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

[Maxperson]

Man, this thread is going to become EPIC!!

I mean, it's at 677 pages already.

 

[clearstream]

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.

It's ruled out from the first sentence, setting didn't precede abstractions didn't precede play. The choice between Japanese and Viking is fundamental, must be made outside of play, and the abstractions developed to represent it.

There is a supplement for Chivalry & Sorcery that presents a Viking setting. It supplies abstractions for the runes, skalds and so on to ensure those are available to play. Upthread I pointed out that we can always build what we want into setting, meaning that many aspects of our Marvel Heroes could be taken to be available to the group that way, but were the Marvel Hero abstractions designed to represent distinctly Viking culture?

In conclusion, the neosim group doesn't sit down to play "a Japanese or a Viking setting". That choice must precede both the design of abstractions and play. That the group were able to choose between Japanese or Viking at the point of play strongly suggests that the abstractions did not concretely represent either.

 

[Enrahim]

But the PC does not have the ability to just decide that another person is there.

I think the out here is that the GM is the ultimate autorithy on the Ob, and indeed the feasibility of the check. You likely can not roll a circles to happen to meet the king of the neighbouring country in the slums you are currently finding yourself in. In this way it actually isn't very different from the farrier example when it come to control. Indeed if there are no obstacle, the GM is free to just narrate that they find the person.

So the players do not have the ability to decide the person is there in BW. The ability to suggest the presence of someone is formalised, and the tables for determining if they find someone is formalised, the formalization make sim sense though, as the Ob guidelines take into account things that generally would make such a person harder to find, while someone more connected are more likely to know just the right person.

Indeed the entire setup is very similar to typical rules to find suitable retainers based on charisma in certain implementations of the D&D idea.

 

[Lanefan]

A player could declare for their character (we'll assume this is in line with their BITs), "Jonno's a fisherman, and we need a boat out of here. I want to see if I can find one of my fishing buddies at the docks." This is a perfectly reasonable action declaration.

Seems a reasonable enough action declaration in any game.

If they met the Ob when they test, Jonno'd find one of their fishing buddies. If they beat the Ob, the player could say who it was (give them a name). If they failed, Jonno might still meet one of their fishing buddies, but Jonno's done pissed them off. Or something else could shake out. (The enmity clause, which is what that last situation is, isn't required on failure; it's just an option.) So they're not deciding someone's there, they're looking for someone they know.

The difference in a more traditional game being that it's the DM who determines (by one means or another) whether any of Jonno's fishing buddies happen to be there, and then if he does find any the DM determines - again by one means or another - just how keen those buddies are to help Jonno and-or what they think of him.

The end result in play in this case, when looked at in hindsight, could well be indistinguishable from one system to the other.

And this all assumes, I assume, that nobody specific among the fishers has been established in prior fiction. For example if in past play Jonno's told stories to the party about Captain Walsey and how she brought them home safe in the Great Gale of '93 in a boat that had every business being sunk by that storm etc. etc. then maybe it's Captain Walsey specifically he's looking for now, or another fellow survivor from that crew....or maybe he wants to avoid them as his stories are stolen from the real survivors just to gain free beer in the bars, and he was never in fact aboard Walsey's boat.

 

[Lanefan]

High grass would be unusual in a dungeon, I think.

Extreme-Chaotic Nature Cleric + grass seed + Plant Growth = not so unusual as all that.

There's numerous dungeons I've had characters in that have inexplicable patches of now-long-dead grass and other plants in them for just this reason. And no, none of those Nature Clerics were mine.

 

[Hussar]

The level of detail you are talking about is rarely necessary, and if it is, it's generally pre-established. ie. the group is walking through very high grass, and the monsters used the grass as cover. Not retroactively.

Normally it's sufficient just to narrate something like, "As you walk through the high grass, arrows start to fly at you from orcs that you failed to see. You are surprised. Roll initiative."

Just like there might be a cook in the room?

 

[Maxperson]

Just like there might be a cook in the room?

What makes you think the two situations are the same? The only way they could be the same is if the cook was a wandering monster and would or would not be in the kitchen regardless of the pick lock roll.

 

[Hussar]

The tall grass ambush is a perfect example. The question that needs to be asked is, "Why is the grass tall?" After all, it wasn't described as particularly tall until the ambush occurred. The players had no chance to react to the idea that something might be hidden in tall grass until the ambush occurred.

In other words, the only reason the grass is particularly tall here is because the DM retroactively needs to justify how the party got surprised. After all, the grass could be short, sparse, or any other thing than tall. Lots of places don't have tall grass. So, why is this, specific place filled with tall grass?

Because the completely arbitrary die rolls - a random encounter roll, a perception roll failure, etc - need to be retroactively narrated in order to make the scene make sense. After all, if the ground was rocky with little or no cover, then the ambush couldn't occur.

There is absolutely no difference between the cook being in the kitchen after a failed lock pick roll and the grass being retroactively made the perfect length. The only difference is which die rolls generated the result. And, note, the die rolls are completely divorced from the narrative. The dice say that an encounter will happen at point X. The dice also tell us that it's an ambush. Nothing the players have done have anything to do with any of these things. The terrain is then rearranged around the party so that it becomes the location for an ambush.

And we all accept this. We all play like this and don't even bat an eye.

The trick is, some people really, REALLY hate it when you shine a light on what's actually occuring in the game because then all those little lies and tricks that we play on ourselves to maintain our suspension of disbelief come crashing down.

Again, it's not a difference of substance but a difference of perception. As usual. The exhausting thing is that we've been having this discussion for decades because people absolutely will not let go of their illusions.

 

[Hussar]

What makes you think the two situations are the same? The only way they could be the same is if the cook was a wandering monster and would or would not be in the kitchen regardless of the pick lock roll.

Your wandering monsters magically teleport to whatever location the party happens to be at the arbitrarily determined time span. The scene arbitrarily manifests itself to fit whatever the completely arbitrarily determined event has been created. There is no difference.

 

[Maxperson]

Your wandering monsters magically teleport to whatever location the party happens to be at the arbitrarily determined time span. The scene arbitrarily manifests itself to fit whatever the completely arbitrarily determined event has been created. There is no difference.

For like the umpteenth time, there is no teleportation or quantum involved with wandering monsters. None. These are all monsters that live in the habitat they are encountered in and the party is traveling through.