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

[hawkeyefan]

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

Well, I recall earlier in the thread where I described sandbox play as being GM focused. And that opinion was met with resistance. Not this “ah well we all have preferences and opinions and we should just accept that” attitude.

Strange.

Especially since my comments have at least been about a style of play with which I’m familiar.

I suppose if I was unfamiliar with the game I was playing, that would make my comments more acceptable?

 

[Lanefan]

Sure, OK, but... how often do you think GMs in general are going to plot out the schedules for every single occupant of the house? Do GMs even need to go into that much level of detail? I can see coming up with a schedule for patrolling guards, maybe, but for house staff?

That would probably be dependent on how important the house is likely to be or become in play.

In a case like this where the McGuffin is in the house thus in theory making it ironclad guaranteed the PCs will show up there at some point, knowing the likely* movements and locations of the occupants of said house does become rather important, thus at least giving it some forethought and making a few quick notes is probably worthwhile. Ideally, this process will be completed well before the PCs get there so as not to be biased by the approach the players then decide to have their PCs take.

* - "likely" because people aren't robots; even though the Lady of the house takes a bath most mornings, maybe for some random reason she skipped it this morning and thus isn't where expected at 9 am; this is what random dice are for. Easy to abstract by simply overlaying a flat x% (where 'x' is whatever amount seems reasonable) chance of variance from pattern for anyone in the household at any given time; e.g. the Lord of the house is usually in his study in the afternoons but there's an x% chance he's not, he could be out strolling the grounds or have gone into town or whatever instead. The chance of variance from pattern would be higher during the day than at night, as people's sleeping and waking patterns are usually quite reliable.

 

[gban007]

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

Power is in your hands too though, if you stop responding to them, then conversation will also stop. To @hawkeyefan point though it does feel that people on both sides are keen to point out perceived inaccuracies of the systems they like, while not wanting their own inaccuracies pointed out as such, and for conversation / argument to end it only needs one side to stop responding.

 

[pemerton]

Not to nit-pick the example, but it seems to me that this would be a violation of both simulationism and narrativism.
For simulationism, the GM acts as the PC's senses (this is also the case outside of simulationism, but not strictly relevant) and so they should have established the ambient noise as part of simulating the world when setting the scene.
For narrativist games, while not strictly related to the agenda of character, it's a violation of the additional emphasis on the fiction-first principle and should have occurred as part of a GM action/move that telegraphs trouble, like "hint at future badness".

But there's always background noise - dripping water, the breathing of the hirelings, the clank of the paladin's armour, whatever it is. And smells, and shadows, and . . .

It can't all be narrated.

Here's another example, in the same general neighbourhood as surprise, from the "Moves Snowball" section of the Apocalypse World rulebook (pp 155-6; note that "misdirection" is the rulebook's term for the GM establishing in-fiction reasons for the decision to make a particular move):

“So, Marie: at home, pacing, armed, locked in, yeah? They arrive suddenly at your door with a solid kick, your whole door rattles. You hear Whackoff’s voice: ‘she’s expecting us I guess.’” I’m announcing future badness.

“I go to the peep hole,” she says. “There are three of them?”

“Yep,” I say. “Whackoff on your left, Plover and Church Head are doing something on your right, Plover’s back’s to you — and you hear a cough-cough-rrrrar sound and Plover’s at the door with a chainsaw. What do you do?” I’m putting her in a spot.

“I read the situation. What’s my best escape route?” She rolls+sharp and — [curse it] — misses. “Oh no,” she says.

I can make as hard and direct a move as I like. The brutes’ threat move I like for this is make a coordinated attack with a coherent objective, so here it comes.

“You’re looking out your (barred, 4th-story) window as though it were an escape route,” I say, “and they don’t chop your door all the way down, just through the top hinge, and then they lean on it to make a 6-inch space. The door’s creaking and snapping at the bottom hinge. And they put a grenade through like this—” I hold up my fist for the grenade and slap it with my other hand, like whacking a croquet ball.

“I dive for—”

Sorry, I’m still making my hard move. This is all misdirection.

“Nope. They cooked it off and it goes off practically at your feet. Let’s see … 4-harm area messy, a grenade. You have armor?”

“1-armor.”

“Oh yes, your armored corset. Good! You take 3-harm.” She marks it on her character sheet. “Make the harm move. Roll+3.”

She hits the roll with a 9. I get to choose from the move’s 7–9 list, and I decide that she loses her footing.

“For a minute you can’t tell what’s wrong, and you have this sensation, it seems absurd now but I guess it makes sense, that you hit the ceiling. Maybe you tripped on something and fell, and hit it that way? Then gradually you get your senses back, and that noise you thought was your skull cracking is actually your door splitting and splintering down, and that noise you thought was your blood is their chainsaw. What do you do?”​

Did we ever know so much, before this scene, about Marie's door, its hinges, the proximity to the door of the window? But the details of the architecture are not the future badness: they're colour. The future badness, which is announced, is Whackoff, Plover and Church Head turning up with a chainsaw and - it turns out - a grenade.

In the dungeon surprise example, the ambient noise that allows the Orcs to be sneakier; or the shadow cast around the corner that allows them to remain unseen; etc, likewise are colour. In classic D&D it is the passing of the turn clock, and hence the making of wandering monster rolls, that is the announcing of the threat (once the GM calls for a roll of the surprise dice, the threat has crystallised here and now!).

I don't have as clear a handle on how threats are typically announced in 5e D&D play, but my intuition - based on the apparent similarity between how I hear 5e APs described and earlier modules that I know from TSR and WotC - is that it is very varied. But there is likely to always be colour that is introduced as part of the narration. And in the other direction, too: if the GM fails on the DEX (Stealth) roll, for instance, they might narrate that one of the PCs notices the floating stuff in the middle of the corridor - a sure sign of an approaching gelatinous cube! The GM doesn't first track the position and visibility of the stuff inside the cube, and then on that basis adjust the odds of it succeeding on its DEX (Stealth) check.

 

[pemerton]

I agree the dice are a good tool. I do not agree that the player's check is a good way to do this. Their Act Under Fire roll is not, in this case, about them making the best call about when to enter--it is determining whether it is a good time to enter. On a success it is a good time; on a failure it is not. The PCs skill is not involved, but the roll involves it.


That would not count as fixed because it was dependent on roll that evaluated a character's ability to do something.

I think it's the character's ability rating that evaluates their ability to do something. I'm not quite sure what you see the roll of the dice as evaluating - but in circumstances where luck might play a part (does someone enter the room just as I get the door open? does a guard come and harass me just as I'm trying to find some peace?), to me the dice seem as good a tool as any to resolve that question of luck.

A while back we were discussing the cook showing up on a 7-9. I (and others) said that it felt like the cook was conjured as a result of failure. Some folks said that it wouldn't feel that way to the player because there was no way for the player to know what happened on a success.

But here, it seems the player does know what would happen on a success--no cook. Correct? The player gets to narrate the success, which is them opening the door and not seeing a cook.

You seem to be running together resolution in Apocalypse World and resolution in Burning Wheel.

I have been asked repeatedly about what would have happened, in the Burning Wheel game, had I succeeded on my roll for Aedhros's Sing ability. Had I succeeded, I would have achieved intent and task: Aedhros would have sung, and would have achieved some degree of peace/inner resolve/reduction in self-loathing, and hence gained an advantage die on his next test involving standing up to Thoth. As it happens, the roll failed and so I did not achieve intent. There was no issue with the task - Aedhros sang - but he did not achieve any meaningful degree of peace/inner resolve/reduction in self-loathing; rather, he found himself harassed by a guard, as a result of his earlier failed attempt at kidnapping someone for Thoth. (This can be seen as a type of ironic redounding of his earlier effort upon himself - instead of having a prisoner to take back to Thoth, thus in some fashion making Thoth the supplicant, his attempt to get one and resulting events have reinforced his thraldom to Thoth.)

@Campbell has made a couple of recent posts about scene-framing. If I had succeeded, and hence Aedhros was feeling better about himself and readier to stand up to Thoth, what would the GM have said next? Would it have involved a guard? I don't know. I mean, here's a possibility I thought of just now, prompted by writing this post: the GM recalls that, due to Aedhros's earlier failure, there is word on the street of an assailant; and keeps in mind that Aedhros is now in the wealthier part of town, presumably heading back to Thoth's workrooms where he lives and where Alicia is recovering; and likes the idea of finding out if Aedhros is really going to stand up to Thoth: and so narrates a guard, but not now harassing Aedrhos but rather going to break in on Thoth, who is suspected of capturing people at knife-point and doing unspeakable things to them and their corpses.

Or perhaps there would be nothing at all that makes a guard salient - the guard would just remain part of the assumed background of the town.

In the context of Apocalypse World, on a 10+ for Acting Under Fire the character does it. So in the case of my example, the character would be in the storeroom unnoticed: because they are cool, and luck is on their side, they avoided the exterior patrol and didn't misjudge the timing of their entrance such that it coincided with Pattycakes coming in. Whether Pattycakes ever figures in the conversation of the game would depend on what happens next - again, perhaps Dremmer's cook just remains part of the assumed background of the hardhold, because the PC's deft timing in combination with a little luck means that their paths never cross (and hence the GM never has need to narrate Pattycakes).

Another example of this general sort that can be considered is a conventional CoC game: the PC wants to infiltrate the occultist's mansion. It's a 1920s mansion, so practically by definition has staff: cleaner, cook, gardener, perhaps a housekeeper, a driver, etc. Maybe also there is a problem with the running water in the kitchen, and so the housekeeper has called a plumber. The plumber arrives, let's say, between 8 and 10 in the morning (depending on how busy they are, whether they sleep in, how long it takes them to get to the mansion, etc). The PC is sneaking in in the mid-morning, because they know (via prior obtained information) that the occultist and family are going out on an early morning picnic (so the cook will have finished work for the morning and will be taking a nap; the driver and some other staff will be out with those picnicking, etc).

Does the PC encounter the plumber? Relative to the established and plausible fiction, this seems to involve a degree of luck. One way to settle the luck question: the GM makes a roll, with a 50% chance of the plumber and PC crossing paths. Another way to settle the luck question: we bundle it into the player's roll of the dice.

There are differences of process there, about who makes the roll, even before we look at questions like what determines what dice are rolled and how the roll might be modified. But the nature of the fiction, and the contingency of its details on dice rolls, are not different.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Power is in your hands too though, if you stop responding to them, then conversation will also stop. To @hawkeyefan point though it does feel that people on both sides are keen to point out perceived inaccuracies of the systems they like, while not wanting their own inaccuracies pointed out as such, and for conversation / argument to end it only needs one side to stop responding.

Not one person though; one side.

 

[pemerton]

I don't take

to necessarily breach Sorensen's principles for neosim just so long as they were designed as abstractions to secure that something true of the imagined world is afforded for play. How they should achieve that isn't prescribed.

@pemerton I think it quite possible I've lost track of your line of argument, but is it right you were thinking of this

Outside of diegetic in-character actions, players cannot change the world. The world is sacred: it is apart and cannot be altered except by those forces from within the fictional world. At no point should the world change simply because the rules dictate it so. (Sorensen.)​

​

The argument then goes that the result of rolling for surprise changes the world in a non-diegetic way. Say, in the case where no one has narrated background noise into the fiction.

While each possible cause of surprise could be detailed, with a matrix and factors of time for recovery from the condition calculated to a nicety, the overall result would not materially add to the game - in fact, the undue complication would detract from the smooth flow of play. (Gygax.)​

​

All rules are abstractions of a larger, more complex fictional reality. They exist to ease complicated processes into something that can be more easily played with—and nothing more. (Sorensen.)​

Eliding detail isn't at issue -- it's accepted -- all that's forbidden is that a mechanic should introduce non-diegetic change (which I assume covers both introducing and altering world-fiction.) I think there are two solutions to this. The first is to demand that before someone rolls for surprise they must narrate its causes into the fiction. That can be neatly taken care of by fail-forward systems, which secure that someone has presented a cause just before the ambush or whatever happens. But even simple-fail systems only require a player to say something like "It'd be easy to be surprised in these narrow, winding alleys."

An alternative approach is to observe that an interpretation of "diegetic" that comes from traditional linear modes of fiction won't do for games. Players are actors, authors and audiences; game mechanics are tools furnished them for their play. That results in game processes themselves becoming diegetic in some circumstances. So when surprise is rolled, the world hasn't changed simply because the surprise rules made it so: the surprise rules represent something known to be happening in the world that the characters are aware of only abstracted to ease play (just as Gygax described.) What seems demanded is that players know those rules and it is allowed that their characters know that they inhabit a world imagined to have such features as those abstractions represent.

Your conclusion leaves me, again, uncertain as to what is ruled out in RPGing by this principle. I know you offered some candidates upthread, but I've lost track of them: are you able to reiterate them and explain how they don't count as diegetic on your alternative approach.

Here's an example of play - using a fantasy variant of Marvel Heroic RP - that I would assume is meant to be ruled out by Sorensen's manifesto:

The PCs were deliberately conceived so as to be suitable either for a Japanese or a Viking setting; when we played yesterday the players all voted for vikings, and so that's the way it went.

The 5 PCs (only 4 of whom saw play) were:

* A swordthane (or ronin in the Japanese version) who is DISCIPLINED (a version of the elf background power set) and WELL-EQUIPPED (a version of the fighter class power set, plus a Hercules-style SFX allowing a power-up of Riding or Combat assets);

* A berserker who is BORN TO FIGHT (a version of the human background power set) and goes into a BERSERK FURY (a version of the barbarian class power set);

* A lone scout who is a werewolf (or a fox spirit, in the Japanese version) who is a SKINCHANGER (bits and pieces from lizardfolk and druids) and READY FOR ANYTHING (bits and pieces from the rogue, I think the ranger as well, and the Punisher in the Civil War book for MHRP);

* A troll (or korobokuru in the Japanese version) who is of THE ESSENCE OF THE EARTH (dwarf background power set) and is a SHAPER OF THINGS (two powers - Earth Control and Melee Weapon - plus appropriate SFX like rune-carver and the like);

* A seer (who ended up not being played, as no one chose it) who is NOT FULLY OF THIS WORLD (based on the otherworld background power set) and who suffers from SHAMANIC VISIONS (I made this one up myself).​

<snip>

After people chose their characters, and we voted on vikings over Japan, the next step was to work out some background. The PCs already had Distinctions and Milestones (that I'd written up, picking, choosing and revising from the Guide and various MHRP datafiles) but we needed some overall logic: and the swordthane needed a quest (one of his milestones) and the troll a puzzle (one of his milestones).

So it turned out like this: the Berserker (who has Religious Expert d8) had noticed an omen of trouble among the gods - strange patterns in the Northern Lights; and similar bad portents from the spirit world had led the normally solitary scout (Solitary Traveller distinction, and also Animal Spirit) to travel to the village to find companions; and the troll, a Dweller in the Mountain Roots, had also come to the surface to seek counsel and assistance in relation to the matter of the Dragon's Curse; and, realising a need for a mission, the village chieftain chose the noblest and most honourable swordthane of the village - the PC, naturally - to lead it.

And so the unlikely party of companions set out.

I'm not sure what the "official" practice is, but I tend to treat these briefing/start-up contexts as Transition Scenes, and so allow any player who wants to spend the initial Plot Point on a resource to do so. So the berserker started with a d6 Token of the Gods, while the swordthane spent a PP and added a d6 to the Doom Pool to have a d8 Steed derived from his Riding Expert.

Thus equipped, the group travelled to the north, gradually climbing through the foothills ever higher towards the snow-capped peaks. In spring and summer the more adventurous herders might be found here running their animals upon the pasture, but in the autumn there were no humans about.

Cresting a ridge and looking down into the valley below, they can see - at the base of the rise on the opposite side - a large steading. Very large indeed, as they approach it, with 15' walls, doors 10' high and 8' wide, etc. And with a terrible smell. (Scene distinctions: Large Steading, Reeks of Smoke and Worse.) After some discussion of whether or not giants are friends or foes, the swordthane decides to knock at the gates and seek permission to enter. Some dice rolls later and he has a d6 Invitation to Enter asset, and a giant (I used the Guide's Ogre datafile) opens the gate and invites him in.

Meanwhile (I can't quite remember the action order) the scout has climbed up onto the top of the palisade, gaining an Overview of the Steading asset, and the troll has remembered tales of Loge the giant chieftain, gaining a Knowledge of Loge asset. And the berserker - who has the Deeds, Not Words milestone which grants 1 XP when he acts on impulse - charged through the open gate at the giant, inflicting d12 physical stress.

But the swordthane - who was hoping to learn more about his quest - used his Defender SFX to take the physical stress onto himself (in the fiction, stepping between giant and berserker and grabbing hold of the latter's axe mid-chop). And the berserker - whose player was happily taking 3 XP for being rebuked by an ally for his violence - calmed down.

The next action cycle took place in the main hall of the steading, into which the PCs were led by the giant at the gate. I drew heavily on the G1 thematic here - all but one of the players was familiar with it. And I got to add in my third scene distinction - Great Wolves under the trestle tables and gnawing on bones at the sides of the hall.

I'm not going to remember all the details of this one, but highlights included: the swordthane opening up negotations with Loge, the giant chief, including - in response to a demand for tribute - offering up the steed as a gift; the scout, after successfully parlaying his Overview of the Steading asset into a Giant Ox in the Barn asset, leading the ox into the hall and trying to trade it for the return of the horse, and failing (despite the giant chief's Slow distinction counting as a d4), and subsequently avoiding being eaten (a stepped-up Put in Mouth complication, as per the Giant datafile in the Guide) only by wedging the giant's mouth open with his knife (a heavily PP-pumped reaction roll); and the swordthane successfully opening a d6 Social resource (based on his Social Expertise) in the form of a giant shaman in the hall, who agreed that the troubles plaguing the human lands were afflicting the giants too, and so they should help one another.

In the end, the PCs succeeded in stepping up their Persuaded to Help complication on Loge above d12, and so he relented and decided to befriend them rather than try and eat them.

I don't know if the initial PP expenditures to get resources (the token and the steed) count as non-diegetic? Or are better scene as analogous to starting equipment in D&D (or is that also non-diegetic)?

I assume, though, that while the Invitation to Enter would be considered diegetic - the result of talking to the giant at the gate - and the Overview of the Steading would also be diegetic - the result of climbing the palisade - the Giant Ox would not be, as there were no notes indicating anything about what the giants might have in their barn: this was all being made up by me, and by the players, as we went along. Likewise for the giant shaman.

But explaining the difference in (in my view) non-trivial. There is a declared action - I look around the steading (for something I might take, such as an ox) or I look around the giants assembled in the hall (for someone who might agree with me, like a shaman). That is resolved. Resolving requires giving an answer yes or no. On this occasion there are no notes for the answer to come from. The fictional situation doesn't mandate one or the other answer: perhaps all the oxen are out in the fields, but it seems possible there might be one in the barn; perhaps all the giants agree with Loge and have nothing independent to add, but it seems possible that there might be a shaman or similar who shares the PCs' concerns about the portents.

I, as GM, could roll on my handy Giants Steading Inhabitants table. Or the players can make their rolls against the Doom Pool. Different processes, obviously. But I don't see how the character of the fiction would be diegetic in one case but not in the other. Yet, as I said, I'm confident that the manifesto is supposed to rule out the sort of methods that were used in this example of play.

 

[pemerton]

Er, they are being stealthy and sneaking up on the party. That's an in fiction reason established prior to the rolling of the dice. You don't roll the dice and then if someone is surprised, the other side must have been stealthy.

What does "sneaking up" actually mean? How are the shadows, the distracting noises, etc established?

I mean, think about a children's game like Giant's Treasure: this actually depends on people looking this way or that, observing bodily movements, etc.

In the fiction of D&D, those things are not narrated. Rather, they are retroactively understood to have occurred, once the roll of the dice has taken place.