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

[AbdulAlhazred]

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.

Right, so 4e is of course a bit different from BW in that it's not specifically adjudicating intent at the level of a specific check. It can, but that's normally left to the SC. A given check then determines the new SC tally, and some fiction follows which supports moving it on to a materially different fiction that will engage a different skill.

There's then of course the question of what an entire SC resolves. However, it's clear that, at least, the most immediate intentions of the PCs come to fruition on an SC successful resolution. Often things like quests and treasure parcels will be resolved, and XP and leveling will happen. The DMGs also speak on a form of FF tied to SCs, but in rather vague terms (which aught to also apply to other types of encounters though nothing is mentioned anywhere).

 

[Faolyn]

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.

OK. I get it, and that makes sense. But there's nothing about PbtA or narrativist games that contradicts that, other than that the PCs get to help create certain aspects. And those aspects are probably not the ones you would want to keep secret. In most of these games, what the players create are things that directly affect them. Pemerton's game, wherein the players more or less made the runes to be beneficial, is an exception. At least among the game's I've read.

 

[Umbran]

I dunno, I'm a little bit surprised that it is the posters who profess to favour "simulationist" play that are making all these posts about the importance of eliding, at the table, what is actually happening in the gameworld.

In Burning Wheel and Torchbearer, we don't have to guess or handwave where new spells come from. The fiction of spell acquisition is part of play.

Where did that one grain of sand come from, pemerton? No, that one - that other one. The one there, next to that bit of shell. No, the other bit of shell, not the one near the pebble...

You seem to suggest that every single detail of your games is explicitly stated - and that's laughable insofar as that's not physically possible. The lifetime of the physical universe is not long enough for you to explicitly state all the specifics that can be referenced in our fictional universes. Much is elided over in everyone's games - it is merely a quibble over what matters if you elide over it, or not.

 

[Enrahim]

OK. I get it, and that makes sense. But there's nothing about PbtA or narrativist games that contradicts that, other than that the PCs get to help create certain aspects. And those aspects are probably not the ones you would want to keep secret. In most of these games, what the players create are things that directly affect them. Pemerton's game, wherein the players more or less made the runes to be beneficial, is an exception. At least among the game's I've read.

Well, give that PbtA is such a fuzzy term it could include almost anything I guess that just being PbtA in itself doesn't contradict this experience. What is PbtA? – lumpley games

And as "Narrativistic game" is a non existent entity even in GNS theory before the entire GNS framework fell apart. I guess it doesn't make sense that something non-existing contradicts an experience..

However if a PC can "create aspects" I think that contradict with the spirit of "using only the abilities that PC has at their disposal." But I am not sure what you put in that.

However there are people that want the rules to produce interesting events tailored to their characters. There are rules designed for that. And such rules will contradict with the stated prefered experience the way I understand "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."

I think such rules are very common in games that like to label themselves as "narrativistic" (whatever that means)

 

[thefutilist]

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!"

Good call. I use this distinction all the time as a basic technique. One is very much in the vein of Apocalypse World where various 'things' are distinct threats and therefore implicitly in play as people as far as the resolution is concerned.

It's great as a way of framing conflict resolution. Who exactly is it you're rolling against and what does it want. So maybe your old gun wants to jam, the rock face wants to slow you down, the fire wants to burn you.

Related is the granularity of a person. So to use the mansion, cook example. I'll consider the mansion+staff as one person. Then on failure the cook becomes a distinct person. Or if you and an opponent are trying to win over a crowd. Does the crowd have personhood in that conflict, making it a three way conflict or is just between you and your opponent.

 

[Faolyn]

GNS is about characterising play, and the suitability of RPGs for various sorts of play. Whether you think the three categories are helpful or not, I think the notion of characterising the suitability of RPGs for various sorts of play makes sense.

Meh. Almost any game with any sort of options to it can be played any way. Even the least gamist, most narrativist/simulationist gamer alive might get so angry at an in-game enemy that they begin to optimize ways to defeat them, even if only by taking narrative traits. Even the most gamist gamer will get deep into roleplay from time to time.

I don't think it's helpful to say "this RPG is gamist" or "this RPG is a sim." I think it would be somewhat more helpful to say "this RPG is 52% narrativist, 38% simulationist, 10% narrativist" or something like that. Of course, that would still be entirely subjective, but possibly more useful in the long run.

 

[clearstream]

Elevated appreciation and understanding of what?

"a subject" which could mean playing Pendragon in a way that increased appreciation of Le Mort D'Arthur.

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

Yes, and remembering that this is supposed to be a creative agenda, it's describing a purpose for play. It seems feasible that one could play with that purpose in mind. That games could be designed to serve that purpose is an assumption behind proceduralism (persuasive games) and only occasionally challenged.

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.

True, so while they are not looking for a world to be exactly like our real world, they want it to appear real on its own terms, i.e. verisimilitude. But what really is the "sense" of realism? What does it feel like? Some earlier simulationists propose that the overriding motive is immersion. Others take a different tack and suggest noetic satisfaction... which isn't far from Tuovinen's take.

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.

I agree that one should get into how "realism" might best be achieved? and when has enough been done to achieve it?

Another question is whether and how realism ought to apply to each game mechanic and ritual of play? John Kim writes that players should use the diegetic means and motives of their characters to drive play, and for this reason should choose characters that are in some respect exceptional.

The problem isn't that Tuovinen's take is "gobbledygook", but that there are so many versions of what "simulationism" is; which drives disagreement about what it applies to and how it should be implemented. As I wrote upthread it suffers from both intensional and extensional problems.

Where D&D stands in this respect depends on what one decides they mean by "simulationism"? Notwithstanding conversation and prevarication (by me) upthread, I suspect that for some proposed definitions, the answer will divide along roughly formalist and non-formalist lines (whether or not folk are resolutely or consistently one or the other.)

 

[Faolyn]

I don't agree with this.

No. They stated what they hoped it would say. Then that hope was put to the test of a dice roll. And the player succeeded in that.

This is not true. Because of a success on the roll, the player's hope for what the runes said became true. That's not the player deciding. It's like saying that, because I won the lottery, I decided that I won the lottery.

Since you've played D&D, you should know what they're talking about--the GM didn't decide ahead of time what the runes were, and the player didn't roll to see if their deductions were correct. In effect, the player said "I want these runes to be beneficial," made a roll, and it turned out their wants came true.

 

[clearstream]

Because of a success on the roll, the player's hope for what the runes said became true. That's not the player deciding. It's like saying that, because I won the lottery, I decided that I won the lottery.

It seems more like specifying what winning the lottery will amount to. What the prize is.

Deciding the prize isn't the same as deciding to win.

 

[Faolyn]

I can think of a rather ridiculous number of cliffs and banks that I tried and failed to climb as a kid (and a much lower number where I succeeded!). I rarely fell, but always ended up back at the bottom more or less where I started; usually because I'd either bitten off more than I could chew or (far more likely) just didn't know what I was doing.

And to me, that's failure: you don't get to the top (or safely to the bottom, if you're trying to climb down). And in the game, where you're supposedly rolling to determine the binary states of success or failure, success is defined as reaching the top and failure is anything else.

I'm going to guess that these were pretty short cliffs and banks, if you were a kid, not the twenty, fifty, hundred, or even thousand-foot cliffs that PCs are going to climb.