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

[Gimby]

They way it seems to me, is if it's not really a valid move to deny the players idea if he makes successful roll, what the roll does is determine who is authoring the runes. If the roll is successful, the runes say what the player wanted them to say. The DM doesn't really author the runes unless the roll fails.

I think the point here is that the GM has to agree with the stakes first - it's not that the roll is made and then on a success the player has free rein to say what the runes are, it's that the players and GM before agree that the request is reasonable (so authorship is shared) so on a success the table gets the shared authorship result, on a failure they get what the GM authors alone.

 

[Enrahim]

I think this brings us closer to an understanding. Dungeon World repeatedly admonishes the participants, especially the GM, to speak to the characters. Also to speak as the NPCs. Thus you ask "Thor, what are trying to do here?" Not "John, what do you want Thor to do?" This is exactly what @Campbell is talking about in the post you quoted. The players don't have desires within the fiction! They're advocates for their characters, but they don't steer the fiction. The game is about playing out what the characters think, feel, and do. This ties back to me saying that the GM is not really 'the opposition' either. DW then has a separate channel for what the players want to see in play, answering questions about the setting and situation, and at the mechanical level of play.

The funny thing is I cannot help but feel like what you are describing is that the role you as a player have, as far as your character is concerned, is to simulate what they would be doing...

 

[Enrahim]

I think that 4e D&D is a variant of D&D. And "fail forward" is a key idea in 4e D&D, especially skill challenge resolution.

And Burning Wheel is a game in which "fail forward" is key an in which skills do represent a character's innate ability to do things.

So I think both the assertions I've quoted are not correct.

I tried to preempt the BW point here:

I think this was one of several sources that inspired this line of thinking. I actually did not see that much push back? I think maybe the formulation about luck being a bit too vague for it to really catch on, so we can see.

The main pushback I could see was from @pemerton regarding how this is not the case for BW. So let me preempt that critisism. I agree that BW skill is best understood as innate skill rather than as a narrative marker. In BW I would say it is rather the Artha flow that provides the narrative signaling that provide the "philosophical" basis for "justifying" the succeed with intent and fail forward mechanisms. But I think diving the intricacies of how that work is less helpfull for the purpose of encouraging understanding across the play style lines

As for 4ed I didn't get the sense that meta-philosophical consistency was very high on their design agenda. So at this point I dont think anyone will be surprised if that is having some awkward parts..

 

[FrogReaver]

I'm drawing a parallel between dismissals of player guided exploration as "mere color" and the no true Scottsman dismissal of simulation, and claiming one cannot justify both arguments.

And I’m saying it’s not a no true scottsman because there is a simple deciding line that differentiates the true scottsmen.

To do this 1 of 2 criteria must be met
1) the thing being narrated must be below the level of abstraction, making it mere color to introduce its existence after the roll.

2) if the thing being narrated is above the level of abstraction then it must exist either in the gms notes or shared fiction preceding the roll.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

I tried to preempt the BW point here:

As for 4ed I didn't get the sense that meta-philosophical consistency was very high on their design agenda. So at this point I dont think anyone will be surprised if that is having some awkward parts..

I think the 4e philosophy was that D&D was primarily a tactical combat game.

 

[FrogReaver]

Because that world is not real and doesn't work like it is! When you base an analysis on a mistaken idea of what the situation is, you cannot arrive at accurate conclusions.

Well, it’s not a mistaken idea even if it’s ‘not real’.

I say that a player can restrict their narrations on any basis, and indeed to have anything other than ‘pass the conch’ they must do so. If that basis (or 1 of many basis) is on treating the world as real and independent of the character then that becomes a real restriction whether or not the world is real and independent of the character.

Narrativists don’t play pass the conch. Their restrictions on the fiction the player can generate are no more based on ‘real’. Note: the character is not real either.

One reason narrativists so often get accused of ‘pass the conch’ is because of arguments like this about ‘not real’, which taken to its logical extreme means anything the player wants to narrate should be on the table regardless of any ‘not real’ reasons including the ‘not real’ shared fiction up to this point.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

One reason narrativists so often get accused of ‘pass the conch’ is because of arguments like this about ‘not real’, which taken to its logical extreme means anything the player wants to narrate at any time should be on the table regardless of any ‘not real’ reasons including the ‘not real’ shared fiction up to this point.

This certainly ties into was seems to happen in Apocalypse World, at least as narrated by my friend. I think what happens is all the players try to outdo each other with the silliest development they can think of.

 

[FrogReaver]

This certainly ties into was seems to happen in Apocalypse World, at least as narrated by my friend. I think what happens is all the players try to outdo each other with the silliest development they can think of.

Yep, such amazing agency

 

[clearstream]

He's wrong about that, too. You don't need to spend significant time and effort quantifying, formalizing and then calculating outcomes. Far less complex simulations are still simulations.

Tuovinen isn't saying that "mechanical simulation" is a synecdoche for "simulationism". He defines "simulationist play" as "attempts to experience a subject matter in a way that results in elevated appreciation and understanding." Mechanical simulation is then outlined as one way to do that.

 

[pemerton]

As for 4ed I didn't get the sense that meta-philosophical consistency was very high on their design agenda. So at this point I dont think anyone will be surprised if that is having some awkward parts..

Huh? 4e D&D is the most coherent version of the game since Moldvay Basic.

And while it does have some awkward parts (eg DEX-based barbarians, which outside of Heroic tier will tend to break the AC maths), "fail forward" narration is not one of them.

I tried to preempt the BW point here

I don't really feel the force of the "pre-emption". If one of the games that pioneered "fail forward" resolution uses skills to represent a character's abilities, then I think the claim that there is some inherent incompatibility between those two things has not been borne out.