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

[FrogReaver]

It's not an example of "narrativist games". It's an example of MHRP/Cortex+ Heroic.

Apocalypse World is a "narrativist game" - as Vincent Baker says in the acknowledgements, the "entire game design" follows from Edwards's essay "Narrativism: Story Now". But it does not permit action declarations of the sort that I described.

I'm sure many posters in this thread would consider Torchbearer 2e to be a "narrative" or "narrativist" game, but - as per the example of play that I posted in the same post as the example from Cortex+ Heroic, it would not permit the same action declaration: TB2e takes a different approach from MHRP to authority over backstory.

Yes? It's not "selection bias", it's what counts as permissible action declaration. In the sort of D&D you are describing, I try and read the runes is a permissible action declaration. But adding hoping that they will reveal a way out of the dungeon adds nothing. It is not a component of the action declaration. Whereas in MHRP/Cortex+ Heroic, it is.

There are some versions of D&D which are closer to MHRP/Cortex+. Here's an example from a 4e skill challenge:
I think that the yakuza's contact ability in the original AD&D OA also allows the PC's hope to make a difference. From p 27,

The contacts are not named or defined by the DM or by a table. Instead, when the player wants his character to use a contact, he decides the name and position of the contact and tells the DM. The DM then decides whether the contact is appropriate for the character. The contact cannot be more than four experience levels above the yakuza, and the yakuza character must have had some plausible reason for meeting the contact in the past.​

I think there are cases, even in mainstream D&D, that will contradict this principle: for instance, Gygax in his DMG (p 20) says that a thief's ability to read languages

assumes that the language is, in fact, one which the thief has encountered sometime in the past. Ancient and strange
languages (those you, as DM, have previously designated as such) are always totally unreadable.​

So a successful roll to read languages in the now of the game establishes that, in the past of the game, the thief had a certain experience. That doesn't conform to your principle.

I don't make this point as a "gotcha". I make it to illustrate that adhering 100% to the principle that you've stated is extremely demanding. It rules out, for instance, a whole lot of narrations (eg "the wall looked harder than it turned out to be") which might otherwise be part of the narration of a success.

I think that what is shocking to some RPGers is the flagrancy of the runes example, in departing from an assumption of GM authority and centring the player so explicitly.

So you fully recognize the there’s a difference by virtue of ‘not all narrativist games have this feature’. Prior you proceeded to make me jump through hoops to explain that a difference existed, none of my explanations even sufficed, leading me to believe you thought there was no difference at all only to now find out i should have been talking about the specific nature of the difference instead of trying to establish that there was a difference. I’m very frustrated with your approach on this.

I guess I’ll leave it at - our biggest issue is with the narrativist games that do have that feature. I also don’t agree with your suggested difference, but if that conversation is going to go anything like this one I want no part in it.

 

[Umbran]

Agreed, they can be a form of control of the story. They're, interestingly not generally a part of Narrativist play

So, I find that depends on who's definition of "narrativist play" you are talking about. I mean, we don't even all agree on what "narrativist" means...

Now, there are games, FATE springs to mind, where players use distinctions to assert outcomes in keeping with their character concepts, though even there it's not assured.

You seem to be positioning "assured" as a requirement, which I don't think I agree with.

I'd consider that sort of play to be more 'neo-trad' in nature

And, there you have a solid example of what I meant above about disagreement on what's "narrative". Shuffling an example off into yet another weakly-defined category ("neo-trad") merely opens another line of having to figure out what we are each talking about. When many folks who aren't up to their eyebrows in narrative-theory would look at neo-trad play, they'll think, "that sounds like it is narrative-leaning", and maybe we shouldn't dismiss them as wrong.

...the players are less exploring the nature of the characters and more just asserting it as a fact to be granted. But it's largely a blurry distinction.

I think we'd need to understand and agree on why that is a relevant distinction, before we worry about it being blurry. There are times you explore, and times you assert - both are acceptable in their turns, such that the core is "nature of characters" rather than "explore".

 

[pemerton]

Yeah I just found it amusing that you independently created a very similar demarcation.

In GNS speak: Crumbly rocks is color, the nature of the writing in @pemertons example is actually color as well until the resolution system kicks in and then it gains situational positioning.

I'm also not saying that one should use GNS to analyse what's going on, it's more that the whole thing is a live problem as it were.

A term that Edwards used in a video a few years ago is "furniture" (vs "people"), which I think gets at something in the neighbourhood of what you're talking about: An interesting take on "fictional positioning" and adversity in RPGing

A detail of the rune example, which might be worth mentioning, is that Marvel Heroic RP uses a system of "Scene Distinctions", and Strange Runes (or some similar phrase) was a Scene Distinction in that situation. So while it starts as a type of colour, it has a big label on it saying "activate me!"

 

[pemerton]

It actually make a lot of sense that the pioneer does it differently than those that came after. After all they need to bridge the gap It could lean fully into the known and familiar innate skill system, while delegating the role of justifying the new and radical stuff to the newly introduced artha system. My impression is that now as BW has pionered the way teaching sufficient people the right mindset, newer games tend to bake this particular function of the artha system into the "skill" system, making for a somewhat leaner game. This is what I tried to describe in my post, as I think that makes it easier to understand the difference in mindset.

I don't think the artha system of BW is doing what you say here. Artha is a largely metagame framework.It lets the player (and thus their PC) try harder than normal (spending Persona to add dice) and/or to get lucky (spending Fate to open up "6"s). But I don't see how it is part of the system for narrating consequences on a failure.

Prince Valiant, for instance, doesn't have a failure system; but its action resolution works fine treated very similarly to TB2e.

Over the Edge also has abilities that reflect a PC's skill, and in the 20th anniversary edition Tweet encourages adopting "fail forward"/"no whiffing".

I don't know what RPGs you have in mind as "coming after" and not using skills to represent skill. I've already mentioned 4e D&D. Marvel Heroic RP has some "fail forward" inclinations, and it uses ratings to reflect ability.

How do 4ed explain why an unskilled person tend to get into more trouble not directly related to their incompetency than someone more skilled?

It leaves narration of failure to the GM. As I said, the game has not a simulationist bone in its body: so it doesn't seek to explain, in terms that would satisfy a "mechanical simulationist", the fiction that results from its resolution rules.

The idea that things go well for people who are good at what they do doesn't need any special in-fiction justification. It's a manifestation of the capacity of the protagonist.

 

[pemerton]

Which is fine, obviously in the rune example the player can't decide that the runes make them into a god although I do wonder how the GM would respond to that*. What they hope for has to be reasonable and fit the context of the game. But @pemerton said that's not true - which is why it feels like they're just disagreeing to disagree.

I already answered this upthread: consequences of actions in MHRP/Cortex+ Heroic are rated in dice sizes. There is no Asset bigger than d12.

A character can seek the power of a god. A number of abilities are rated as Godlike - eg Godlike Strength d12.

This is one of the features of the game that enables a greater range of action declarations without breaking the game.

 

[Maxperson]

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.

Elevated appreciation and understanding of what? I can have an elevated appreciation and understanding of gamist play, narrativist play, or simulationist play. If it's just "elevated appreciation and understanding," it's gobbledygook.

People enjoy sim play, because they want a greater sense of realism in their game. That doesn't mean that they want to try and mirror reality. D&D has a level of simulation in it, because it simulates everything from grass, trees and rocks, to gravity, swords and humans. For a lot of us, though, we want that to be some amount more than it is, so we tweak the rules to get to where we like it.

 

[pemerton]

Prior you proceeded to make me jump through hoops to explain that a difference existed, none of my explanations even sufficed, leading me to believe you thought there was no difference at all only to now find out i should have been talking about the specific nature of the difference instead of trying to establish that there was a difference. I’m very frustrated with your approach on this.

I don't know what you're talking about here.

I've been making posts about different sorts of frameworks for action declaration, and whether a GM can draw on secret backstory to negate them, for years on these boards. I'm sure you've participated in some of those threads.

 

[FrogReaver]

I don't know what you're talking about here.

I've been making posts about different sorts of frameworks for action declaration, and whether a GM can draw on secret backstory to negate them, for years on these boards. I'm sure you've participated in some of those threads.

You know. I’m not sure what you are talking about either.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

You know. I’m not sure what you are talking about either.

A good summery of this thread.

 

[Maxperson]

Consider the fiction used in pretty much every other edition besides 4e regarding how most spellcasters, but most specifically Wizards, acquire new spells. That is, we are told that the spellcaster acquires these spells through practice, experimentation, training, etc.--but this is functionally never shown. For essentially all groups, this process is 100% completely handwaved; it is presumed to have occurred in all the zillion moments we say nothing about because they weren't particularly interesting.

We do see it. Every time the wizard casts a spell in or out of combat, including times where he tries to get creative with the use of one of his spells, that's practice, experimentation and training, etc.

In the fiction at level up it's something like, "Hmm. You know, if I take the ranged component from the here Magic Missile spell and the explosive firey portion of the Burning Hands spell, and then bridge them together with McFearson's bridging language that Master Splinter taught me as an apprentice, I can throw fire farther away. Holy cow! Bridging those two together compresses the fire into a form as small as a pea and then it explodes into a great Fireball at the point of my choosing.

What we hear at the table is, "Hey DM. I'm picking Fireball as one of my two spells for making 5th level."