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

[Campbell]

I have a theory. In their view we are misunderstanding the process / goals / philosophy in some way. We have to explain that we understand Narrativist games to their satisfaction and still don't care for them for them to be satisfied.

From my perspective, it's not about what you care for or not (I do not care what you or anyone cares for or not). I am quite confident that you (and others who share similar tastes) would not enjoy playing games like Burning Wheel or Apocalypse World if you understood them better. Your satisfaction is not what is at stake here. It's that you present other styles of play in a way that I find inaccurate, reductive and in a way that does not present them holistically. The reason I have an issue with that is that it spreads misunderstanding of the way things work.

In the vast majority of cases if just stopped before your justifications or descriptions of the way "narrative games" work we'd be copasetic. We can disagree about this stuff. I'm willing to have that conversation, but if people are saying stuff that does not sound right to me about stuff that I care about I'm going to respond. Maybe my understanding is off somewhere, but like show me where I'm wrong if I'm wrong.

I don't think my perspective is more valuable on this stuff than anyone else's is, but I think if we're going to talk about something we should strive to get it right.

 

[The Firebird]

Where have you corrected it even once? You said it felt like cheating, but you haven't said how actively planning it out ahead of time in a typical adventure is any different.

Again--my point has nothing to do with when it is planned. You are missing my point.

Previous posts on this topic:

Hello folks. I have something to add. There is an argument being presented that it is not meaningful to ask "what would have happened on a success", because the player does not know. Therefore there is no awareness, from the player perspective, of 'weird correlations'. I quoted some posts but will put them at the end.

I want to bring in my own experience. As a player, the first games of BitD I played were really enjoyable, even though the GM was using these weird correlations, because I didn't quite get them at the time. There was enough of a disconnect and enough of a veil that the world seemed organic.

But, this fell apart when I tried running BitD myself. The illusion is only player facing. As the GM, when the player says "I want to open this lock", I start thinking:

ok, what will a success look like? I guess they get in clean. What about fail forward? Hmm, we've established that this is an estate, and the lord will want to eat breakfast early, so maybe the cook is getting in to start working on that. That's nice, it follows from the fiction.

Then there is no illusion and I know exactly what happens on success because I decided it. This made me feel dishonest and like I was cheating my players.

Once I had this experience, I started seeing the "what would have happened on a success" question everywhere, and because I had run it as a GM it felt bad to me as a player. The veil was lifted and the mechanics no longer worked for me.

Well, no. The key difference is that success has no cook and failure has a cook.

No. My claim about cheating the players was not about when the decision was made; it was about the existence of the cook.


I, the GM, read the adventure ahead of time. Or made it up ahead of time. Or made it up right before the roll was made.

I've clarified several times now that what I meant by cheating was the creation of the cook as a response to player failure. It has nothing to do with whether it was decided a week in advance or directly prior to the roll. (Or indeed, until after the roll, because then I will still know as the GM that I probably wouldn't have included a cook on a success. But this muddies the point somewhat and the simple statement still isn't coming across).

Yes. That's what I had in my example and it was not the reason I didn't like it.

The clear message sure seems to be that if they were experienced they'd like it just as much as you. That's the problem.

Because we can't just have an understanding of how something works to form an opinion. What, then is the threshold? Playing a session or two at a con and spending a couple hours watching streams? Or do we have to play a 100 hours or more? Heaven forbid we just read up on something, discuss it to get a clearer understanding and realize it's just not for us.

Why is it so hard to accept that other people have different preferences and know what they want?

For the record, I have more than 100 hours experience with BitD.

 

[Faolyn]

the problem was never with when the decision was being made, the problem was always with the state of the world changing between the functionally unrelated roll succeeding or failing. is there a cook behind the door? we can't know until we make this causally unrelated lockpicking check!

Except that--as we have said before--that's not how narrative games actually work.

To begin with, most of these games don't have a lock-picking roll to begin with. DungeonWorld is one of the few that does, so we'll go with that for a moment:

Tricks of the Trade
When you pick locks or pockets or disable traps, roll+DEX.
✴ On a 10+, you do it, no problem.
✴ On a 7–9, you still do it, but the GM will offer you two options between suspicion, danger, or cost.

So first off, it's the player who makes the decision as to what happens on a failure, not the GM. Or not only the GM; the player and GM generally work together to make sure it flows well. This isn't universally the case in narrative games, but it's pretty darn common. Secondly, you'll notice that nothing here says that a cook--or anyone else--is automatically there. Suspicion here could mean that someone hears the PC--maybe they call out "is someone there?"--or they leave evidence behind. Danger could mean anything from a trap to dogs to guards rushing in to, yes, an angry cook with a butcher knife. Cost could mean they break their tools or leave something valuable behind.

But the important thing is, if it doesn't work with the fiction for there to be a cook there, there won't be a cook there. The other players and GM could suggest something else.

 

[Micah Sweet]

From my perspective, it's not about what you care for or not (I do not care what you or anyone cares for or not). I am quite confident that you (and others who share similar tastes) would not enjoy playing games like Burning Wheel or Apocalypse World if you understood them better. Your satisfaction is not what is at stake here. It's that you present other styles of play in a way that I find inaccurate, reductive and in a way that does not present them holistically. The reason I have an issue with that is that it spreads misunderstanding of the way things work.

In the vast majority of cases if just stopped before your justifications or descriptions of the way "narrative games" work we'd be copasetic. We can disagree about this stuff. I'm willing to have that conversation, but if people are saying stuff that does not sound right to me about stuff that I care about I'm going to respond. Maybe my understanding is off somewhere, but like show me where I'm wrong if I'm wrong.

I don't think my perspective is more valuable on this stuff than anyone else's is, but I think if we're going to talk about something we should strive to get it right.

That is literally what I said. This won't stop until Narrativist gameplay is explained by Trad-leaning players to the Narrativist's satisfaction.

 

[Faolyn]

The clear message sure seems to be that if they were experienced they'd like it just as much as you. That's the problem.

That's not what I said.

But it's pretty clear from what he said that he didn't quite get how the game is supposed to run, and then judged his experience on incorrect information.

Because we can't just have an understanding of how something works to form an opinion. What, then is the threshold? Playing a session or two at a con and spending a couple hours watching streams? Or do we have to play a 100 hours or more? Heaven forbid we just read up on something, discuss it to get a clearer understanding and realize it's just not for us.

Why is it so hard to accept that other people have different preferences and know what they want?

He's certainly allowed to not like a particular game or even a game style. But he's doing so with incorrect information--like thinking cooks magically appear, which is not how these games work.

 

[AlViking]

That's not what I said.

But it's pretty clear from what he said that he didn't quite get how the game is supposed to run, and then judged his experience on incorrect information.

@The Firebird has stated that they have played over 100 hours and that they understood how it worked. I see no reason to disbelieve them.

He's certainly allowed to not like a particular game or even a game style. But he's doing so with incorrect information--like thinking cooks magically appear, which is not how these games work.

The magical cook is just an example. One that I got from a blog that talked about how to implement fail forward. It may not be how you personally use it, or your preferred game uses it, but it is how some people not on this forum define it.

 

[Faolyn]

Again--my point has nothing to do with when it is planned. You are missing my point.

Previous posts on this topic:









For the record, I have more than 100 hours experience with BitD.

But you don't understand that "failure has a cook and success has no cook" isn't how these games work. You are factually incorrect about how the rules actually work. It would be like saying that, in D&D, since spell effects don't stack, you can only take damage from one spell at a time.

 

[The Firebird]

But you don't understand that "failure has a cook and success has no cook" isn't how these games work. You are factually incorrect about how the rules actually work. It would be like saying that, in D&D, since spell effects don't stack, you can only take damage from one spell at a time.

We discussed the cook example using more detailed breakdowns of the rules, hard and soft moves, specific die rolls, etc. over a hundred pages ago. Hawkeyefan at least agreed my understanding was accurate for how these games work. I'm not going through that mechanical discussion again when I'm pulling out the specific part that I don't like. Yes, that means my more abstracted version doesn't take you blow by blow. We did that already.

It's understandable if you haven't read or remembered everything we discussed. But combined with misstating my point about dishonesty a half dozen times, and a similar misunderstanding earlier, it's feeling like you are less interested in engaging with me than trying to prove that I'm wrong. No doubt that's not your intent. But the conversation isn't working for me and I won't be engaging further with your posts this thread.

 

[Umbran]

That is literally what I said. This won't stop until Narrativist gameplay is explained by Trad-leaning players to the Narrativist's satisfaction.

Incorrect. It will also stop if/when people choose to stop.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Incorrect. It will also stop if/when people choose to stop.

Fair enough, but that seems unlikely if my theorized requirement isn't met.