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

[Enrahim]

To be fair, this isn't about just narrative games. Its about getting people on the same page in a very consistent way.

I just don't think that's nearly as common as some people act like it is, and as long as they think it is, they're not going to understand why some things work better for some groups than others.

I think this sort of depends on what you mean by "getting on the same page".

Say if we are expanding the upthread example where someone advertises "D&D Curse of Strahd 70% roleplay, 20% exploration 10% combat". I do not know if the game is going to be about:
1a) What separates monsters from humans faced with impossible choices?
1b) What is love, and when do actions taken in the name of love go to far?
2a) How to get in a position to defeat a powerful vampire lord?
2b) How to get away from a cursed land?
3a) Experiencing eastern European folklore come to life.
3b) Experiencing a true immersive sense of horror and dread.
All of these are likely to heavily influence how play is actually going to look like. And I might have a personal preference. But here is the thing: Given our lack of common language regarding these things I would think most players would still be in the dark which of these the game is actually going to be about even after session zero, though some might have been excluded. But during play it usually become pretty quickly apparent what the game is actually about.

And here is the thing: On one hand what play is actually about might very often not match what the players originally envisioned and preferred when signing up on the game, and hence the players are not "on the same page". But on the other hand, many players doesn't really care that much, and can find themselves accepting and adapt to this alternative, trying to get as much enjoyment out of the situation they find themselves in as they can. If everyone does that, they can also be said to be "on the same page".

And this is my frustration. I think it is very common to be "on the same page" in the second sense, but very rare in the first sense. Our lack of language almost assures that. For instance if you replace D&D with "a FATE adoption of", I might be able to guess that it is slightly more likely it is 1a) or 1b) that is at play, but I couldn't say it for certain. All the others are perfectly fine things a FATE game could be about. Changing to "50% roleplay 10% exploration 40% combat" also wouldn't significantly inform my understanding beyond it might be slightly more likely we are looking at 2a). And for instance replacing "Curse of Strahd" with "Set in a homebrew gothic horror setting" would just make me less enlightened about what the game could be about.

EDIT: And of course, the most likely is that the game is going to be an unfocused combination of several of these. But for the purposes of talking about "being on the same page", I think that is not a necessary complication to the model

 

[clearstream]

The mechanics IS that the spells just force themselves into the wizards brain, the need to have lore attached is a personal preference (at least it is in D&D anyway).

I haven't closely followed this line of discussion, but the above seems mistaken.

The way it's explained in 5e 2024 is that exhaustive study results in new spells becoming known to the wizard at each level. Beyond that, if a spell is in a school they specialise in, learning it is easier. The abstraction learn two new spells at each level represents lore like this. "The spells are the culmination of arcane research you do regularly."

You could ask what happens when a wizard gains a level after a sustained period of being prevented from doing arcane research? DM has the job of deciding such things in the way that best serves the group's preferences.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

I think this is part of the communication problem that plagues this thread and keep it going, despite it having been pointed out multiple times. Fail forward has two flavors: fail with twist and succeed with complications. DW implements the first flavor, but not the second flavor. However the example that most of the discussion has revolved around in this thread has been the second flavor. Hence many are using FF to mean something that include the second, as the example being discussed wouldn't permit the example used for fail forward that is being discussed.

In DW the partial success is not a fail forward technique, as it is forced to be succeed with complication. For succeed with complication to be a fail forward technique it must be presented as an option to a failure result (like in for instance BW or FATE)

Well, it implements the second flavor as something that isn't a failed roll, but rather, a weak successful roll.

In D&D terms, the closest example is something akin to a knowledge check. A very high result means the character knows everything the player would wish to know, all the details that might be relevant. A barely passing result means the player knows something, but it's incomplete, superficial, or basic; you still succeeded, but not really in the way you'd like. Anything less than "barely passing" means outright failure, whatever form that might take.

D&D doesn't have anything that quite corresponds to "success with complication" as an out/escape hatch/alternative result for failure. The closest thing, I guess, would be something like Advantage or the Lucky feat in 5e. With any edition of D&D I can think of, anything akin to "failure actually means success with complication" is going to be both an "in this one case, not every time" situation, and something that only occurs specifically because the GM offered or supported it.

As noted, DW simply doesn't have that path at all. Success-with-complication is a specific result range. If you didn't roll in that range, you didn't get success-with-complication; if you didn't roll in that "success-with-complication" range, you either succeeded as much as is possible to achieve aka full success, or you failed--but the failure pushes things closer to a conclusion, rather than just leaving things dithering.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

I haven't closely followed this line of discussion, but the above seems mistaken.

The way it's explained in 5e 2024 is that exhaustive study results in new spells becoming known to the wizard at each level. Beyond that, if a spell is in a school they specialise in, learning it is easier. The abstraction learn two new spells at each level represents lore like this. "The spells are the culmination of arcane research you do regularly."

You could ask what happens when a wizard gains a level after a sustained period of being prevented from doing arcane research? DM has the job of deciding such things in the way that best serves the group's preferences.

My argument on this is:

1. Yes, that's the description. It is pure "informed ability" as TVTropes would put it. Players simply do not actually do this, in functionally all games.
2. Because it is (functionally) never demonstrated by players, we are declaring that that has to be what actually happens with genuinely zero evidence that it happens.
3. As a consequence, the one (and only) reason that can be what induces us to conclude this fact is not actually found in the world at all. It is, exclusively, found in the mechanics.

The mechanics tell us: "The Wizard gains new spells". Because the mechanics tell us that, we invent--with (almost always) zero roleplayed or articulated evidence--an explanation within the world which justifies those mechanics.

This is explicitly rejected as an unacceptable thing in the aforementioned manifesto that folks have repeatedly referred to as being the correct perspective. That manifesto expressly forbids ANY situation where gameplay abstractions cause the world to change. This is a case where exactly that thing happens.

Per that manifesto:
"Outside of diegetic in-character actions, players cannot change the world. The world is sacred: it is apart and cannot be altered except by those forces from within the fictional world. At no point should the world change simply because the rules dictate it so."

This is--explicitly--the players NOT taking diegetic in-character actions, because this "research" is (functionally) never done by players. And yet the world changes, as a result of the rules dictating so. A bolted-on explanation ex post facto is completely incompatible with this manifesto, but that's exactly what is being done here.

 

[clearstream]

the failure pushes things closer to a conclusion, rather than just leaving things dithering.

...pregnant with possibility, waiting only for players to decide what they do next

 

[clearstream]

My argument on this is:

1. Yes, that's the description. It is pure "informed ability" as TVTropes would put it. Players simply do not actually do this, in functionally all games.
2. Because it is (functionally) never demonstrated by players, we are declaring that that has to be what actually happens with genuinely zero evidence that it happens.
3. As a consequence, the one (and only) reason that can be what induces us to conclude this fact is not actually found in the world at all. It is, exclusively, found in the mechanics.

The mechanics tell us: "The Wizard gains new spells". Because the mechanics tell us that, we invent--with (almost always) zero roleplayed or articulated evidence--an explanation within the world which justifies those mechanics.

This is explicitly rejected as an unacceptable thing in the aforementioned manifesto that folks have repeatedly referred to as being the correct perspective. That manifesto expressly forbids ANY situation where gameplay abstractions cause the world to change. This is a case where exactly that thing happens.

Per that manifesto:
"Outside of diegetic in-character actions, players cannot change the world. The world is sacred: it is apart and cannot be altered except by those forces from within the fictional world. At no point should the world change simply because the rules dictate it so."

This is--explicitly--the players NOT taking diegetic in-character actions, because this "research" is (functionally) never done by players. And yet the world changes, as a result of the rules dictating so. A bolted-on explanation ex post facto is completely incompatible with this manifesto, but that's exactly what is being done here.

It's covered by my contention that game mechanics can be diegetic.

The mechanic stands for everything that needs to be narrated about their research. You might prefer more painstaking narrative on learning spells, I want to see characters more often go to the toilet.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

...pregnant with possibility, waiting only for players to decide what they do next

I'm sorry, but "you didn't roll high enough, you cannot open the lock" simply isn't "pregnant with possibility". It is nothing but a dead end. I genuinely do not understand how anyone can characterize "you simply couldn't roll high enough to get through the door you really need to get through" as anything other than a dull dead end that adds nothing and simply creates unnecessary, pulls-you-out-of-the-game frustration.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

It's covered by my contention that game mechanics can be diegetic.

The mechanic stands for everything that needs to be narrated about their research. You might prefer more painstaking narrative on learning spells, I want to see characters more often go to the toilet.

If game mechanics themselves can be diegetic, then the entire assertion of the manifesto you yourself linked collapses into a singularity.

Because now you've erased the difference between "the world is primary" and "the world is not primary". The world can no longer be primary because the abstractions are now reified.

 

[Enrahim]

Well, it implements the second flavor as something that isn't a failed roll, but rather, a weak successful roll.

Covered in the last paragraph. It is not fail forward of the second flavor, as it is not fail forward. It is forced partial success. Treating it as a failure is not an option.

In D&D terms, the closest example is something akin to a knowledge check. A very high result means the character knows everything the player would wish to know, all the details that might be relevant. A barely passing result means the player knows something, but it's incomplete, superficial, or basic; you still succeeded, but not really in the way you'd like. Anything less than "barely passing" means outright failure, whatever form that might take.

D&D doesn't have anything that quite corresponds to "success with complication" as an out/escape hatch/alternative result for failure. The closest thing, I guess, would be something like Advantage or the Lucky feat in 5e. With any edition of D&D I can think of, anything akin to "failure actually means success with complication" is going to be both an "in this one case, not every time" situation, and something that only occurs specifically because the GM offered or supported it.

D&D do not have success with complications, as the domain of introducing complications is solely on the DM. The only thing the mechanics say anything about is the success or failure of the task. A player can crit-succeed on the pick lock check, and still find the cook inside screaming simply due to the DM A) Think it is a cool thing to happen or B) The DM had in their notes that the cook should be there, eying the door.

Indeed, in DW would the GM be allowed to narrate a screaming cook on a successful pick lock check? It seem like something that would require a (hard) move? If not, would that mean the GM cannot plan out in advance that there should be a cook sitting eying the door impatiently, waiting for fresh bread for breakfast to arrive?

 

[EzekielRaiden]

(Ignore this, thought I had failed to post it but I had not failed to do so. Sorry!)