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

[pemerton]

Drawing in a lottery isn't the same as deciding its prize. That's evidenced by the way you separate out deciding to raffle X from drawing lots for X. The example just shows that the same person may do both.

I honestly don't understand.

My point is simply that drawing lots, and winning is not the same as deciding. That's it. Do you disagree? Do you think that X drew the winning lot means that X decided to win?

 

[pemerton]

I was describing how deciphering could choose among possible worlds without discarding features that separated it from other abilities.

I don't understand what this means: I don't know what features are or are not being discarded, nor what is separating what from what other thing. Nor what the abilities are that you're referring to.

 

[pemerton]

There is no 'setting' in AW, it's a purely Zero Myth game, beyond identifying a genre (post apocalypse). Player's choices of play book will then establish some constraints on the fiction. If there's a Hard Holder, then a hold exists (a refuge or base of some kind) etc. Normally at that point, the start of play, the MC should ask questions aimed at establishing a fictional basis for a scene to frame. Presumably this will produce some sort of fiction about the character's situation, threats, etc.

Going forward the MC does own the threat map and NPCs, and may establish custom moves, possibly describe work that the PCs can find, etc. All of this is supposed to be directly responsive to player input and liberal use of asking questions.

Overall I would not describe the milieu as a setting that can be owned.

I agree that the setting isn't "owned" by any single participant.

While the game starts as "no myth", part of the point of the first session is to establish shared backstory. As you know, this is not a process of one-way transmission from GM to player.

Here is some of what Harper says about "crossing the line":

Sometimes, the players say things that get very close to the line. Usually this happens when the MC asks a leading question.​

​

MC: "Nero, what do the slave traders use for barter?"​

Player: "Oh man, those [foul people]? They use human ears."​

​

That's a case of the player authoring part of the world outside their character, however -- and this is critical -- they do it from within their character's experience and frame of reference. When Nero answers that question, he's telling something he knows about the world.​

​

Compare that exchange with this one, which is crossing the line:​

​

MC: "Okay, Nero, so you get the box of barter away from the slave traders and haul into the back of the truck."​

Player: "Cool. I open it up."​

MC: "Okay. What do you see when you open it?"​

Player: "Um... uh, a bunch of severed fingers?"​

​

See the difference? In the first case, the MC is addressing the character and asking about some knowledge he has. In the second case, the MC is fully turning over authorship of the world in-the-moment to the player, which is not part of the player role in AW.​

The first example shows how, in actual play, establishing the setting is shared. As I posted in reply to @JConstantine, I don't know of any "trad" PRG that talks about or advocates the use of this sort of technique.

Here's another pair of examples Harper gives, of custom moves - the first crosses the line, the second doesn't:

When you try to deal with the rat-men, roll+hot. On a 10+, they'll listen to what you have to say. On a 7-9, they'll listen, but choose 1:​

- they're drug-crazed and seeing visions​

- they're arming up for war on the tunnelers​

- they're starving for blood and demand some right now​

​

See how that move asks the player to author the game world in-the-moment? There's no opportunity for another player to have any say. The player says what they do, then rolls the dice, then says what the NPCs do, then says what he does about it. Not only is this crossing the line into the MC's arena of authorship, it's also a huge bore for everyone else. . . .​

​

Here's another way to do it, with the player still choosing, without crossing the line:​

​

When you try to deal with the rat-men, roll+hot. On a 10+, they'll listen to what you have to say. On a 7-9, they'll listen if you prove yourself. Choose 1:​

- you consume their vile drug and have visions with them​

- you give them some intel on their enemies​

- you let them taste your blood (1-harm ap)​

​

Similar choices, but all written as actions the character takes.​

What about the runes example? It doesn't ask the player to make a stipulation about the runes as such (and so is, in this respect, unlike the box example, or the first rat-men example). Unlike the second rat-men example, it is looser in the fiction that is already established: whereas the second rat-men example tells us a lot about the rat-men, all that is known in the runes example is that there are Strange Runes on the wall.

So is it like the ears example? Unlike that one, it involves a roll. And that roll is informed by (i) the GM's narration of the Scene Distinction (Strange Runes), and (ii) by elements on the PC sheet, some of which are pretty different from a DW or D&D PC sheet. Here it is:

Does this character know about dungeon runes? Either in general, or what these particular runes are likely to say? He's a Solitary Traveller, and a Cunning Expert. In a game that is deliberately playing on classic D&D tropes, Cunning includes the thief's traditional ability to deal with traps and read strange writings. As per the MHRP rules (p OM96),

Experts are a cut above the rest, having had extensive experience and practice using skills in this field. If you’re an Expert, you know the theory and application of the skill set, probably have contacts in the field of study, and can recognize others with this level of training just by observation.​

Just as the AW player gets to express their character's familiarity with the slave traders - they use human ears for barter - so the Cortex+ Heroic Fantasy player gets to express his character's familiarity with the sorts of strange runes that are found in dungeons inhabited by (inter alia) Crypt Things.

It's not identical - MHRP/Cortex+ Heroic and AW are different games, that use different techniques for PC build, for framing, for declaring actions, and for resolving those declared actions. But taking the AW notion of "crossing the line" and just declaring that the runes example does so is (in my view) too simplistic.

 

[pemerton]

How do this jam with AW's Read a Sitch and Read a person? On a miss you still only get information ("but expect the worst").

Why do you say this?

Here's an example of a miss in Read a Sitch (pp 199-200):

“So that’s weird,” Marie’s player says, at some point. “What IS going on with Birdie?” “Roll to read a sitch,” I say. She misses the roll, so I get to make as hard a move as I like. A good one here is to turn the move back on her, so that’s what I choose. “I dunno what’s up with her,” I say. “I mean, I do, but she’s opaque to you. Anyway, where would you say you’re most vulnerable to her?”​

That is not just getting information.

EDIT: see further in post 15,016.

 

[pemerton]

the player's hopes are not supposed to enter the picture at all

Why not? Is this view based on a close reading of the MHRP rulebook?

the character's hopes changing fiction which ocurred in the past (when the runes were placed there) is nondiegetic.

Thankfully, no such thing happens! The character's hopes don't change the past. The past causes the character's hopes to be fulfilled.

I think what is being suggested is that, to be comfortable with the fiction and with play, there really should be a fiction of what those runes mean, before someone decides to try to read them.

Instead of alluding to this via false descriptions of my RPGing, perhaps you and others could just say it.

 

[pemerton]

By the formulation, I still assume they are only allowed to answer the one question selected? That is they are still just allowed to provide information. Very well that the information might be "there is a sniper on the tower that has you locked in", but wouldn't it require another move for the sniper to actually pull the trigger?

Suppose that the player, as their character, knows that there is a sniper nearby. And they try to read a sitch to get a handle on the sniper. And miss. The GM is quite at liberty to inflict harm as a hard move.

Upthread I posted an excerpt from the Moves Snowball part of the rulebook that actually illustrates this:

Here's another example, in the same general neighbourhood as surprise, from the "Moves Snowball" section of the Apocalypse World rulebook (pp 155-6; note that "misdirection" is the rulebook's term for the GM establishing in-fiction reasons for the decision to make a particular move):

“So, Marie: at home, pacing, armed, locked in, yeah? They arrive suddenly at your door with a solid kick, your whole door rattles. You hear Whackoff’s voice: ‘she’s expecting us I guess.’” I’m announcing future badness.

“I go to the peep hole,” she says. “There are three of them?”

“Yep,” I say. “Whackoff on your left, Plover and Church Head are doing something on your right, Plover’s back’s to you — and you hear a cough-cough-rrrrar sound and Plover’s at the door with a chainsaw. What do you do?” I’m putting her in a spot.

“I read the situation. What’s my best escape route?” She rolls+sharp and — [curse it] — misses. “Oh no,” she says.

I can make as hard and direct a move as I like. The brutes’ threat move I like for this is make a coordinated attack with a coherent objective, so here it comes.

“You’re looking out your (barred, 4th-story) window as though it were an escape route,” I say, “and they don’t chop your door all the way down, just through the top hinge, and then they lean on it to make a 6-inch space. The door’s creaking and snapping at the bottom hinge. And they put a grenade through like this—” I hold up my fist for the grenade and slap it with my other hand, like whacking a croquet ball.

“I dive for—”

Sorry, I’m still making my hard move. This is all misdirection.

“Nope. They cooked it off and it goes off practically at your feet. Let’s see … 4-harm area messy, a grenade. You have armor?”

“1-armor.”

“Oh yes, your armored corset. Good! You take 3-harm.” She marks it on her character sheet. “Make the harm move. Roll+3.”

She hits the roll with a 9. I get to choose from the move’s 7–9 list, and I decide that she loses her footing.

“For a minute you can’t tell what’s wrong, and you have this sensation, it seems absurd now but I guess it makes sense, that you hit the ceiling. Maybe you tripped on something and fell, and hit it that way? Then gradually you get your senses back, and that noise you thought was your skull cracking is actually your door splitting and splintering down, and that noise you thought was your blood is their chainsaw. What do you do?”​

See how Marie's player misses on reading a sitch, and the GM makes a hard move which includes Marie taking 4 harm from a grenade.

 

[pemerton]

I got another flaming torch to throw. I just realised that the current descriptions of fail forward sound awfully lot like forced railroading. As long as the players roll high, they are ensured agency in that everything go as they hope.

However, roll low, and the GM has to introduce something that changes what the entire scene is about. And this has to not match what the players was intending. The GM forcing the game to be about something else than the players were striving for sound awfully close to the definition of railroading to me?

How much Apocalypse World, or Dungeon World, or Burning Wheel have you played?

You keep making these conjectures, but they don't fit at all with my experience, or the experiences that I hear reported from other posters with extensive experience of these RPGs.

For instance, the instruction to the BW GM is, in narrating failure, to focus on intent. And this sits within the general instruction that the GM is to present situations ("frame scenes') that put pressure on the player-authored PC priorities.

So how is the GM forcing the game to be about something else than what the players were striving for?

Here's a concrete example, from play, that I gave upthread:

To give an actual play example, again from BW:

* The mage PC has three relevant goals: to align with the other PCs so as to free his brother from Balrog possession, and also to recover a nickel-silver mace from the ruins of his former tower;

* The sorcerer/assassin/ranger PC has a goal to flay her former master and send his soul to Hell, in revenge for what he did to her - her former master happens to be the brother;

* The elven ronin PC has a goal to confront evil whether it resides in the hearts of orcs or humanity, and (as part of his backstory) wears a broken black arrow about his neck, the cursed arrow that slew his (former) master and mentor.​

The PCs arrive at the ruined tower in the Abor-Alz which, some 14 years ago, was the home of the PC mage and his brother, and which they abandoned when it was attacked by orcs and his brother became possessed by the Balrog when an attempt to cast a might combat spell failed. (This was backstory already established by the player of the mage, more-or-less from the beginning of the campaign.)

As already noted, the player of the mage wants to find the mace that he once forged but never successfully enchanted (further backstory established by the player a session or so beforehand, when he decided that a mace would be a good melee weapon for his PC.) So the PC encourages the elven ronin to search through the tower looking for the mace (the ronin being the only PC with Scavenging skill, which is the relevant skill in BW for this sort of thing).

The check is made, and fails. So I tell the players that the ronin searches through the ruins of the tower, but the only interesting thing that he finds is a stand of black arrows sitting in the ruins of what was, 14 years ago, the brother's workroom to which the PC mage was never admitted. When the PC mage uses Aura Reading to ascertain the nature of the arrows, I don't ask for a roll but simply tell him: the arrows are cursed with a penalty to recovery rolls from the injuries they cause which (for various system mechanical reasons) will be particularly harsh on elves.

The mace, of course, can't be found. Someone else must have already taken it. (In the next session it turned out that it had been taken by the dark elf who was trying to thwart the PCs.)

In narrating that failure for the Scavenging check, I achieve several things: I generated a very strong implication that the brother was evil before being possessed by the Balrog; I established a clear connection between the elven ronin's backstory and the backstory of the other two PCs; and I made it hard if not impossible for the mage PC to ally with the other PCs to save his brother. (In a subsequent session, there was in fact a Duel of Wits between the mage PC on one side and the sorcerer-assassin and elf PCs on the other side, in which the mage was persuaded to ally with them in tracking down his brother, but so that he could be killed - because he was clearly irredeemably evil.)

And here's another example (posted by me as Thurgon on rpg.net):

I started things in the Hardby market: Jobe was looking at the wares of a peddler of trinkets and souvenirs, to see if there was anything there that might be magical or useful for enchanting for the anticipated confrontation with his brother. Given that the brother is possessed by a demon, he was looking for something angelic. The peddler pointed out an angel feather that he had for sale, brought to him from the Bright Desert. Jobe (who has, as another instinct, to always use Second Sight), used Aura Reading to study the feather for magical traits. The roll was a failure, and so he noticed that it was Resistant to Fire (potentially useful in confronting a Balrog) but also cursed. (Ancient History was involved somehow here too, maybe as a FoRK into Aura Reading (? I can't really remember), establishing something about an ancient battle between angels and demons in the desert.)

How, in these examples, is play being "forced to be about something else than what the players were striving for"? The framing, the narration of consequences, is all being done in accordance with the principles I stated (and have been reiterating for a good chunk of this thread): player-determined priorities, intent + task resolution, and the GM having regard to those priorities, intent and stakes in framing scenes, calling for rolls, and narrating failures.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

In real life I sometimes can't achieve something I could possibly achieve. Taking risks, uncertain outcomes are part of what makes the game enjoyable for me.

But that's exactly the issue. This isn't a risk! Explicitly! Because you attempt a thing and, I cannot stress this enough,

nothing happens.​

It's, by definition, not a risk! Nothing is actually risked by this! The stakes are that a thing you'd like to happen happens, OR...nothing. Genuinely nothing. Zero change, except that you spent a couple minutes on a thing. The explicit description given was that the tension of the situation did not change; the house remains quiet and dark.

When my character swings a sword at an enemy I'm not guaranteed a hit then either, why shouldn't they occasionally fail at other tasks?

Because a single attack roll is dramatically smaller than "do you get to progress or not"?

The actual comparison would be a combat where you are never in any danger--the target cannot attack you--but you tried to strike it and failed. Perhaps it's a slow-moving being that you need to deflect? I dunno, it's hard to give an example of a combat where you can roll and learn "you're not in any danger, nothing is going to happen, you just can't hit the target". Which is why this kind of thing never comes up in combat!

As far as nothing happening, that's not what's occurring either as far as I'm concerned. You're probing the defenses put in place on the house and you just need to try something else.

I just don't see how that's anything happening. How is "we tried something, it took ~5 minutes, no events occurred, no danger, no risk" in any way "probing the defenses"?

As a GM if I wanted the character to succeed I wouldn't have asked for a roll.

As a GM, I don't "want" the characters to succeed or fail. All I want is for them to feel they need to act--whatever act they think is reasonable (so long as we agree that it is, in fact, reasonable or at least not unreasonable.)

I ask for a roll because I want there to be tension, luck and innovative thinking about alternatives.

But there isn't any tension! That's the whole point!

In order for there to be tension, there must be some kind of risk. Failure must have a cost. "You wasted 5 minutes, during which time you learned nothing except that you aren't adequate to this specific task" isn't a cost. It is a nothing, a total absence of event.

If that doesn't work for you there are other games out there.

It's not a matter of "not working for me". It's a matter of the described situation specifically, per Lanefan's own words, being a thing you're saying it isn't. I'm not inventing something here. I'm taking Lanefan exactly at his word!

 

[Lanefan]

But that explicitly ISN'T the same thing. That's them creatively using the spells they already have. It is NOT experimentally developing a new spell. Doubly so for spells of a higher level, which they literally cannot cast anyway, and yet somehow they're able to spontaneously develop new spells the moment they gain the slots!

By 5e RAW, maybe, but it's easy to fix.

First, use and enforce training-to-level rules.

Then, have the new spell(s) acquired as part of levelling come as part of the training, and be random; they're what the trainer happened to teach you as examples of that level of spell.

And boom - suddenly the fiction makes a lot more sense with the mechanics, and vice-versa.

 

[The Firebird]

Thankfully, no such thing happens! The character's hopes don't change the past. The past causes the character's hopes to be fulfilled.

They changed from a state of uncertainty (helpful or unhelpful, map or spell or secret passage or...) to a state of certainty (helpful map).