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

[clearstream]

Okay but like...what do we DO with that?

Because now that means discussing 5e is genuinely impossible. There is no such thing as "5e". There are a million different games which are fundamentally and inherently completely distinct from one another, because this game-as-artifact makes every table a totally unique specimen, incomparable, incommensurate.

Like, doesn't this literally kill the very concept of a game discussion forum stone dead?

Having just written a rather-longer-than-intended post, I'll simply list here some reasons I believe it does not kill it

Not all parts of the text have equal weight​

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Additions to the text don't inevitably change the effect of parts that shared​

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Additions to the text that do change the effect of parts that are shared, don't inevitably do so completely​

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It's possible to recognise affordances for play in the text​

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It's possible to attribute a liability of recognised affordances for play of a given nature given player interest in that play​

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The number of members of the set of player interests isn't known, but it is far greater than three​

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Nevertheless, players can and do share interests, and some interests are more often seen than others​

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In summary, yes, I think each table is a unique specimen. Complexity in the domain (human-RPGs) is certainly sufficient to guarantee that for any practically achievable set of observations. That doesn't mean there are no observable likelihoods or common factors. To make such comparisons often requires blurring or eliding differences and overlooking context; meaning claims will often turn out to falsified when (if) those differences come into play. (The caution here is to appreciate the complexity of the phenomena relative to the quantity and quality of our sampling.)

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Don't get upset. Get even.

I think this perfectly encapsulates exactly why I have not merely zero but extreme negative interest in this sort of thing.

That, quite literally, is explicitly calling for a cycle of never-ending revenge, of "getting one over" on the person who wronged you, back and forth and back and forth until nothing is left. I have no interest in that. That sounds like the most miserable and infuriating experience I could possibly have.

I want to have fun, not be constantly afraid of a short knife between the ribs and constantly plotting how to slip one between someone else's.

 

[clearstream]

I want to have fun, not be constantly afraid of a short knife between the ribs and constantly plotting how to slip one between someone else's.

Do you think you could enjoy that sometimes though? Such as for an hour of play during a session?

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Given how I've had some systems described to me, his leaps are perfectly logical.

I pretty thoroughly disagree, but part of that is because, as I've said previously, I don't really feel you have given a fair shake to the descriptions given to you. That is, you're hounding for every possible exploitative approach, rather than recognizing that it is--explicitly--part of the groundwork, part of the bedrock of these games that people won't do that. That people will give benefit of the doubt and expect it in return. That people won't see (for example) Defy Danger as an excuse to pretzel every possible situation into always using the best stat no matter how ridiculous, but will instead follow the fiction, going with what "makes sense" etc.

(Also, they've blocked me, so I won't be saying anything further about whatever they say or don't say.)

If a game is based around resolving intent rather than task, declaring "I pick the safe open in order to steal the Desert Rose ruby" is, on success, going to put that ruby in the safe to be stolen unless previously-established fiction has put it somewhere else.

Why? I can't imagine fiction so vacuous that it would allow that. I'm being completely serious here.

Because that conclusion IMMEDIATELY leads to the principle that if two players both choose to pick locks at the same time, both of them find the Desert Rose. How could that possibly be? That clearly doesn't make any sense. The Desert Rose is clearly only in one place, and just magically HOPING that it will be hiding behind this locked door doesn't make it so.

What thing gives you the justification to say "no, it makes perfect sense that the Desert Rose would be behind this random locked door"? Where is the fiction which establishes this? You can't just declare any intent whatsoever. It has to follow from and build upon what is already known. You are the one inserting this notion that the player is at liberty to declare ANY hope, literally ANYTHING at all, no matter how ridiculous, no matter how abstruse, no matter how utterly irrational. How could any hope no matter how irrational follow from the fiction already established?

This bugs me to no end, which is part of why I separate task and intent. Success on the task - pick the safe open - may have nothing to do with success on the intent if the Desert Rose is somewhere else other than in that safe, as determined by the adventure module or DM notes or whatever.

Of course it bugs you to no end. You have inserted the highest height of irrationality possible into something that does not contain that, and then been bugged by finding the highest height of irrationality!

(in all cases let's assume the existence of a ruby called the Desert Rose is already part of the fiction, but the PCs don't know where it is)

If they don't know where it is, how could they have an established by the fiction reason to believe that it is behind this singular specific door?

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Do you think you could enjoy that sometimes though? Such as for an hour of play during a session?

Not in anything more than very remotely like D&D.

I might be able to enjoy an evening of Paranoia, where you legitimately have multiple clone backups so getting a short knife between the ribs isn't an instant character-ender, and the whole (and very explicit) point of the experience is that it really is every man for himself and Friend Computer is actually insane and incapable of leadership the best leader ever and inherently worthy of our trust and loyalty.

But in anything more than "very remotely like D&D"? No. It would be utterly miserable for me.

 

[clearstream]

Relevant to earlier conversation about simulationism and sandboxes, I want to promote this manifesto (I guess you could call it) for "new simulationism" by Sam Sorenson that I found at the end of a recent post by Baker. It reminds me of things various posters have said or tried to get at in various ways in this thread, and it chimes with something I've said about neotrad that I think should apply to neosim too.

 

[SableWyvern]

I pretty thoroughly disagree, but part of that is because, as I've said previously, I don't really feel you have given a fair shake to the descriptions given to you. That is, you're hounding for every possible exploitative approach, rather than recognizing that it is--explicitly--part of the groundwork, part of the bedrock of these games that people won't do that. That people will give benefit of the doubt and expect it in return. That people won't see (for example) Defy Danger as an excuse to pretzel every possible situation into always using the best stat no matter how ridiculous, but will instead follow the fiction, going with what "makes sense" etc.

...

What thing gives you the justification to say "no, it makes perfect sense that the Desert Rose would be behind this random locked door"? Where is the fiction which establishes this? You can't just declare any intent whatsoever. It has to follow from and build upon what is already known. You are the one inserting this notion that the player is at liberty to declare ANY hope, literally ANYTHING at all, no matter how ridiculous, no matter how abstruse, no matter how utterly irrational. How could any hope no matter how irrational follow from the fiction already established?

...

If they don't know where it is, how could they have an established by the fiction reason to believe that it is behind this singular specific door?

I agree with pretty much everything you're saying here.

It's certainly not that hard to just say, "You can only get things we agree are reasonable," and it is, in fact, necessary to do so. That does leave me a bit confused, though, as to why you won't accept this exact same kind of agreement to not abuse a potentially wide-open loophole in other types of games,

You're literally talking about giving and receiving the benefit of the doubt now, and how the game requires this as a fundamental "bedrock" (ie, it's right there at the starting point), while not that long ago you were railing against people who were telling you the exact same things about their own style of play. This being the case, I can understand why someone might not assume you are taking a bedrock of trust as a given.

 

[kayakingpoodle]

Forget the game for a moment.

If you are trying to unlock the door of a burning building, and you fail to do so, and someone inside is then badly burned… you would describe these things as unconnected?

That’s the question I’m asking. It’s not about rules or play priorities.

IRL, if a building is on fire and someone is inside I would break a window if if the door was locked and I didn't have the key. If the building is on fire stealth and damage to the building by me is a non-issue.

What this has to do with the discussion at hand I do not know.

 

[Enrahim]

In your case, it seems that you wanted to GM a gamist dungeon-bash, but the players turned up ready to do what Tuovinen calls "princess play",

where a character player is encouraged to develop a character they find entertaining to occupy as a thespian role. . . . The ideal princess play game will feature a wide variety of appropriate situations where the player gets to “act out” the role, with the other players offering affirmative reactions and feedback that make the role feel more real.​

No, luckily not. Thank you for bringing this up, because I think it is a nice opportunity to show some of the limitations (and possibly strength) of GNS and in terms of expressing expectations. I actually think all of them was showing up for at least a gamist game. This is the same group as in my riddle example, where everyone with strong enthusiasm insisted in trying to get the riddle right. In the case of the unarmored Paladin I actually have reasons to believe he made that choice to make the challenge harder for himself. This I consider absolutely a gamist motivation, but it broke my expectations with regard to the scope of the challenge (not including char-gen), and also the unit of who to be challenged (themselves vs the party). For the whimsy Gensai I actually think it was more of an aesthetic choice. I really do not think there was any sub-optimal choices being done based on the whimsiness; it was mostly a component of color, and possibly affecting a bit low-stakes narrative choices. This was however breaking a bit with the more gritty sword and sorcery feel I had first envisioned.

To GNS defense, I would say this game played very well, despite turning out somewhat differently with regard to how I had initially envisioned. That it was possible to adapt as well as we did to somewhat differing initial expectations might have been thanks to alignment in the GNS-dimension.

My view is that there are some systemic reasons why the hobby does not have a very good vocabulary for talking about these different approaches to play. One is economic/commercial: the dominant publisher (WotC) as well as the other publishers who rely on WotC to create and sustain the market for what are largely D&D variants (eg Paizo) have no interest in cultivating subtle differentiation among their customers. They want to sell their books to all comers.

I do not think so. Both of these behemoths are commercially intencivised for making sure players find each other for good games. And I believe listing of player types has been part of at least the DMGs of the last 3 D&D editions. Main problem with player types in that way is that I think it can be useful for explaining who you are when applying for a game, it is not useful for describing a game that you advertise. My understanding is that the new DMG also try to categorize games, but I feel the taxonomy they try to use is a hodge podge of various types of factors I am skeptical if it is much more use.

But another is more (sub-)cultural: there seems to be an aversion among RPGers to talking honestly about how their play works and how they want their play to work. For instance, there are a lot of play experiences that rely pretty heavily on the GM laying down clear tracks and the players following them; but instead of honest discussions about how to do this well, you can see endless pages of discussion drawing "angel on the head of a pin" distinctions between "railroading" vs "linear adventures" vs etc etc etc.

This is an excellent example of why I add non-inflammatory. I think it would have been great to be able to advertise a linear adventure without having to explain how this isn't a railroad. That is currently not possible with that term. I do not think it is a problem about aversion about talking about it though - after all we do have these endless pages of discussion. I think it is more that the terms are describing phenomena that is strongly overlapping (most railroads are linear adventures). If we managed to come up with a clear concept that included the core of what is good with linear adventures, but excluded railroads, that would be very helpful. "Strongly curated exploration focused play" could be one such proposal. Interestingly this point toward 3 possible interesting dimensions that might have more general validity: Level of curration (pre-prepared content) "Strongly" referencing to degrees of freedom (Loosely currated could be a sandbox), and main focus of play (exploration).

Related to the aversion described just above is something that @Campbell has often posted about, namely, the use of shaming to enforce particular expectations - eg that "good" players will enjoy the GM's stuff and follow the GM's hooks even if these are not very interesting. There is little widespread sense that GM's can be held to account for the quality and deftness of their craft. And this makes it hard to talk about particular approaches to GMing, aimed at supporting different sorts of play experiences.

I'm sure there are other reasons too, but these are some of the ones that I believe I've observed over the years.

I have not seen very much of this problem. My impression is rather that while these kind of conceptions tend to rear it's head in many discussions (including in this tread), it tends to be pointed out, and discussion can continue without this kind of intervention managing to completely derail the conversation. It might be irritating, but not a show stopper.

EDIT:
Another example of the weakness of existing widespread jargon/usage:

If someone says that they want "character based" or "character driven" play, do they mean something like what you experienced - role-expressing, role-affirming play with the unarmoured barbarian and the whimsical air genasi? Or do they want the sort of character-driven "narrativist" play that I enjoy in Burning Wheel?

Those are wildly different play experiences. But as you say, there is no widespread terminology for contrasting them.

Yes, but this points back to my "in order to educate you need something to educate about". If jargon is found that is experienced to be clearly teachable and very useful in it's field it tend to spread. In this hobby we have a lot of widespread, well understood jargon. Most for instance understand what we are talking about if we are causally talking about tanks, roll for initiative, or action economy. If someone make a double take on any of these, we can explain the gist of it easily in one sentence. The lack of commonly understood jargon with regard to games I interpret as not having found such words. Either they are not very useful (the "player types") or they are tricky to teach (I think that is the case with "character driven")

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Relevant to earlier conversation about simulationism and sandboxes, I want to promote this manifesto (I guess you could call it) for "new simulationism" by Sam Sorenson that I found at the end of a recent post by Baker. It reminds me of things various posters have said or tried to get at in various ways in this thread, and it chimes with something I've said about neotrad that I think should apply to neosim too.

Perhaps. Just from that very first principle, however, I find something to at least raise my eyebrows at. "If, at any point, any aspect of the game begins to clash with the veracity and truth of the fictional world, change it." That means, even if everyone at the table agrees that something being true in the fictional world is a less enjoyable experience, the less-enjoyable experience MUST be enforced, no matter what. I don't believe anyone, even "new simulationism" fans, sincerely believes that something genuinely agreed to be antagonistic to enjoyment should remain true, and that instead the understanding of the world needs to change so that the players will actually enjoy playing in it, even if that requires a little bit of light rejuggling.

To be clear, it's going to be very rare that such an event occurs. You need just the right kinds (or just the wrong kinds, if you prefer) of conditions to align. Those words--"a little bit of light rejuggling"--aren't for nothing. If things have gone so wrong that only a large amount of rejuggling, or intensive rejuggling even if only a little bit thereof? Well...that probably means the effort has failed already and should either be genuinely restarted, or abandoned.

And now that I've read further ahead, we already encounter point 7 directly contradicting point 1. Here, we clearly see that it is NOT true that the "veracity and truth of the fictional world" is supreme. Instead, it is the agreement of the players which is supreme. Otherwise, point 7 is impossible and makes no sense; it literally instructs you to change that which is supposed to be supreme.

Point 8 is also....a pretty damn bold claim that I'm not sure is even true? "Abstractions are, by their very nature, mechanistic. Non-playful." They're literally saying that play not only does not, but cannot, even in principle, occur via using or thinking about rules. I'm not sure any simulationism fan I know would accept such a claim!

And then point 10 is a reiteration of my criticism of point 1 and my confusion over point 7. Points 10 and 7 indicate that the world is not supreme--the players are. Either point 1 is false (or badly overstated), or points 7 and 10 are. Given the repetition of 7 and 10, I'm quite confident it is point 1 that is in error. What it should say is:

1. The fictional world is your primary focus.​

In everything you do, ensure that the fictional world is the focus. If, at any point, any aspect of the game begins to clash with the veracity and truth of the fictional world, change it, unless the group agrees that doing so would be a worse experience.​

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In every ruling, every rule, every encounter, every moment—the fictional world reigns. It cannot be overcome, unless the table agrees it should be. If the table does so, step back, figure out where the problem with the fictional world lies, and fix that. Do not try to invoke rule or procedure or any other intermediary. All that matters is the agreement of the participants, and ensuring that the veracity and truth of the fictional world are worth pursuing.​

This recognizes that the true supreme thing is not the world, not the veracity or truth thereof (not sure what makes "veracity" different from "truth" anyway!), but rather the enthusiastic participation of the people joining for the experience, regardless of what role they play. With this rewrite, points 7 and 10 no longer conflict with point 1, but rather reinforce it, making clear the correct way to go about changing the world--it remains the primary focus of play, but it is NOT inviolate. Instead, it is like the US Constitution: all other laws are subservient to it, and it is subservient to the action of Congress (or a Constitutional Convention), and subsequent approval by the states. The Constitution is NOT impossible to change--but it is, intentionally, a difficult thing to change it, because such a basic law needs to be insulated against change for light and transient reasons.

Likewise, the fictional world in "neo-sim" is and needs to be the primary focus, to which all other gameplay elements are subservient--but even it is subservient to an open and explicit process of change, under the right circumstances.