and thus the door popped open and a million gold pieces fell out"?

The one and only path I can see for how one could make that leap is to be intentionally inserting a claim that isn't present, in order to make the original statement look completely ridiculous.

 

[FrogReaver]

No. But this is such a disingenuous argument I cannot reasonably respond to it. Like I genuinely do not understand how anyone seriously arguing could ever conclude this from what was said.

You are inserting, without any justification, the idea that the player may invent ANY other description, anything at all, no matter what, with no limitations, no exceptions, nothing. They can just directly declare whatever they like whenever they like no matter what.

Yes. That's the implication of the statement as given. Obviously it's absurd. No one actually holds that position.

That is clearly and explicitly not compatible with anything else @pemerton said there. Nothing--not one thing--gives even the slightest hint that the player is somehow CONTROLLING what the hoped-for-thing is. It's simply that they do, in fact, hope for something beyond "there is now an open lock".

Are you saying they can't hope for 1,000,000 gold upon opening the lock? Because if not then suppose they do!

That is the one and only thing actually described in that statement. Nothing--not one thing--is said about where that hoped-for-thing came from. YOU are the one inserting this bizarre and ridiculous notion that the player, by succeeding, gets to declare anything they like.

You have this backwards. I'm proposing that the player can hope for whatever they want when having their character perform an action. Then because they can hope for whatever they want and because the statement i replied to said 'players not getting what they hoped for was a consequence of failure', then that would mean success is the player getting what they hoped for.

The one and only path I can see for how one could make that leap is to be intentionally inserting a claim that isn't present, in order to make the original statement look completely ridiculous.

Go take your bad faith accusations elsewhere.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

That there are exceptions seems to undermine the point you were attempting to make with the example though?

I don't see how.

Three points were made.

1. We cannot design "a game"--in the way @clearstream defined such, noting that I deeply disagree with that definition but had taken it up for the sake of argument--by designing every part simultaneously from whole cloth. The examples given would seem to also be that, since they started from one piece (albeit a different one than I would generally expect)
2. The examples given aren't actually what I described? I was talking about "we asked the artists to make some art, we LOVE that art, now we're going to figure out how to make a game which matches that art". That is WILDLY different from "There is a comic book, which contains extensive information about a particular world, and now we will go through the process of designing a game that feels appropriate to that art." That's TOTALLY different. It is, in fact, using the comic books (which I presume are pretty extensive bodies of work), and the authors and artists of those comic books, as the input into the design process, using that to set what the design goals should be. This is not them asking for an art commission and then saying "SWEET now we can use these three random pieces of art we got and design a game around them".
3. "Many of the things that players will encounter first are things that genuinely need to be done last": What is the first thing you will ever see when you encounter a game book? Its cover art. Are you now claiming that the cover art is something designed first, and then the contents of the book done only after the designers are happy with how the cover art looks? I would be extremely surprised if that were your argument (or Pedantic's). Likewise, the layout, organization, and internal art is going to be the very first internal-content part of the book you ever see, long before you get even a chance to understand the mechanics and how they work. Yet despite those things being the first point of contact for the player, they can't happen until you know what the game actually...y'know...contains? You can't do layout and organization on a game where you haven't even written the rules yet!

 

[Micah Sweet]

So if you failed to get into the burning house and then someone inside burned, you would consider that "unconnected" to your attempt to unlock the door?

Really?

In so far as the dice roll to open the lock is concerned? Yes, absolutely.

Different rules and different play priorities, you see.

 

[Faolyn]

I don't see how that's relevant. What the characters do may be risky. Meanwhile picking a lock takes the same amount of time, causes the same amount of noise, exposes them to the same risk whether they succeed or fail.

It's just a different approach. I'm not running a narrative game, it's not my job as DM to make things happen.

See my edit.

But I can't imagine what a GM's job is, if not to make things happen. That's basically the definition, no matter how narrative, or non-narrative, the game is.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Then people need to stop calling 5e a game, because it isn't a game by this standard. It's a game "system".

Also the word "campaign" is now useless, since "this game [read: game system] applied to our specific interests" is...literally what "a campaign" has always meant.

Seems to me like this is just a way to define out how other people discuss things so you can tell them they're wrong. Funny, I seem to remember being told that that was a no-no...

There are many game systems that one could call 5e. Pretending it's all one big tent doesn't seem worth the aggravation to me. Just explain what you mean, specifically.

 

[Maxperson]

I would say my fellow GM and players are much more impactful on the kind of play experience I have than both the system and the setting. Do that mean they also are central to what makes a game, and that all published "games" (in the TTRPG sphere) is incomplete due to them not coming bundled with friends to play the game with?

First, I want to say that what I know of GNS comes from debates here, so while I can comment here and there, I'm not as knowledgeable about it as you may think. That's why I haven't tackled that post you tagged me in.

I agree that the DM and players are critical to the play experience, but I don't know that they are "much more impactful." Both the game system and the setting will inform the DM and players in how they act within the play experience, giving the system and setting a great deal of impact in how the game plays.

For example, if I am playing a character in D&D, and the setting is Darksun, I'm going to play that character far differently than if I am playing a character in Marvel Superheroes set on Earth.

 

[Faolyn]

I'm not at all. The statement was that 'there will almost always be some other description, beyond "the lock is now open", that they hope to become true. Its failure to become true would be an in-fiction consequence of the character failing to pick the lock as they hoped.'

So if a player hopes to find 1,000,000 gold when opening the lock then if he doesn't find that then he has failed to pick the lock as he had hoped. Right?

What @pemerton is almost certainly saying is that the lock is a barrier between the PC and their goal, which is whatever lies behind the lock (the other side of the door, the inside of the chest), and the lock is not the actual goal. Unless it's a lockpicking contest. When they fail to do so, they fail to get to their goal.

They can want a million gold all they want, but they don't have much control over what's on the other side behind the lock.

 

[FrogReaver]

What @pemerton is almost certainly saying is that the lock is a barrier between the PC and their goal, which is whatever lies behind the lock (the other side of the door, the inside of the chest), and the lock is not the actual goal. Unless it's a lockpicking contest. When they fail to do so, they fail to get to their goal.

And thus if they succeed, they get their goal?

They can want a million gold all they want, but they don't have much control over what's on the other side behind the lock.

If that's their goal and they succeed, then ought they not to get it, at least according to what pemerton said?

 

[Maxperson]

Every game you are playing (not every game system) has a setting in which the activities of the PCs take place. that's what is inseparable from the game to my mind.

It's inseparable from a game, but not any specific game. I can run Planescape, Dark Sun, Greyhawk or Birthright with any number of systems. The experiences will be different, because of the varying mechanics, but it can easily be done.

You can't play a game without a setting, though, because the PCs have to exist somewhere in order to do things, and that somewhere will be the setting.