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

[Faolyn]

And in the play of MHRP/Cortex+ Fantasy, everyone knows that when the GM narrates a Strange Runes scene distinction, the nature of the runes isn't yet detailed and is up for grabs.

The equivalence is only false if one assumes that MHRP/Cortex+ should be played like your preferred approach to AD&D and 3E and 5e D&D. But that assumption would be mistaken.[

But of course they did. It's just that no one at the table yet knew what they said. Just as a village entails shops, so runes entail that they say something.

Well it wasn't a map; but that's by-the-by.

But yes: succeeding on a roll to read the runes with the hope that they will reveal a way out, entails that the runes reveal a way out.

As I posted, it doesn't change any fiction. It does introduce new fiction: the runes reveal a way out.

There's a difference between a farrier and the runes, though. With the farrier, they're part of normal life in a typical settlement. It's just that the GM didn't think to, or forgot to, include one when they prepped the village (assuming the village wasn't improvised to begin with). The farrier also isn't likely to be all that important in the long run--at least not without serious player investment to make them so. Also, because they're an NPC, they're effectively under GM control. I don't know the specifics of the systems here, but I'm pretty sure the players can't say "I want to find a farrier who will do all the work for free" because the GM controls that aspect of the farrier and there's nothing in the established fiction that suggests that this farrier would work for free.

Runes, however, are something that the GM deliberately placed there. By letting the players "hope" that they mean something specific, then rolling to see if that hope is true, it becomes "I want the runes to be whatever I want them to be." And yes, the players shouldn't play on godmode and they should be sticking to the established fiction, but even still, this seems to inherently be playing on godmode outside the established fiction.

Now, I could see this if this were a GMless game, where either an oracle/random tables/whatever created the runes or one player made them and another player describes them. For a game like that, this would make sense. But is the game you're talking about GMless?

 

[Thomas Shey]

Yeah, OK, but if they (generic they here) are actively messing up the game because they can't or won't agree to the tone and rules, then I doubt that the good things they bring to the game matter, because they're making the game unplayable, or at least unfun.

Which is why I avoid systems and such where its likely to be critical. (And its less won't than simply have big difficulties in some cases understanding what the tone and expectations actually mean in practice, or at least executing that understanding in a consistent fashion.)

Like I said, I think if you believe this sort of thing is uncommon you're simply wrong, but its much less of an issue with some sorts of games than others for various reasons.

 

[Faolyn]

You seem to be suggesting that if you can't align on X game, then don't play any game with them at all; while @Micah Sweet is suggesting that if you can't align on X game, but can on Y game, then play Y game. I suppose it's a matter of how much energy one wishes to expend on such things.

Well, if you can't align on X but can on Y, Z, A, B, C, etc., then play those other games. If you can't align on most of those games, or if the players deliberately won't stop misaligning--not can't, but won't, then maybe stop playing with them.

 

[Thomas Shey]

I think the reason for this is that with friends, we're friends with them for a reason - shared interests, shared values, etc. - so we have a tendency to presume we share more in common than we actually might, whereas with strangers, we make so no such assumptions. This contributed to the development of safety tools, and why vetting with questionnaires for games with stranger is increasingly more common.

I suspect there's a case to be much less likely to think we understand someone we just met than people we've known for years and/or think being off from that understanding doesn't matter as much.

 

[JConstantine]

Even then theres a clear undertone that this non-conservative way would be better. Else why even mention the non-conservative way in the first place.

I have observations on this, but I'm not sure it would be conducive to a healthy discussion.

 

[Thomas Shey]

I think there is something here, depending what the metacurrency in question does. Especially when it's a system layered on top of a heavier game, the function of metacurrency is often to let the player alter the gameplay loop. You could deal with the difficult to climb walls, or you could spend a plot coupon style meta-currency to introduce a rope from an older, forgotten expedition. The gameplay goes from picking between fixed DCs to get through a challenging area, to negotiating a change to the fiction with the GM.

Technically it's resource management in both cases, but I think the negotiation layer is the salient difference.

Though I'll note metacurrancy that allows you to introduce new plot elements isn't the commonest case, and even in some games that permit it, there's often some limits on that. A lot of metacurrancies simply allow you a limited ability to boost your effectiveness (or reduce your opponent's) in some set of ways.

(There is some complicating issues in metacurrencies that at least sort-of represent something in-game like willpower or luck and ones that are strictly there to allow avoiding anticlimax and the like and/or produce more intense successes).

 

[JConstantine]

I don't know what you mean by "crossing a line". What line?

I believe @AlViking is using the term as set out in the article by John Harper I mentioned.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Maybe because you're friends, everyone feels comfortable doing their own thing, even if that means not aligning with the tone.

I suspect its more likely to be a case that they just feel comfortable not doing heavy lifting to make sure they get it, and going with their first assumptions.

 

[JConstantine]

Same in 2024 version.

I'll admit, I've not kept up with the 2024 version. I wasn't a fan of some of what I saw in the playtest material.

 

[Thomas Shey]

I complain about both things. I'd much we use downtime and training more often, but my players mostly want to, "get to the action" .

Interest in messing with downtime is one of those things that's all over the map--sometimes even in the same people from campaign to campaign.