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

[clearstream]

Why? It happens now and then in games i run and play. The players take a step back and figure out an alternative. I can't remember ever hitting a situation where a single failed check ended the game.

I think you are saying that in your experience "nothing happens" normally leaves room for play to continue, and I'm agreeing with @Faolyn that it should do that.

Seems to me our viewpoints do not conflict.

 

[AlViking]

How many GMs will read advice sections, blogs, books, etc., and take it to heart, versus how many will read the rules and follow them?

Heck, how many GMs actually read the GM section? In D&D, it's notorious that even DMs don't read the DMG beyond the treasure tables.


Using modern tools, of course, in a low-stress environment. You'll note the times can get very, very high.


I have, multiple times.

You've repeated the exact same example complications for failing to pick a lock. Which I've given the same responses of why I don't think they work in D&D for me.

I was asking about some other scenarios.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Yeah, certainly. I think the narrative systems give players more agency, separate from their characters, to change the fiction, and I see why this seems less GM driven.

The disconnect is that I think giving the players power in this way actually gives them less agency in-character. Their in-character actions aren't connecting with anything solid and so they don't really matter. In that sense, the game is more GM-driven--you just want to convince the GM action X will make a good story. ('Hmm...will Pemerton, the GM, go for this runes = map idea?')

You're simply out of your depth here I'm afraid. Yes, some sort of technique must exist which lets the table settle on a fictional description of the world.

But in trad play the GM already decided what runes are! The possibility doesn't even exist for anything else. To construe this as more player agency is Orwellian level newthink!

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

It's possible. My post was highlighting how natural it is to treat the imagined world as existing in some sense independently of characters. That can be differentiated from the structural facts of the game (narrating a cook prompted by a character move doesn't necessitate commital to a world in which cooks are conjured by picking locks.)

I believe most accept that we can address the imagined world as if it were independently real regardless of its 'metaphysical' status... but I could be wrong.

Well,DURING PLAY in character play literally consists of that, plus acting out the role of the character. In terms of analyzing play, and system, I find that such confusion is profoundly unhelpful! What I want to do is understand how play works and how things like system figure into it.

 

[Enrahim]

You're simply out of your depth here I'm afraid. Yes, some sort of technique must exist which lets the table settle on a fictional description of the world.

But in trad play the GM already decided what runes are! The possibility doesn't even exist for anything else. To construe this as more player agency is Orwellian level newthink!

Not less player agency. But a changed focus of play. Rather than trying to enact their will on the world via their player character's limited abilities to affect the world via in fiction causality, the players get a direct chanel to the creator to petion their character's case. Of course someone looking for how to affect the world effectively would want to make use of this divine channel rather than the mundane one!

 

[FrogReaver]

Well,DURING PLAY in character play literally consists of that, plus acting out the role of the character. In terms of analyzing play, and system, I find that such confusion is profoundly unhelpful! What I want to do is understand how play works and how things like system figure into it.

Why is it unhelpful and confusing to analyze play from the perspective of an independently real world?

 

[Faolyn]

Yeah, certainly. I think the narrative systems give players more agency, separate from their characters, to change the fiction, and I see why this seems less GM driven.

The disconnect is that I think giving the players power in this way actually gives them less agency in-character. Their in-character actions aren't connecting with anything solid and so they don't really matter. In that sense, the game is more GM-driven--you just want to convince the GM action X will make a good story. ('Hmm...will Pemerton, the GM, go for this runes = map idea?')

Except that you're forgetting some very important things:

One: The GM and player work together to make a good story. The GM isn't antagonistic to the players. The players aren't trying to rules-lawyer the GM into submission. They are collaborating, which means that unless your proposed action would be actively unfun (such as trying to play on godmode), it's going to be accepted by the GM and group most of the time.

Two: What the players decide is supposed to be based on their character--and for narrative games, you have at least a modicum of your characters interests, backstory, goals, etc. already created by the time you start the game as part of making your character. Thus your actions are by default connecting with something solid--who your character is. For a trad game, you should be basing your actions on your character, even if the game itself doesn't have you flesh them out as part of generation.

 

[Faolyn]

i feel like you must've been told several times over by now, please stop claiming no-one's explained it to you: the difference is that in being decided beforehand the result and state of the world is independent and in no way influenced by the outcome of the skill check.

But the end results are the same, so it's not actually any different.

 

[The Firebird]

You're simply out of your depth here I'm afraid. Yes, some sort of technique must exist which lets the table settle on a fictional description of the world.

But in trad play the GM already decided what runes are! The possibility doesn't even exist for anything else. To construe this as more player agency is Orwellian level newthink!

Let's consider an extreme case. You know Calvinball, right? It's a game whose rules are made up as one goes. In a sense this provides the players with an extreme level of agency. I can introduce a new rule--I've got the Calvinball! Everyone else has to move in slow motion. This gives the players far more ability to control things than they do in say, chess.

But people find such free form games unsatisfying because all of that agency doesn't amount to much. You can introduce a new rule--I touched the wicket of power, so now YOU have to move slowly--and the smart play I made amounts to nothing. The choices I'm making are much less meaningful than say, a knight sacrifice which will put me up a queen. This is true even though chess limits my movements to a great extent.

I'm not saying narrative games are Calvinball. The point is that player agency isn't necessarily increased by giving the player more power. It depends on how that power interacts with the fixed structure of the game.

 

[Faolyn]

It feels better, provides a stronger sense for immersion for those who care about it, etc. The difference is subjective, but plenty real for folk who care.

OK, how, to you, does it feel better? How, to you, is it more immersive?