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

[pemerton]

If the players in your game are not trying to win

What does "win" mean, here?

I mean, I know what winning in AD&D looks like. What does winning look like in Burning Wheel? Or Apocalypse World?

 

[pemerton]

The player affected the content of the fiction via a different means than describing an action made by their character.

This is not true. The player described an action performed by their character: deciphering the runes, hoping that they would show a way out of the dungeon.

What you might mean is that the making of the roll settled a piece of the fiction (ie what the runes say) which is not itself the result of an action performed by a character.

 

[hawkeyefan]

Yes, they do not have the ability to change the world themselves, but they are saints that has the ability to pray directly to the Lord.

Indeed the players do not even have the ability to change the world trough their character's action if you take this kind of logic to the extreme - all actions and their causal links are filtered trough the GM.

Well, my point was that players don’t often change the fiction without involving their characters. Change meaning the fiction is A, and then the player makes it B, with no involvement of their character. That’s not typically how most RPGs work.

I agree that I do not like this formulation. I think I see the philosophical point @The Firebird is getting at with this, but it is too disconnected with how it actually feels in play. I think the point is better formulated in later posts.

Considering he’s claiming that many of my games lack any kind of substance and that the actions taken by the players don’t matter… I think the point is rather ridiculous.

This one is one I actually could very well have done myself, but I want to give an import addition: If I had been present of mind when this was happening, I would have explained before action was commited that the roll would be to determine how fast they manage to climb.

I stated what was at risk before the rolls were made, yes. The players proceeded knowing what was at stake.

I also want to add that the above actually seem required in BW Revised edition (I have not checked gold, but probably there as well) There it is clearly said that it is the GMs job to inform what is at stake before any roll is made.

Sure, several games require that you establish what’s at risk up front. I like that approach enough that I did it throughout the 5e game.

As an extra bonus - on a crit fail I would not have felt bound to slow speed being the only thing at stake. I have the impression that this is a case I as GM are given a wide mandate from my players to narrate things that are somewhat unexpected but related. Indeed they appear to prefer if the consequences of that feels a bit spectacular.

I stopped critical failures a long time ago, except when the rules incorporate them in a way I enjoy more, like in Spire.

For D&D 5e, I don’t really think they’re very suitable.

Yes, and this failure mode is so well known the entire mode has gotten it's own jargon! That indicate that this is indeed a failure mode that is very good to be aware of.

Pointing out this failure mode isn't a solid critisizm against trad as a concept, but rather good sound GM advice against the pitfalls. Similarly the current scrutiny of FF isn't a dismissal of the technique, but rather seeking to reveal how and when to best deploy it.

Sure, just like it’s sound advice for Fail Forward to inflict unconnected consequences… yet people are still citing that criticism.

Oh. Yes, If you has grown so cynical that you have lost the ability to dream, I am afraid our art is not of much value to you.

However if it is just expressing that you haven't had the joy of experiencing a true illusionist, but rather just kids having gotten their hands on a "my first magic tricks" box and are clumsingly but proudly showing of what they can do, then thee might still be hope for you.

Avoiding the conjuration of the cook should be as easy as hiding a coin in the palm. Even amateur magicans do this routinely, and a failure to do so would indeed be a major slip-up. And even here it is pointed out repeatedly in the tread that the illusion is robust in most cases - it is first in the most extreme case of the want to be mage actually deliberately show their trick there is an immediate break of illusion.

I think the metaphor is interfering with your point here… I’m not sure what you’re trying to say.

My point is that no GM that I’ve met or interacted with is capable of doing what’s being talked about in this thread… the tracking of the places of all NPCs at all times, the calculation of where a guard may be based on distances within a house, establishing ahead of time all the factors that may lead to a failed check.

That the GM has thought of everything ahead of time so that there is no need for deciding things in the moment of play.

I don’t believe that happens.

Rules shape play. Some times this shape helps the game flow faster, better, stronger. Some times the shape bends play in ways that feel awkward and slows things down. It is the latter that is what I refer to as actively interfering in my post. This might not mach perfectly common parlance, but that post wasn't intended to be a precise statement anyway.

What would an example be?

Agreed. Poor example. That shouldn't be used as an argument to flat out dismiss the point they failed to properly illustrate tough.

I think it’s sufficient, even though there are other ways to do so!

That is the thing, who cares? In a lot of situations action is tight and there are more interesting things to be concerned about.

Player: I climb the tree to get at the sniper (Rolls d20) ouch, 6.
DM: (Rolls 1d6) ok, 2 damage and you are prone. Player 2, you are up.

I think this is a very typical example of flow in a D&D game. The group has built up a common understanding about how the flow of play should be in such situations. Noone care about why the character fell. The GMs decission to roll 1d6 is commonly understood to mean the character managed to get 10-20 feet up before falling. This allow play to effectively revolve around the core question of the situation: "How do we get an upper hand in this ambush?" rather than spending time of establishing things like "Was it a branch that couldn't carry my weight?" Into the shared fiction.

Each player is free to color these details in themselves, and that can actually provide a richer image than what you would have gotten if you tried to align on the details rather than just the big structure.

My response was to @AlViking, who said tgis:

The fall wasn't caused by the crumbling rock, the fall was caused by a failed athletics check. The crumbling rock was just adding flair.

“The fall” is something that happens to the character… it’s a part of the fiction, and the reason for it should be part of the fiction.

The fall is not “caused” by the failed roll. I was pointing this out because attributing causal qualities in the fiction to events in the real world seems to happen a lot, and it’s an odd phenomenon.

I personally have no problem narrating such a thing after the fact. “Quantum crumbling rocks” we can call them. But there seems to be some pushback that trad GM’s “change” the fiction to fit the result. Not everyone who is advocating for trad play seems in agreement on this.

 

[hawkeyefan]

That's what I said. The character is a buffer between the player's roll and the affect in the world. The player is rolling, but it's the character who is affecting the world.

I know that’s what you said… but I took it to mean you were saying it about trad games, and implying that narrativist games work differently

I was saying that the narrativist games I’m thinking of generally don’t work differently. The player affects the fiction by declaring actions for their character.

I think anytime you are playing a game and the player is authoring world content, that skips the buffer. I imagine at least some of the game that do that involve rolling something.

I’m not sure. Which games do this?

The buffer is important to folks who are more traditional since the player directly authoring things in the world isn't very traditional. It's just playstyle preference is all.

When do players directly author things in the world without their character being involved, though?

I mean, I’m thinking of Stonetop and Spire and Blades in the Dark. Most instances ofthis stuff would likely be in the form of suggestion based on what’s been established (“hey, is there a spittoon in this tavern?” or similar) but even then, it’d be subject to the GM agreeing, and seems just as likely in plenty of trad play.

Do you have any games or examples in mind?

 

[pemerton]

Yes, they do not have the ability to change the world themselves, but they are saints that has the ability to pray directly to the Lord.

Indeed the players do not even have the ability to change the world trough their character's action if you take this kind of logic to the extreme - all actions and their causal links are filtered trough the GM.

What RPG, or whose RPGing, are you trying to describe here? I mean, the overall tenor of your posts suggests you think that you are "taking to the extreme" the logic of some RPGing that has been discussed. But who has described action resolution in terms of "praying to the Lord" other than you?

In a lot of situations action is tight and there are more interesting things to be concerned about.

Player: I climb the tree to get at the sniper (Rolls d20) ouch, 6.
DM: (Rolls 1d6) ok, 2 damage and you are prone. Player 2, you are up.

I think this is a very typical example of flow in a D&D game. The group has built up a common understanding about how the flow of play should be in such situations. Noone care about why the character fell.

This is not, for me at least, painting a picture of a "simulationist" game with a vibrant fiction.

 

[pemerton]

Of course. Rolling the ability check in BW is of course not petioning the creator! Describing it as such would be just silly!

The act of stating the intent on the other hand...

Who is being petitioned? I mean, do you describe moving your piece in a chess game, or playing your card in a card game, using this language of "petitioning"?

 

[pemerton]

It was sort of true for 4ed, but it was not accepted as it only applied to the out of combat segment. In the in combat segment the rules were very opiniated regarding what could/should be narrated in terms of player actions.

Huh? There was a whole sub-culture of complaint about 4e D&D - spearheaded by The Alexandrian - based on the fact that many 4e mechanics don't fully specify what is happening in the fiction.

 

[pemerton]

These sound like some quantum crumbling rocks to me!

I think it's funny how multiple posters who have attacked the cook and have repeatedly insisted they aren't interested in hearing how a good GM would provide the context to support it (eg telegraphing), are now defending the crumbling rocks by insisting that a good GM would have telegraphed them in the framing of the climb and the stating of the DC.

 

[pemerton]

Tuovinen doesn't mean that a game must do every one of the six things to be counted simulationist

No he didn't. But very few posters in this thread, or on ENW, follow Tuovinen'sa (or Edward's) usage when they talk about "simulationism".

Normally they mean some combination of "mechanical simulation" and "very strong GM control over backstory" and "neutrality by the GM in adjudication and narration).

You could be right that @Hussar was focused on just that one of the six things Tuovinen listed that a game can do. I had understood them to still be working with the broader label.

@Hussar can correct me, but I doubt that he has read the Tuovinen blog.

 

[Enrahim]

This is not true. The player described an action performed by their character: deciphering the runes, hoping that they would show a way out of the dungeon.

What you might mean is that the making of the roll settled a piece of the fiction (ie what the runes say) which is not itself the result of an action performed by a character.

Yes, the player described an action. But they also expressed a hope. In this game this expression of hope turned out to be more potent than in many other games.