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

[FrogReaver]

To be honest, even the OD&D's FM was only marginally competent; too easily killed by one hit from even the monsters you expected at the bottom end there, and this was the guy you expected to fend off things from everyone else. He wasn't even automatically that good in AC given the variance in starting money.\

He only looked good in comparison to the class with terrible hit points and weak skills (the thief), or the ones with few spells (the MU) or none (the cleric, who at first level might have been a substandard fighter with some additional function if undead showed up).

Why do you infer that being able to be killed in one hit is not competent?

 

[Thomas Shey]

Why do you infer that being able to be killed in one hit is not competent?

I did use the word "too easily". RuneQuest characters could be killed by one hit but it usually required a critical hit or relatively high damage weapon. An OD&D fighter expected on the average to have 4-5 hit points, which meant any hit at all that actually landed could do it, and as I said, his starting AC was not such that was going to be that unusual. Even the things rolling D6's could make that half to a third of the time.

That's why things changed radically at second level. The damage of opponents didn't ramp up particularly fast, but fighters stopped being one-hit wonders and clerics actually got a spell (and probably could survive a hit too).

 

[Campbell]

It's competence in terms of situation - not compared to the rest of the world. What we want are characters who will be faced with primarily ethical choices rather than choices about survival such that the game becomes more about survival than ethics and is also not so far above the situation there are no stakes.

Note that one way a game could be about survival is what ethical choices you would make to survive, but you still need a baseline competence compared to the situation such that those decisions leave room for there not be a clear answer about what is the best choice.

If you are familiar with the video game Days Gone the protagonist is a perfect fit for that situation. He has things at stake, has connections, has a level of survival knowledge that allows him to make credible decisions that have a moral dimension to them. Has internal conflicts related to his criminal past that are relevant to the societal breakdown he's constantly faced with in the zombie apocalypse.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I'm trying to describe what is necessary for a narrativist game.

My Definition - A narrativist game is structured in such a way as to produce fiction that revolves around certain player defined aspects of their characters chosen at character generation.

Well, this is not really sufficient. Narrativist play is play that is focused on a premise. That premise has, or begets situations with, moral weight. The characters are fit to address this, have passion (it matters to them), something opposes them, and nobody has predecided the direction events will take (at least in regards to the playing out of the conflicts inherent in the premise).

Some kind of definitions or structure around the stance of the PCs is typical, but it is key in this type of play that it does not define the character. That is, the forces unleashed in play will work to do that, not what is written on the sheet at start.

I think this rules out D&D module style play and many other typically D&D playstyles - play revolves around the module where player defined aspects may or may not ever come into play, and even if they do they may do so sporadically such that the fiction produced isn't revolving around those aspects.

This kind of play is typically focused on exploration and achievement of goals set out at the start, with a fixed milieu designed around presenting a predesigned set of situations to the players. As you say, character is essentially color.

The most common specific implementations of this involve
-Success with complication
-Player defined success stakes (constrained by player principles).
-Limited GM authority (only determining what happens on failure or for success with consequence and having principles further restrict what they can say).

I would just say that GMs are unlikely to be more constrained, given we assume each type of play is actually successful. Sure, some ultra Viking Hat GMs might feel different, but those games generally fail.

But those implementations aren't necessary to have a narrativist game, even if they are typical of most games currently defined as Narrativist.

There's 3 ideas I want to explore
1) What other implementations of narrativist can there be?

There's a vast literature on this topic, though I wouldn't expect it to interest you.

2) Is D&D living sandbox a narrativist game?

First, the idea that games (tables, groups playing together) follow a specific agenda, ala 20 years ago Forge GNS is long dead. The question needs to be "can Narrativist play arise within this kind of approach?"

3) What happens in a narrativist style game if players only ever define success stakes for their character's actions as similar to what would be the stakes for an action in a typical D&D game?

I think this one is probably not too hard to answer, but what is the point? Play doesn't function in a Narrativist fashion! Again, there's plenty of literature on this subject.

 

[Faolyn]

They are not the same thing. Your failure to distinguish them is why I say that you seem unable, in your analysis of RPGing, to distinguish events in the shared fiction from events at the table.

Maybe you're doing a really bad job of explaining the difference. So far, all you've said is "it's different!" and "Hoping something happens isn't the same thing as making it happen!" even though your example shows exactly that.

The PC didn't roll. The PC deciphered the runes.

The player rolled the dice.

This is completely unnecessary and highly obnoxious pedantry and you know it.

The player, acting as the PC, wanted the runes would mean something specific. The player then rolled the dice. Turns out the runes meant what they wanted them to be.

No more than the idea that the roll to hit an Orc is no different from wishing the Orc dead.

The runes have established characteristics too. They're strange. They're on a dungeon wall.

So how many hits does it take until they're no longer strange?

You've played D&D, and you understand English, so you know how a track/countdown like hit points are different from adjectives like strange.

Also, you've given us no reason to thing the runes are strange. There's nothing particularly strange about runes on a dungeon wall. You put them there to be "fun and interesting" as a GM, not so they'd seem out of place--because as you say below, the GM can't decide what they mean, and making them strange is giving them an in-game meaning.

The PC knows that they are strange runes in a dungeon. There are many things that they might say. It turns out that they reveal a way out. That's no less likely than any other candidate thing they might say.

Actually, it could very well be much less likely. People tend to put exit signs near exits. Was there an exit right there?

Huh? I'm very aware that many RPGs use different principles from the ones that underpin (for instance) Marvel Heroic RP.

EDIT:
This means that the GM can't decide either what the runes mean, because any particular decision would be silly because so unlikely.

No, because in RPGs, GMs nearly always have the job of describing the world, which would include knowing what the runes mean. A decision would therefore only be silly if it were something that made no sense, like the guacamole recipe. Or an exit sign not near an exit.

 

[Faolyn]

Don't want to move too fast, but reread Faolyn's post, especially the bold.

She doesn't see the interpretation as silly because it is objectively unlikely, but because it is a little too cute that they would happen to mean exactly what the player wants. (correct me, @Faolyn, if I am wrong).

A little bit of both, but yeah, a lot of the second--the likelyhood that these runes mean exactly that is quite unlikely. Unless there is a good reason to think otherwise, of course, but I'm pretty sure there were no reasons established in pemerton's example.

 

[hawkeyefan]

Which is why rolls are only asked for if there's uncertainty.

Okay? Not sure what that has to do with what I said.

The GM is telling you what happened. You didn't get the jar open. It's up to the player to tell everyone else at the table what they do next. It's also of course up to the GM to let the players know if something happened during the few moments opening the jar was attempted, but that's fairly rare in my experience.

This seems to imply that the world waits for the character to decide what to do next... but I don't know why that would happen.

I would expect that in most RPGs, whether trad or narrativist or whatever other label we could apply, the GM absolutely could narrate something happening after the failed attempt.

Even at its most basic, you'd think any other characters involved in the scene would have an opportunity to act.

I could. Depends on if the jar is particularly difficult to open. I can't remember any time anyone ever rolled to see if they could open a pickle jar but I'm sure I've had people roll for other stuck containers, doors or some other object.

And this comes up when? Like, when the PCs are in town? Or when they're in a potentially dangerous location?

Or does that really not matter?

What happens is that the lock remains locked or unlocked. The reason for and result of the roll does not change, it was uncertain whether or not the task would be successful so a roll was required. On the other hand I can't think of any reason we'd bother playing through a rogue practicing lock picking in game because we skip over the vast majority of what any character does on a day to day basis.

According to you, the two situation have the same stakes.

Yet, you describe one as not even worth playing out. This implies that a level of danger being present is also a reason to have a roll.

And as I've said several times... because there have been comparisons to how "nothing happens" is "more realistic"... look at the two situations not as a game, but as something that's really happening. Would you really say that these two thieves are facing the same consequences?

What I think is bizarre? Is that people keep insisting that running a game in any way other than how they run their game is bizarre. Yes, the two thieves are facing the same outcomes, the lock is unlocked or not.

Again, you're reading things that are not there.

I didn't say it's bizarre for people to run a game differently than mine. I said believing that these two thieves are facing the same consequences is what's bizarre.

 

[Faolyn]

I've seen a few like @Faolyn say that not having fail forward or similar is boring. But that seems to presuppose there's no other way to generate non-boring content other than by bundling their generation with the player action resolution system.

What I'm really saying is that "nothing happens" is boring.

 

[Micah Sweet]

What I'm really saying is that "nothing happens" is boring.

Do you have an alternative resolution that isn't boring for you but doesn't utilize fail forward or similar methods? Because if you don't, @FrogReaver may have something.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I totally get and agree to the last part. Guess how much prep work I did each week in the 3 homebrew campaigns I talked about? Absolutely nothing beyond thinking. The exception was when I in 2 of them ran a prewritten adventure as we wanted a change of pace. There was a bit of prep reading and setting up for those. - oh, and writing up a page describing the prophetic dream one of the characters had while lying in a coma while it's player was away in the first one.

So I do not really see that limiting factor you are talking about? I could of course run a dramatic style heist in D&D if I found the realistic approach too tedious for the scenario at hand.. (There is a difference between getting the Ruby in the mansion safe, and breaking fort Knox)

But of course BitD is superior in heist. That is what it does. I am in no doubt about that.. But how well does it perform if we feel like it would be cool to put the characters trough a dungeon crawl for a change?

And unfortunately I do not see anywhere you touch upon how player input factors into this?

Edit: Reading closer it might be we are actually fully in agreement, just using the word "trad" differently. I use it for play where there is one GM that has full power over the rules - where the rules are just a toolset for the GM to use to help produce an experience everyone can appriciate. Your use of the term seem to be closer to what I would have called prepared map and key-play. In which case I fully agree that this particular style of play is extremely limiting if you bind yourself to that mast without allowing for more flexible approaches when needed. (I doubt any of the even most living world fanatics in this thread is fully in that category though..)

Maybe. I think part of the issue is that these kinds of debate push people towards more and more absolutist definitions of things, where it's much more difficult to point to real world play and classify things definitively.

I will say that I think 'full on' Narrativist play is very immediate. The nature of what will be framed next is usually decided NOW, and the possibilities are very open.

Classic dungeon crawl is, for example, a poor fit in most cases, but some games do a flavor of it. TB2e can, for instance, but it is not likely to take the form of long expeditions due to the way it snowballs consequences and the way the grind is designed (three rooms would likely finish a delv). DW can do it true, but the focus is not on the dungeon as a thing, and DW anticipates a certain fuzziness in what is encountered. Both of these games are about how the characters are affected by adventuring vs being about the process itself.

So, I think one difference between typical living world/sandbox and Narrativist play is the tightness of the loop. In LW PCs may have significant autonomy, but often there's a kind of long loop to feedback into play. Also, typically it may be pretty general. The players push into court intrigue and the criminal underworld, ignoring whatever the GM had prepared. But this is more a thematic choice, with PCs being adapted to suite. This will take time and involve a bunch of new GM backstory.

In a DW game, this would be a pretty immediate pivot. It would come about because the logic of character evolution brought it forth organically in play. While games don't usually dance around making pivots like this all the time, they can happen quite rapidly and be hard to predict!