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

[Maxperson]

Same here, which makes it a fine date because I know I very likely won't have to worry about it.

(I mean I suppose there's a small chance I'll live to age 103, but I ain't counting on it)

The speed of medical advances these days means we can't rule it out.

 

[Maxperson]

Yes, I know - you said he was practising components of those other spells and working on combining them to create the new spell. My point is that - as per your own post - this is not something that is actually played out at the table or even established at all. Rather, is something that you retrofit in once the player has decided, at level-up time, what spell their PC will learn.

It is established, because it's done in the game. All that practicing and experimentation with spells happens in game play. We just don't connect it to the new spells when they gain levels, because it's not the most exciting play out there.

 

[AlViking]

The speed of medical advances these days means we can't rule it out.

I plan on just using AI, it doesn't really require anything new.

 

[Maxperson]

This guy hopes his PC can kill the Orc. He rolls and is successful, and so the Orc is dead as he wanted.

Or . . .

This guy hopes that his PC can kill the Orc. He rolls and fails, and so the Orc survives, gets to have a turn, and kills the PC instead.

How is a hope roll different?

I hereby declare that all rolls in D&D are to be relabelled hope rolls!

False equivalences still remain false.

The shadowy figure in the doorway is undefined.

The PC hopes it's an orc and is successful, so it's an orc.

Or...

The PC hopes it's an orc and is unsuccessful, so it's a drow.

If you're going to try and be a smartass about it, at least get it right.

 

[pemerton]

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.

Where is the answer to the test supposed to come from - the player? or a proper interpretation/application of the Tenets and Concitions?

I don't know the answer to my question, because I don't know the game you're talking about. But here is a post upthread that talked about this issue using Pendragon as one example:

Ron Edwards said a bit more about it 20+ years ago, in his review of Wuthering Heights and also this in the "right to dream" essay (where he is comparing Pendragon Traits and Passions to The Riddle of Steel's Spiritual Attributes, with a side discussion of GURPS behavioural disadvantages):

a character in Narrativist play is by definition a thematic time-bomb, whereas, for a character in Simulationist play, the bomb is either absent (the GURPS samurai), present in a state of near-constant detonation (the Pendragon knight, using Passions), or its detonation is integrated into the in-game behavioral resolution system in a "tracked" fashion (the Pendragon knight, using the dichotomous traits). Therefore, when you-as-player get proactive about an emotional thematic issue, poof, you're out of Sim. Whereas enjoying the in-game system activity of a thematic issue is perfectly do-able in Sim, without that proactivity being necessary.​

Two RPGs other than The Riddle of Steel that are also designed to support "narrativist" play, rather than Pendragon-ish "simulationism", are Burning Wheel and Marvel Heroic RP. It is possible to identify the technical devices they use:

In BW, a player can rewrite a Belief at any time, with the exception that the GM can *delay the rewrite if the player seems to be trying to sidestep a situation that has just been framed or is about to be framed. Also, a player earns artha both for leaning into a playing to their Beliefs, but also for playing out conflict with or departure from their Beliefs ("Mouldbreaker"): as the rulebook says, "Beliefs are meant to be conflicted, challenged, betrayed and broken" (Revised p 56; the same text, except with "conflicted" dropped, is found on p 54 of Gold and Gold Revised.

*In MHRP, a player earns XP by fulfilling "Milestones", which are character-specific story-esque events. For example, here is Captain America's "Avengers Assemble!" milestone:

1 XP when you first lead a team.

3 XP when you defeat a foe without any team member becoming stressed out.

10 XP when you either convince a hero to join a new Avengers team or disband your existing team.​

As this example illustrates, and as the rulebooks says (pp OM106-7), the "10 XP trigger . . . should be a tough decision point. . . . [and] is earned when you’re in a position to make the central choice of the Milestone". The game doesn't tell the player what choice they should make, to be true to their character. The player has to inject their own choice. (And thus, "poof", they're not playing sim!)​

As I said, without knowing how Tenets and Convictions work in V:tM V5, I don't know whether they support simulationist play or narrativist play.

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.

The first scenario seems to me as if it could be player-driven or could be GM-driven. I don't know the system or setting well enough; don't know how the touchstone was brought into play and made significant; don't know that about the Sheriff either; and don't have a good sense of what the consequences mean.

To elaborate that just a bit: I can't tell if this is more like a paladin in classic D&D being forced by a predominantly GM-driven process to choose between alignment (breaking it costs abilities) and treasure (foregoing it costs XP, hence advancement, hence abilities), or is more like a BW game where the back-and-forth of play has led to a mouldbreaker moment.

The second scenario - from your description - seems like standard information-gathering play, in which the player has prompted the GM to provide more information about the backstory/setting. So to me it seems fairly GM-centred/GM-driven.

 

[Lanefan]

As I've already posted, my friend and I can all get together and choose to raffle something that one of us owns. That would be a lottery where the participants set the stakes. It still wouldn't mean that the winner decided that they got what they wanted.

Again, that's different than what happened with the runes.

A closer analogy might be if you and your friends got together for a raffle, one of your friends looked at your neighbour's barbeque and said "I wanna win that - let's make it the prize!", and you then drew for the barbeque (note that the neighbour doesn't get any say in the fact that one of you is about to swipe his stuff).

 

[pemerton]

False equivalences still remain false.

What is the false equivalence? Why is hope to kill an Orc different from hope to find a way out?

 

[pemerton]

Again, that's different than what happened with the runes.

A closer analogy might be if you and your friends got together for a raffle, one of your friends looked at your neighbour's barbeque and said "I wanna win that - let's make it the prize!", and you then drew for the barbeque (note that the neighbour doesn't get any say in the fact that one of you is about to swipe his stuff).

What is the theft in the example of the runes?

 

[AlViking]

Again, that's different than what happened with the runes.

A closer analogy might be if you and your friends got together for a raffle, one of your friends looked at your neighbour's barbeque and said "I wanna win that - let's make it the prize!", and you then drew for the barbeque (note that the neighbour doesn't get any say in the fact that one of you is about to swipe his stuff).

Ooh! Ooh! Can I play? "I wish that the orc was really a pinata full of candy" and when he successfully hits they're showered with candy. If he misses the orc turns out to be a swarm of deadly spiders that were just pretending to be an orc.

 

[Maxperson]

What is the false equivalence? Why is hope to kill an Orc different from hope to find a way out?

False Equivalence #1: In my example the initial status is undefined. In yours it's defined as a living orc.
False Equivalence #2: In my example a successful roll moves undefined to defined in favor of the PC. In yours it is defined(alive) to defined(dead).
False equivalence #3: In my example a failed roll can result in defining the runes/shadowy figure as definitions 2 through infinity(definition 1 would be what the player wanted) that the DM chooses. In yours there is only the player's failed attempt to redefine the orc's state and the DM doesn't choose it.

The two examples weren't even close to being equivalent to one another.