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

[Faolyn]

How about "adjudicating the things the players are making (or trying to make) happen"? Or, "assessing the results of things that have happened." Also, "Describing the situation."

In play, while sometimes I make things happen, I certainly wouldn't say that's my primary function -- not by a long way.

But it's part of your job.

 

[Faolyn]

And thus if they succeed, they get their goal?

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

The goal is to unlock the lock, so yes, if they succeed on unlocking the lock, they do, in fact, unlock the lock.

Getting a million gold is almost certainly not a goal that can be achieved by unlocking a single lock.

Your problem is that you're not thinking about the fiction here. You're tying two things together (a lock and a million gold) that have no fictional connection together. It doesn't matter if that's what the player really wants to happen; if there's no in-fiction reason for there to be a million gold behind the door, there's not going to a million gold.

And more importantly, in these types of games, the players understand this. They're not going to insist that there's a million gold there because they're also working in the fiction with the GM.

 

[Micah Sweet]

You just can't answer the question directly, huh?

Forget gameplay for a moment.

If in real life, if someone was trying to open the door of a burning house, and they failed to do so, and people inside were burned... would you describe these events as "unconnected"?

It's a yes or no.



What it has to do with the conversation is that some folks are claiming that any outcome other than "you fail to open the door" is unconnected to the attempt to open the door. That when a GM says "you failed to X, so now Y happens" is somehow "unconnected" to the attempted skill. That it feels "artificial" to them.

So I am trying to show that there are consequences that are in fact connected to failed skill. That viewing a skill as a binary pass/fail in and of itself with no further impact on the fictional situation is far more "unconnected" than anything that's been suggested.



Yes, of course... but let's say you then fail to boot the door in. Then people in the house are burned.

Are your attempts to open the door or to kick it in unconnected to the people being burned?

Again, it's a yes or no.



I don't know if it's the difference between direct and indirect consequences that's in doubt here. It seems to me far more basic than that.

It's more that a failed skill may have consequences beyond "I failed to do X". This seems an incredibly obvious fact to me, for the reasons I've stated... yet several folks are disagreeing. I don't think we need to even get into the nuance of direct vs. indirect consequences. We just need to establish that there may actually be consequences.

Hard to say. Do we know whether or not the people would be burned if I had gotten into the house sooner? In any case, I do believe that the attempt itself to open the door is unconnected to any possible things that might happen on the other side of it. Opening the door and doing something on the other side are different things, and connecting them mechanically makes little sense to me, whether one enables the other in real life or not.

See, I brought the mechanics back because to me that's what this discussion about the locked door has always been about. I don't see the relevance of your rhetoric here.

 

[FrogReaver]

The goal is to unlock the lock, so yes, if they succeed on unlocking the lock, they do, in fact, unlock the lock.

This shows a complete lack of understanding of @pemerton’s point about multiple descriptions for a single action.

Getting a million gold is almost certainly not a goal that can be achieved by unlocking a single lock.

Your problem is that you're not thinking about the fiction here. You're tying two things together (a lock and a million gold) that have no fictional connection together. It doesn't matter if that's what the player really wants to happen; if there's no in-fiction reason for there to be a million gold behind the door, there's not going to a million gold.

And more importantly, in these types of games, the players understand this. They're not going to insist that there's a million gold there because they're also working in the fiction with the GM.

The irony here is that this is precisely the same complaint levied against fail forward.

 

[hawkeyefan]

If it's not about game rules but real world? Then I can guarantee that my attempt to unlock the door did not cause the building to catch on fire. When I attempt to open the door and find I cannot, I will evaluate my other options and decide what to do from there. If it was my house I'd call 911 before I even try to open the door, when I couldn't open the door I'd smash open a window so I could reach in and unlock the door or run around back and break a window there. One possible reaction to my opening a door or smashing a window could be to make the fire worse because I've now provided more oxygen. I would have caused that flareup and possible backdraft because it's directly related to my providing fresh air.

My failure to unlock the door did not cause the fire.

I never claimed it started the fire.

I don't even know how you would have drawn that conclusion.

Hard to say. Do we know whether or not the people would be burned if I had gotten into the house sooner? In any case, I do believe that the attempt itself to open the door is unconnected to any possible things that might happen on the other side of it. Opening the door and doing something on the other side are different things, and connecting them mechanically makes little sense to me, whether one enables the other in real life or not.

See, I brought the mechanics back because to me that's what this discussion about the locked door has always been about. I don't see the relevance of your rhetoric here.

It's amazing to me how you guys are equivocating to avoid admitting that actions have consequences.

 

[FrogReaver]

So, then how do you propose to explain how babies learn to communicate? Clearly your description is not fully adequate?

I don’t propose anything at all on the subject of how babies learn to communicate.

 

[hawkeyefan]

I've been lurking around this thread for a while, but this discussion has been very eye-opening, and it's really helping me understand the difference in mindset between simulationist vs narrative game. I feel like I now understand what folks mean when they say something like, "They are playing PbTA like DND."

I have been thinking of each dice check exactly the way @AlViking or @Lanefan describing their d20 checks in their games, removed from the context. In some sense, I feel like DND has trained me to think in this manner—given a situation, remove the context to figure out the essense of the task (to figure out which ability check / save to use). It doesn't matter what the context is, for lockpicking, it should always be the same check.

I think this can be something that does happen with D&D and more traditionally designed games. Everything is focused on the task, and it's almost always a case of binary succeed/fail... so that can condition people to atomize each action into the task that's being attempted and look at that in isolation.

If I am understanding correctly, the mechanics of PbTA games necessitate context be taken into account, and there is no universal check for "picking a lock." And it's never about just "picking a lock"—the context determines which move should be triggered (if any) and how the consequences should be resolved, e.g. facing a risky situation vs doing research vs aiding someone.

So PbtA as an umbrella is a pretty broad one... there are so many different takes on PbtA rules that incorporate more traditional design. I don't think it always serves as a useful label.

But I think games that are designed with a more narrativist mindset, or "story now" approach, tend to tell you to consider the "fiction first". Any time the dice are rolled, you should be looking at the fictional situation, and then based on the results of the dice, determine what happens next.

You absolutely should be considering the surrounding situation and not just the task. This is why these games push for something to happen whenever you roll the dice. That "nothing happens"... although it may be perfectly fine in other games... is not what's wanted in this type of game. Things need to progress in some way... either negatively or positively, or some mix of the two. This is why a mixed success result is such a key feature of many such games.

When you ditch the idea of binary succeed/fail outcomes, and instead start imagining what a success or a failure means given the context of what's happening in the fiction... and you allow for some amount of mixed outcome... you really open things up. I think this is the mindset that it takes to run these games. Don't look at the tasks individually... look at what they mean. What is being attempted AND WHY?

 

[Faolyn]

This shows a complete lack of understanding of @pemerton’s point about multiple descriptions for a single action.

No it doesn't.

The irony here is that this is precisely the same complaint levied against fail forward.

Not at all. They're very different things. In both cases, a lock may be not opened, but in fail-forward, something else will happen. In tradgames, nothing happens. This has nothing to do about whether or not there's gold behind the door.

 

[AlViking]

I never claimed it started the fire.

I don't even know how you would have drawn that conclusion.



It's amazing to me how you guys are equivocating to avoid admitting that actions have consequences.

Who's equivocating? If this were a game and the characters hear screams for help, the fire has already been established in the fiction. The characters then decide what to do which in this scenario includes picking a lock and failing.

The important thing for me is that the DM changes nothing based on the failure. Yes, the characters wasted a round but they could also have wasted a round debating whether or not to go into the house or perhaps casting a protection spell on the person going in. Nothing changes because of the failed roll other than roughly 6 seconds have passed.

This is a traditional ticking clock scenario. As time progresses from when the characters hear the scream for help and they get to the person inside, things may happen inside depending on how long that takes. The clock doesn't tick more quickly or slowly depending on what the characters do, if they have 5 rounds to get to the person before they are burned, they have 5 rounds unless the characters can do something to slow down the flames.

 

[Faolyn]

I'd like to think we're playing people who could be real in a world that could be real given the parameters under which the setting was designed.

In other words, I'm playing a real Elf in that Elf's real world.

But you're not playing here, on Earth, in the actual real world where there are no elves, no magic, no dragons, the only hobbits were the long-extinct Homo floresiensis, there are no long-term effects from all those injuries people take, nobody gets all their skin melted off after breathed on by a red dragon, and so on.

There are games like that out there. We're not talking about them right now.

With the prevalence of healing in most settings the terrible scars and permanent injuries piece becomes fairly moot.

Assuming it's used. In 5e, magical healing is often not needed. In earlier editions, it's possible that nobody is playing a healer.

The PTSD is a valid point, and maybe needs playing up some.

As for taxes, they're welcome to try collecting them...

Exactly my point. In the real world, there'd be a manhunt if you decided to kill an IRS agent for doing their job. In an RPG world, you can skip town and hope that the GM forgets to send bounty hunters after you.

They don't know what hit points are by name or number but they do know by concept that some people are relatively tougher and more resilient than others.

I know that!

My issue, as noted previously, is that oftentimes the player (and thus the PC) doesn't and can't know there's a clock in the first place because of the way the premise has been set up in the fiction. As in, you're exploring a dungeon that has some nasties in it but you've no way of knowing that the BBEG is partway through a ritual to summon some hideous demon far beyond the PCs' capability to handle and that if you don't interrupt him by midnight that demon's coming in. And so you quite reasonably decide to camp out for the night...

Yes, they can know there's a clock in the same way they know that they only have 15 hit points left, or that their AC is 16, or any other game mechanic needed. The clock is for the players, not the PCs.