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

[clearstream]

I didn't mention lotteries as an example of stake-setting. Though they are, in the sense that by choosing to enter a lottery I choose to put something at stake.

My point is simply that rolling the dice to see if you get what you stake is not deciding that you get what you stake, any more than drawing lots to see who gets whatever it is that has been put at stake is not the same as deciding to get what you stake.

Do you disagree? Do you think that winning <whatever> in the drawing of lots is the same as deciding to have <whatever>?

I agree that framing it as putting X at stake on roll is not the same as choosing the prize. It's not easy to formulate precisely why that goes against normal experience. It seems the stake is not anyone's to wager prior to roll, and in any case that my stakes would normally be what I'm prepared to risk for what I want. But player here is not risking losing beneficial runes as those don't exist until after they've won.

It seems to me that this goes outside normal experience, which ought to be counted permissible as the rule extends or overrides norms in that way. Real world analogies that omit that rule cannot entirely reflect it.

 

[clearstream]

How?

We know one locked door is too difficult for one person to pick. That doesn't sound like "changed significantly" to me.

My character knows that they can't pick this lock; at least not here and now.

Yes...but others are saying it simply isn't such a thing.

Partly, something happens (per above) and partly play continues.

Do you want my frank opinions, or my polite ones?

Can you see how that reaction shows why you cannot get on-board with simple-fail? You're not required to like it, and I doubt anyone can persuade you of its merits. Someone I know hates bananas: nothing anyone says can change her mind. To stretch this analogy, in your case it goes beyond the flavour to include texture, and beyond that to a genuine suspicion of bendy fruit in general.. and no sympathy at all with yellow ones!

 

[Enrahim]

Does anyone GM posting in this thread that, other than you?

This is me reflecting back how I read some of the participants in this thread writing. If you think this is misrepresenting it, this is giving you an opportunity to clarify any misunderstandings.

(I assume that you do it. If you don't, then what makes you think anyone else does?)

I absolutely do not do it. I assume people are honest in what they are writing, and from what they were writing I pointed out that it seem to me like at least someone are doing it.

Intent + task is core to Burning Wheel. It's not part of Apocalypse World.

This is one of the things that make conversation about this entire topic rather hopeless. On one hand people try to say something about the general "fail forward" principle, but then it turn out that there are always some "authoritative" implementation of fail forward that doesn't conform to some detail in the proposed general statement about "fail forward". This lead to it being impossible to talk about "fail forward" as a concept, as it start seeming to be plain ill defined.

As for the example from Move Snowball, what is the reason that Marie is being attacked by Plover and co? Do you know - have you read the example?

I have not read anything beyond what you posted, the hard moves of announcing future badness and Putting her on the spot appear to be clearly anchored in the character. The grenade is anchored in the fiction established, but I fail to see how it is likely to be anchored in the character. It is likely a perfectly appropriate AW move. Especially when taking into account that it appeared the defence of FF that this was meant to address was only meant to be valid for BW, not AW (see below).

The issue at hand though was that you appeared my claim about railroading not being true due to

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.

Which I read as a wider claim that other games had similar mechanisms to protect against the kind of railroading phenomenon I pointed out. If it was only pointing out that BW and BW alone might have found a clever way around the railroading problem I proposed might be relevant for naïve FF, then my comment was not valid for the BW exactly because it counters the inherent problem with naïve FF. Being aware of the problem with naïve FF might still be of value; and I guess you would be happy about being able to promote about how cleverly BW has worked around this issue.

In one example, instead of finding the looked-for mace, the PCs finds the black arrows. In the other, the PC acquires the angel feather that he needs, but it is cursed.

Ok, so it is ok that the situation change is mainly about information as long as there are some "material" change. I guess to the group the fact they now has some black arrows is completely secondary with regard to the situation change compared to the information they got on the brother. It sound a bit like "it is ok, that you narrate that the thief can't open the lock (no retry)" as long as you remember to add "However while working the lock you discovered a silver coin someone had lost in the grass beside the door" (material change). I also struggle a bit to see how the angel feather come into play here. My understanding is that the feather was already established as acquirable before the roll. The only thing I can see the roll provided was the information that this feather indeed was helpful, alongside the complicating information that it was cursed.

Principles are not for the purpose of preventing abuse - they are for *achieving a certain sort of play experience.

Ok, so these are not protections against abusive game. Rather they are made for achieving a certain sort of play experience. And if my hypothesis that this play experience it achieves is indeed having inherent abusive traits, that is just the principles working as they should?

A GM-driven game of the sort I take your "trad" principle to point to is not the sort of play experience I am looking for in RPGing.

No, that is fine. There are even people that want to feel abused (not saying that is true for you though), so tastes clearly vary.

Otherwise, the "issue at hand" was this:
How do these mooted episodes of play conform to "being a fan of the players' characters"? At least as far as the strong character is concerned, it seems to be about making him seem ridiculous.

It is the Player that decided that the character like kicking down doors in "inappropriate" scenes. That is one of his signature traits (could for instance be their way of managing anger, or to assert "dominance trough" over those around him when his ego feels threatened). And the player has defining power over the character. As a GM you are bound to be fan of this character no matter how ridiculous you find him, I guess? So what is a cooler fan move to do than getting him into trouble with the authorities when they are acting out but once in a while fail their strength check?

Have you read the examples of play in the AW rulebook - of which there are many? And the statements and explications of the principles? Do you think that your example conforms to them?

No, I haven't. As I started this post with, I am reflecting back what people say about it. I would think people like you knowing the rules would be very happy to clear up my misunderstandings. I have tried to formulate anything related to AW as questions. If I have failed and given impression that I make hard claims about that system I sincerely and deeply apologize.

I have only read excerpts from the AW rulebook. I have absolutely no interest in buying AW, as I know it is not a good game from me. This because I find the entire setting premise of the game repulsive. I however find the structure it pioneered highly interesting, and I am still optimistic the PbtA core philosophy could be employed in a way to make games I would really enjoy (though I have still to find such a game).

But to your last question - I have still seen any principle in AW that is broken in my principle. But as I haven't read the book that is not to say there might not be one. I would be really happy if you enlighten me, as that would help me better understand how the designer has managed to counter the design issue I have recognized, and do not see how to easily resolve.

 

[Enrahim]

I'm not asking @Campbell or @AbdulAlhazred about the play experiences. I'm pretty sure that AbdulAlhazred has never played MHRP or other Cortex+ RPGs. I believe that @Campbell has, but I don't know what approach he has taken to backstory authority.

But you asserted that the player's hope should not enter into the roll. And I'm asking, what is your basis for this claim as far as MHRP/Cortex+ Heroic is concerned?

This was the qualifier for Campbell:

So, in games were intent is meaningful, I expect two things.

And this was the one from AbdulAlhazred:

But this kind of arrangement of roles is absent in Narrativist play.

Unless I have somehow completely misunderstood your example it seem like at least Campbell's condition should be valid for MHRP/Cortex+ Heroic?

However it is true that I cannot properly identify if you were engaging in what AbdulAlhazred would consider "Narrativist play". I might have read to much of my own understanding of "Narrativist play" into both his statement, and your example, given the lack of a solid commonly understood language. So I assumed it was relevant, I thought that assumption was well founded, but I apologize if I was mistaken.

 

[hawkeyefan]

Both. Why on earth wouldn't they work the same?

Because one is a game.

It's not? Have you never, when faced with a task you can't complete by one means, tried another?

You can't open the pickle jar by hand 'cause it's too tight, so you pull out an opening tool to help. Or you run the lid under hot water knowing metal expands faster than glass, in hopes it'll loosen up. Or you get someone with (you hope) a stronger grip to give it a try. Or you give up on the pickles and snack on some cookies instead. Etc.

And most - as in nearly all - of the time, the only consequence of failure on a given approach is that you don't get to eat any pickles right now. On what an RPG might call a critical fail, maybe you sprain your wrist or drop the jar, but that's pretty rare.

Well, exactly the same principle can apply in an RPG; to wit: if at first you don't succeed, try something different.

And just as in real life your failure to open the pickle jar has no causal relationship with, at the same coincidental moment, the cat bringing in yet another half-dead rabbit from outdoors that you have to clean up, the failure to do thing X in an RPG also shouldn't trigger causally-unrelated problems much more often than the rather rare frequency random chance would dictate.

Why? Because if these disconnected events keep happening all the time on failing to do something else unrelated, it starts looking fake real fast.

I’m not talking about having to use a different method. I’m talking about the only consequence being failure to complete the task attempted. There can very clearly be more consequences than just failure.

Insisting on viewing it that way divorces the task attempted from any context. I don’t see how that’s useful in any way toward understanding the action attempted.

 

[Maxperson]

The rolls etc happen at the table. Not in the fiction. The rolls affect what we at the table agree to imagine together. They don't change what the runes say in the fiction.

The timing man. They couldn't have said anything in the fiction, because what they said was determined by the roll initiated by the player when his PC read the runes right then. In that moment in the fiction those runes were not fixed and could have said two different things, depending on the outcome of the roll.

Upthread, you're telling everyone that even though it is never talked about at the table, the PC wizard is doing all this experimentation and stuff, which explains how - at level-up time - they learn new spells.

Actually, I pointed out how it was for the most part really happening in the fiction. Go back and re-read it.

 

[Maxperson]

I don't know what you mean by "a dodge" - what do you think I'm dodging?

The roll was a roll to read runes. The fact that it is resolved differently from how you would resolve a similar sort of action in the context of playing D&D doesn't change what the roll was.

Not that far upthread, @Micah Sweet asked why this thread continues. Your post is one part of the reason - there are poster who keep mis-describing other's play.

So you don't think that the player hoped the runes would say what he was rolling for?

 

[JConstantine]

There is no 'setting' in AW, it's a purely Zero Myth game, beyond identifying a genre (post apocalypse).

But there is a fictional environment in which the characters - PC and NPCs alike - inhabit, even if it's a undefined post-apocalyptic wasteland. That's a setting. Whether it has an elaborate, predefined history and geography like Forgotten Realms; a lightly sketched out one like BitD; is created collaboratively prior to/during play as in Microscope; or is simply implied doesn't matter - it's still a setting. This reads to me like you have an overly narrow view of what you consider a setting.

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

Okay, but I never said anything about it being owned? I said the setting was the purview (i.e. responsibility) of the GM. And Harper said "the MC is in charge of the world: the environment, the NPCs, the weather, the psychic maelstrom", which sounds an awful lot like my assertion. And I'm not seeing a meaningful distinction between that and what you've said here:

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.

 

[JConstantine]

If I was a like-minded stranger, I'd be very excited to play with you!

Thank you, I genuinely appreciate the sentiment.

 

[JConstantine]

Well, I think that the sorts of goals and how they relate to the setting matters.

I'm not sure anyone disagrees with this in principle. I certainly don't.

BitD has a setting, but the entire focus is on the life of the PCs and crew within that milieu.

Yes, and this is precisely what I aim for with my V:TM sandbox - a focus on the unlife of the PCs (and their goals/ambitions) within the context of a vampire society.

I think Egri's description is good, it's discussed here: Revisiting GNS – lumpley games

I will come back to this once I've formalised my thoughts, because I have a few on initial reading.