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

[pemerton]

Wouldn't you be the one to answer that question?

It was @TheFirebird who introduced the discussion of "winning", not me, and who suggested that the players in the games I've posted about are not trying to win. So I was asking what was meant by that.

I didn't post anything about winning. This is what I posted:

The whole framing around "convincing the GM" is what is odd to me. It suggests a lack of sincerity in engagement with the shared fiction. There also seems to be a lack of attention to the way in which consequences and actions are related. Eg in my 4e D&D game the Dwarf Fighter/Cleric had mediocre social skill bonuses, as is unsurprising for that build of PC. But the player nevertheless declared social actions from time to time, because he found himself in situations where his character wanted to persuade people to his point of view.

Having typed that previous couple of sentences, maybe it's not a lack of attention but rather a sense of choosing the optimal path to the finish line - as opposed to a sense of a character who has things they want to achieve, and so declares actions in pursuit of that, not all of which will involve abilities where the character is strong.

 

[Faolyn]

Let me get this straight: if in my game the active PCs are not the most special, unique, and important beings in the setting, my play is wrong and I should just "write a novel"? Do I understand that correctly?

Nope, not at all.

But if the entire point of the game is to explore your setting, then it sounds more like a project for someplace like r/worldbuilding.

 

[Micah Sweet]

It was @TheFirebird who introduced the discussion of "winning", not me, and who suggested that the players in the games I've posted about are not trying to win. So I was asking what was meant by that.

I didn't post anything about winning. This is what I posted:

Ok. What would you consider "playing to win" in these systems, or is that even possible if you're playing the game correctly? You're the one with all the experience.

 

[pemerton]

Wasn't the whole issue that PbtA doesn't have "you just fail" as an option?

Huh?

It seems to me pointless to try and talk about "PbtA" as a class. That would be liking talking about all games that involve rolling dice and adding them up.

But Apocalypse World has a clear rule for failure: (1) it happens on a result of 6 or less, and (2) the GM is able to make as hard and direct a move as they like.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Nope, not at all.

But if the entire point of the game is to explore your setting, then it sounds more like a project for someplace like r/worldbuilding.

How does this statement differ from what I suggested you meant? Just say what you mean plainly please.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Huh?

It seems to me pointless to try and talk about "PbtA" as a class. That would be liking talking about all games that involve rolling dice and adding them up.

But Apocalypse World has a clear rule for failure: (1) it happens on a result of 6 or less, and (2) the GM is able to make as hard and direct a move as they like.

I'm pretty sure I could say a lot of things about d20 games as a class. Are PbtA games so different from each other that that's not possible? And if so, what does the label signify?

 

[Faolyn]

How does this statement differ from what I suggested you meant? Just say what you mean plainly please.

Well, I never said the PCs had to be the most important part of the world, did I?

But lets go with you: What does it mean, exactly, for the setting to be the focus?

 

[AlViking]

This is not correct.

The player expressed a hope for what the runes said. Dice were then rolled, and that hope came true.

Saying that the player "decided" what the runes said is like saying that a player in D&D just "decides" that their PC kills an Orc, when we all know that the player can't decide that: all they can decide is that their PC fights the Orc.

The player said "I want this to be X", made a successful roll so it was X. They had to succeed on a check but they did they got the result they wanted. If they had failed the check they would have been incapacitated - meaning the runes were determined by the roll.

 

[pemerton]

As to this point--why are you brining in MHRP/Cortex+ Fantasy Heroic? Wasn't the discussion about BW and AW and BitD? Do they have systems like this?

I asked you specifically about how you would adjudicate things if a player said "the runes cause me to achieve all of my goals and my enemies to instantly perish". So--how?

You have attributed something to @hawkeyefan which I said. And the reason I spoke about MHRP/Cortex+ Fantasy Heroic is because that was the RPG that was played where the PC read the runes. I've posted the example twice in this thread, more recently as an illustration of a point in reply to @Enrahim. You then posted about the example, and (I think) asked some questions about it.

Let me pull out some salient points. First, I argued that narrative games do not allow you to 'play to win' in the same way trad games do.

Given that I don't know what a "narrative game" is in this context, I don't know whether this is true or false.

Eg I haven't played much of Meguey and Vincent Baker's game Murderous Ghosts, but I've played a little bit of it. I think it can be played to win. And I think that most of the posters in this thread using the term "narrative game" would call it a "narrative game". Vincent Baker has called it a PbtA game, and I think when you look at the game it's obvious why he does.

He's also said that it's not a "narrativist" game, because it's not a game in which there is rising action across a moral line driven by player choices for their PCs.

When I think of 'winning' in RPGs, I think of successfully achieving my PCs goals. That's why for the rune example, I said 'imagine the runes caused me to instantly accomplish all my goals'. Is that not what winning looks like in these games, for you?

PCs can achieve their goals. Whether that will be experienced as a win or not will depend on other details, I think. Some victories are pyrrhic, or ironic, or tragic.

But as I just posted in reply to @Micah Sweet, my post to which you responded with remarks about "winning" wasn't about winning. It was about the notion of a fixed "finish line" that the player has to reach.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Well, I never said the PCs had to be the most important part of the world, did I?

But lets go with you: What does it mean, exactly, for the setting to be the focus?

For me the purpose of play, ideally, is to explore and interact with an imaginary world through the lens of my PC, using only the abilities that PC has at their disposal. Hopefully that world will have a variety of interesting things, places, and people with which to interact, and said interaction will likely inform future choices I make through my PC (or a new PC if play takes an unfortunate turn).

My preference, generally speaking, is that the world largely resembles the real one in many respects, with clear exceptions for the supernatural, etc., and those few necessary abstractions for practical play. I would hope for consistency in worldbuilding, including the supernatural parts.

In essence, as a player I want to feel like my PC is there in the world, part of a larger setting and doing the best they can to achieve their goals with the tools that PC has. As a GM I want to create a setting where a player can have that experience.