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

[hawkeyefan]

@The Firebird explicitly claimed his statements as personal opinion. Turns out we're all allowed to do that, even if other people don't agree with those opinions or think them harsh. At no point were they claiming it as fact.

I'm sure you disagree with a lot of my opinions, especially about modes of play you enjoy and I don't. I still get to subjective feel the way I do, and so does everyone else.

Sure. Know what I've never done? Expressed that my opinion is that your GMing is poor.

It's crap and if anyone of the narrativists said anything like that, you'd Eeyore all over them.

 

[JConstantine]

Oh, sure. There have been narrative mechanics in the form of metacurrency in games that otherwise are pretty traditional representational games for a long time now.

I've always found it weird that metacurrencies are considered a narrative mechanic. Their meta-narrative nature always distinguished them as somewhat gamist to me.

 

[Thomas Shey]

I've always found it weird that metacurrencies are considered a narrative mechanic. Their meta-narrative nature always distinguished them as somewhat gamist to me.

I'd argue most narrative-support mechanics are somewhat gamist (and I should know, far as I know I essentially invented an early one that's propagated fairly far at this point). But any mechanic designed to produce a narrative or simulation result is, to some degree gamist in part of its design in the vast majority of cases, because they're using the game structure to support what they otherwise want.

 

[JConstantine]

My point is that I can understand the perspective that games that follow a Narrativist agenda can feel more like storytelling exercises than games to some people.

Yet there are other, different, people who find those games to be too "boardgamey". The variance in perception is kinda wild.

 

[JConstantine]

I'm actually going to be in rare agreement with you. Success with a cost does work in traditional play if the DC is two tiered. DC 15 to fully succeed and DC say 13-14 to succeed with a cost, where the cost directly applies to what is happening.

I think FFG's Star Wars/Genesys demonstrates that the full suite of tiered success can work in a trad(leaning) system if it's built with it in mind. Though I don't think it would take much effort to retrofit it to D&D - tiered DCs are a common enough houserule.

 

[hawkeyefan]

Try to read again. It was not the characters, but the actions of the characters that was claimed to be less substantive. This is a completely different claim than the one you replied to here, that I again agree is somewhat ridiculous.

I read it again. Here's what you said:

I am reading that passage quite differently. I agree that if it had indeed claimed that it would be ridiculous, and I think @The Firebird would agree as well. The key differences in my reading is that it isn't the actions by the player that matters less, but the actions of the characters and that it hence isn't the game that feels less substentiative, but rather the characters feel less substentiative. Would you find such a claim as ridiculous, as I don't?

Take a look at the bolded. Note that the italics on the word "characters" was yours. That's what I was responding to. However, you can feel free to also apply what I said to the idea that the actions of the characters are less substantive. Either way, I find the criticism to be incredibly far from my experience.

All the posts I have seen people argue against using the method has been in the context of as a technique to bolt onto existing D&D living world play. Are you certain you didn't just miss that context, as that has been in my understanding implied in large parts of this thread? (This has not been explicitely stated in all posts. This is the D&D subforum after all)

I don't care what subforum it's in. The topic of the conversation is such that looking beyond D&D and its established practices should be expected and encouraged.

I agree that plenty of discussion has been about applying new techniques to D&D play. I think that some of the pitfalls of doing so are being overstated. Yes, they may be things to be aware of, and we can discuss them as potential pitfalls... but they are often being portrayed as certain pitfalls.

I agree in principle. I absolutely do not pretend to have prepared everything. And I don't mind talking about my tricks. But in the middle of play is not the right time to being attention to such matters, and I actually don't think anyone has ever asked me about this. The thing is that as long as the experience make it feel like there is a solid persistent world there, players generally do not seem to care how much of it is actually prepared or not.

Well, if no one is asking about the method, then where's the issue with introducing the cook on the failed roll? If no one asks why she's there, wouldn't they just assume it was part of the map and key?

Having said that, I absolutely will discuss this kind of thing during play. I am happy to discuss the process by which I GM. And I will point things out from time to time just so my players, most of whom have been playing with me for decades, are still aware of what I'm doing and why.

As for a solid and persistent world... I find that it's the reasoning that the GM makes for such things that leads to a solid and persistent world, not how in advance of play those decisions are made.

 

[JConstantine]

Sick burn, Max. I’m not gonna lie… that stings.

Hawkeye > Green Arrow, but Batman > Hawkeye. Sorry.

 

[hawkeyefan]

If the roll is to determine success or failure at a specific test, as many if us believe it to be, then yes, it absolutely is a violation of the integrity if the roll. Just one you don't have a problem with.

But why would I take an action that violated the game I was running?

Don't you think it's more likely that I'm running the game such that fail forward is a valid option for the GM to use, that the participants know this, and therefore when it's used, it's not a violation of anything?

Shouldn't we judge the game being played by the means with which it's being played?

The rune example is exactly what I have in mind here.

But it is a character action. It's not the player influencing play without their character being involved.

 

[Umbran]

I've always found it weird that metacurrencies are considered a narrative mechanic. Their meta-narrative nature always distinguished them as somewhat gamist to me.

Metacurrencies are often considered narrative, because you use them not to do the best manipulation of the rules (which would be gamist), and are instead used to make the resulting story turn out as you want it.

 

[JConstantine]

I'm not sure you could take a flaw that did that, though. Flaws didn't have mechanical impact like that, which means that the PC would still be a great swimmer.

I know @hawkeyefan touched on this, but I don't see why it couldn't just be noted as part of the character and the GM factors it into their adjudication. That's the entire point of the GM.