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

[AbdulAlhazred]

Ok, I am absolutely certain that we play very differently. But I think that is due to other dimensions of preference than wish for player input. The issue of respecting player input is as you can imagine very close to my heart.

So if you can give me som guidance on how you envision trad is limiting me in this regard I really would like to hear! (This is no jest, I really want to learn. As a software developer, that is what we do right?)

To illustrate how seriously I take it, I got a game published in an rpg anthology that has as the key part of it distributing traditional GM responsibilities over all participants. This was in the mids of the forge craze. My main problem with what I have seen of modern takes on player input, is that it limits versatility of play. In particular it tend to be in direct conflict with the detail planning that is required for certain types of scenarios (like the "realistic" heist vs the "dramatic" heist of BitD).

A lot of stuff just doesn't seem to 'come off' in trad play. So, for instance, the highly technical Ocean's Eleven style of heist, where the players have to do all the planning and detailing of things based on a GM's presentation of a scenario.

Problem number one is the sheer amount of detail that is required. Very soon the players will ask some question that the GM can't answer because they simply have not come up with that information. This yields a number of classic problems which amount to the GM needs to effectively adjudicate whether to allow a certain line of planning/action to go forward or not. The GM is going to face pressure to 'say yes' effectively, but their other option, to say no, something-or-other prevents going that route is not actually better.

Problem two is related to problem one, which is nobody on Earth is knowledgeable enough to make intelligent adjudications of most fairly technical stuff in the first place. I can imagine bank vault security and how mob guys work and even tell you something about security systems (I've built one myself, still insufficient to say much about commercial grade systems). So, there's going to be a diversity of opinions on what matters, how to adjudicate things, etc. and that's going to impact the concept of character competency. You can just try to go with tropes and a general consensus, but the more nitty gritty stuff is, the more that tends to break down.

Problem three is simply that when you try to go about adjudicating tasks in detail, the very large pile of checks that arise out of that becomes a mountain that is extremely hard to climb. In effect this is realistic, it is clearly super hard to break into a high security vault and steal a bazillion dollars! But realism is a crappy game. The original 1e PHB has that cartoon in it where the PCs are playing "Papers and Paychecks." The joke is multi-level, but one level of it is that it would be a terrible game! So, typical task-oriented 'roll for every detail' play breaks down when tasks are stacked too deep, which a technical heist is exactly going to do. Now, you could make all the DCs super easy and just roll with it, eventually one or two checks will fail and that's the drama, but I've not seen many RPGs that are tuned that way.

I'm sure there are other issues you might run into, but then lets assume I approach this in BitD fashion. There's some up front info gathering where the players essentially establish the parameters of the job. We describe it as a highly technical heist where the characters will have to disable security, open a vault, remove the goods, and escape. Now we are much less constrained by details. We can still establish the highly technical stuff, but it is more color. It just WORKS! The actual play of this scenario will work, I'm 100% sure!

What I've found is that MUCH more comes off, and in more interesting ways, with AW and games that are fairly close to it (and I'd consider BitD to be mostly in that category, though it has a bit different approach to failure).

But that is only one of the ways I felt limited in Traditional play. A lot of what I felt, as a GM, was that it was impossible to really prepare for play in a way that fulfilled the advertised concept of what this kind of play is about. That the idea of any kind of impartiality or objectivity of world facts and resolution was really kind of smoke and mirrors to me. In fact I arrived at, basically, Narrativist play by simple NOT DOING THINGS. I found that a lot of the backend work of traditional play was simply holding me back as a creative GM. 4e was pretty freeing in this regard, as I learned to run it with basically almost no prep (1 hour a week, maybe) and to just do interesting stuff instead of spending session after session mired in the mud. The three main 4e campaigns I ran over 7 years explored vastly more of Erithnoi and had the characters accomplish much more interesting stuff than all the decades of play that came before!

Now, I'm not saying everyone should do this, or will achieve great results, but the players contributed a huge amount to the setting and to play that pure traditional play never got to. It just seemed very easy. It was definitely a lot less work!

 

[DinoInDisguise]

Sometimes, nothing does happen in real life if we fail at something. Fail forward directly considers the fact that we’re playing a game and so it wants to keep things interesting.

Only half of this discussion is making that consideration. Once we accept that difference, all of a sudden the entire disagreement makes sense.

We can argue about realism, or consequences, or claim there’s some sort of higher obligation to "keep the game moving," but all of those arguments miss the more fundamental divide. One side is leaning into the game-ness and the other is suspending it.

So even if people disagree on whether I should fall off a wall, or trigger a new scene, when I fail to climb it, the real question remains, do we consider the fact we are playing a game at all? And if I don’t make that consideration, your argument will always seem odd, because it's unaligned with the very premise of what my table values.

Lanefan summed it up well with his question;

Why on earth wouldn't they work the same?

And you summed up the other side with your response;

Because one is a game.

I don't know where the bridge that connects these two views is. I don't even know if it exists. But I feel like we need to acknowledge the difference, or we’ll just keep talking past each other.

 

[Faolyn]

If opening the jar is uncertain, we use dice to determine if it can be opened. I do not care about consequences for opening or not opening the jar when I make the call for the roll, all I care about is that the player stated their character was opening the jar and that it would not open automatically. Putting the onus on the players to figure out what happens next is exactly what I want. That should be clear by now.

I realize it's not for you, that's fine. It's just a different approach.

But if nothing happens when you fail to open the jar--there are no consequences, nothing interesting that happens if they fail--why bother rolling? It's a waste of time. It's dull.

 

[Faolyn]

I guess we're at an impasse then. I think the only direct consequence of you driving exam is that you didn't get the license. The decision not to go on the date is indirectly connected but it is an entirely separate event. You could have made different plans. The failed exam does not dictate 'no date'. It only means that a very specific date plan isn't possible.

As someone who doesn't drive for medical reasons... this is ridiculous. Without the ability to drive, you get cut off from so many things. You have to shell out more money in order to get necessities delivered. If you need to get places, you have to hope you can get rides. You have to hope you can pay for the rides. You may not be able to get jobs, or you may lose a job, because you can't get there via public transportation or they require you to drive (my last job decided, towards the end, to turn line staff into drivers--although fortunately I didn't lose the job because of my non-driving). People in general look down on you when they earn you can't drive. In game terms, this might be even be disad on some Charisma rolls, meaning you may never be able to go on that date.

So yes. If you fail your test, it has direct consequences both immediate and long-lasting. These things would not be consequences if you could drive.

 

[JConstantine]

Note that in all instances GMs and players will have strong imprints on the game. This is more about who is following whose lead and how much when it comes to the situations that see table time. In all cases it's not about level of GM Authority, but in how they are expected to use it.

Bolded for emphasis. See, this is how I understood it, though I suspect there's a difference of perspective at play.
So, for example, I've talked previously about how in V:TM V5 the players come up with Chronicle Tenets and character Convictions, which are intended to signify to the GM the sort of situations that are important to the players/characters, and it's the GM's job to inject scenes that test those Tenets and Convictions. This seems like it would fall within the concept of Narritivism.

To compare two scenarios:
Scenario one
[Context: One of the Chronicle Tenets is "Thou shalt not harm the innocent". One of the PC's Convictions is "Do what it takes to survive". Breaking a Tenet can incur Stains, breaking a Conviction can incur Stains or result in it needing to be changed/replaced, damaging a touchstone can incur Stains.]
The PC in question has, of their own volition, revealed to one of their mortal Touchstones that they are a vampire. This a breach of the First Tradition: Thou shall not reveal thy true nature to those not of the Blood. Doing such shall renounce thy claims of Blood.
Through whatever series of events has led to this point, the Sheriff has discovered this Masquerade breach and is dutybound to rectify it. Logically, they could just kill the Touchstone, drag the PC before the Prince for judgement and be done with it - a reasonable enough approach in setting - but I, as the GM, see the potential for more given the Convictions and Chronicle Tenets, so I figure the Sheriff will decided to make a point (all Kindred are sociopaths in their own way): they "ask" for the PC to meet them somewhere secluded, where the Sheriff is waiting with the Touchstone in tow, and upon the PC's arrival, demand that the PC kills their own Touchstone. This puts the PC in a bind: they can refuse - maintaining the Tenet but breaking their Conviction - and risking the Sheriff killing the Touchstone anyway; or they can acquiesce - breaking the Tenet (incurring 2 stains for a horrific act, reduced to 1 due to the mitigating circumstances of being forced), damaging the Touchstone (incurring a further 3 stains), but serving their Conviction (reducing the stains by 1). Of course, the PC can always take a third option, like having their coterie mates sneak around and jump the Sheriff leading to further problems, or whatever.

Scenario two
The Nosferatu PC decides they want to spy on the Tremere Primogen and I improvise something about them meeting with the Toreador Seneschal to plot to replace the Prince. They can, of course, do what they will with this, but none of it relates to their Convictions or Tenets.

The first scenario was specifically designed to put both the Chronicle Tenet and Conviction to the test at once (often, it will only be one or the other), while the second had no such intention behind it, improvised in reaction to the player's declaration. Your post seems to suggest that pemerton would view the first as player-driven and the second as GM-driven (I know you cannot speak for them, so hopefully @pemerton will clarify); whereas I view the first scenario as GM-driven, player/character-centred, and the second as player-driven, but GM-created.

 

[pemerton]

But player here is not risking losing beneficial runes as those don't exist until after they've won.

I'm not sure how familiar you are with MHRP resolution. But the player is risking their PC's position in a way comparable to any other making of a roll in the game.

It's not easy to formulate precisely why that goes against normal experience.

<snip>

It seems to me that this goes outside normal experience

Sorry, why does playing MHRP go against "normal experience"? I mean, I've done it, and Great Cthulhu didn't rise from the oceans as a result.

 

[The Firebird]

In game terms, this might be even be disad on some Charisma rolls, meaning you may never be able to go on that date.

Yes in game terms you might have disadvantage on charisma rolls. Note how this treats the events as independent.

 

[AlViking]

Only half of this discussion is making that consideration. Once we accept that difference, all of a sudden the entire disagreement makes sense.

We can argue about realism, or consequences, or claim there’s some sort of higher obligation to "keep the game moving," but all of those arguments miss the more fundamental divide. One side is leaning into the game-ness and the other is suspending it.

So even if people disagree on whether I should fall off a wall, or trigger a new scene, when I fail to climb it, the real question remains, do we consider the fact we are playing a game at all? And if I don’t make that consideration, your argument will always seem odd, because it's unaligned with the very premise of what my table values.

Lanefan summed it up well with his question;



And you summed up the other side with your response;


I don't know where the bridge that connects these two views is. I don't even know if it exists. But I feel like we need to acknowledge the difference, or we’ll just keep talking past each other.

My rule of thumb is simple. When the rules don't explicitly cover something it works more or less like the real world with action movie logic. No, my game doesn't work exactly like the real world because I want to replicate the feeling of an Indiana Jones movie (or game, I just started playing The Great Circle so it's on my mind). But I want the in-game fiction to be as close as will be fun. Which gives me some wiggle room here and there, but I want it to be more or less believable. Some of the techniques explained for narrative games do not work for me. I don't think that should be controversial or considered an insult to people who want something different, it's just a preference.

 

[Thomas Shey]

But if nothing happens when you fail to open the jar--there are no consequences, nothing interesting that happens if they fail--why bother rolling? It's a waste of time. It's dull.

The only default consequences I can see there are are: 1. It takes a little time that might be at a premium, and 2. It tells the player that's not a viable option. And assuming the roll was actually practical at all, makes either of them non-deterministic.

Whether that's worth the game handling time is in the eye of the beholder.

 

[JConstantine]

The thing is, in for instance D&D failure narration is quite well defined. People signing up for it expect failure to only indicate task failure, and that the DM is neutral when determining any fallout, keeping it as grounded and to the point as possible.

You know, I don't think this is actually true of D&D5e. I think the problem stems from the fact that the results are kinda wishy washy and left to individual GMs as part of the whole "rulings, not rules" thing, which allows for one group to approach it that way, while another adopts success-with-cost and fail forward.

Compare this to FFG's Star Wars/Genesys, where the dice result dictate the full suite of tiered success:
Success with advantage = "yes and" = you get what you want and more
Success = "yes" = you get what you want
Success with setback = "yes, but" = you get what you want with some form of complication
Failure with advantage = "no, but" = you don't get what you want, but here's an alternative/consolation prize
Failure = "no" = you don't get what you want
Failure with setback = "no, and" = you don't get what you want and an additional bad thing happens.

D&D's binary approach allows for all those "yes" options on a success and all the "no" options on a failure, depending on the group preferences.
PbtA and FitD games tend to codify all the "yes" options with the dice results, while bundling all the "no" options into one for the GM to choose as they see fit.