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

[Micah Sweet]

It''s not a question of how much or how little time it takes. It's a question of the result. "Nothing happens" means that the game just stops because nothing happens. Sure, the PCs can choose to do something else or come up with another method but that's besides the point. Because this isn't real life, no matter how "realistic" GMs may want to make their game. Things happen, generally to the PCs.

But let's turn the question back on you. How much time would a simple "...and something else happens" take out of your game that would actually be wasted time?

See, I've played "nothing happens" for decades. I've GMed that way for decades. With some of my GMs, that still is the only result. But "...and something else happens" is usually more interesting and engaging, and it doesn't take up more time.

But the problem here is that you and some others here are saying "Because I don't need this rule, nobody should need this rule; they should just learn to not set up dead ends" without realizing that fail-forward is teaching them that, by teaching how to have other results besides "nothing happens."

Not everyone wants that lesson applied via a game mechanic that demands the situation be handled a certain way. Personally, my preference is for fairly casually-related advice. Having a mechanic you're supposed to use feels too hard-coded for my tastes.

Of course, if you like it yourself there's obviously nothing wrong with that.

 

[Enrahim]

I guess I don't understand how this counts as, in your words, "taking partial control over the narrative"...

...when the whole time it's been extremely clear to me that the "traditional GM" ALWAYS has near-complete control over the narrative.

They're just under an extremely weak, unstated expectation to only use that control in particular ways...unless and until they think that that expectation is getting in the way of a good experience. A thing they are not only not expected to tell their players about, but which they almost never will tell their players about. (These two things are precisely what makes it a weak expectation: it may be overridden, at any time, so long as the GM thinks it right, and that overriding not only can be but almost surely will be done in secret, often with pains taken to conceal it from the players. Either condition alone would be a significant weakening of the limitation; together, they make for hardly any limitation at all.)

Ok, I think I start seeing a pattern here now. I really think it might be something essential to unpack in the word "traditional".

In most of the games I have played and GMed your description matches the experience 100%. I think in some of these games this is a genuine consensus - the players do not want to make dramatic choices, but experience the content the GM or the third party creator has dreamt up for them to enjoy.

The problem is that in probably a lot of these kind of games there are players that would have enjoyed having narrative control, but are "stuck" in play that don't allow it. Some possible problems:
a) It could be they don't recognise it in themselves.
b) it could be that they recognise the format require conforming to the plan, and hence do not speak up. c) it could be they try to break out, but found the attempt being in vain.
The c) situation would seem like the dreaded railroading DM, but indeed the three times I can remember to have tried this, it has been the other players that forced compliance with the obvious plot.

And I think this observation is crucial: This kind of play isn't enforced by a tyrannical GM. It is indeed a recognised form of play that there are so many that actively like to play, that it for a long time completely drowned put the alternative. The reason the railroad GM is such a bad thing is in my view not so much that they do not provide narrative choices. Rather the legendary railroad GM is someone that despite this strong culture of players conforming manage to find themselves in a situation where the players are not pursuing the plan - and that rather than taking a timeout recognising they have failed, rather insist on dragging the players trough the rejected content.

So we have a style of play that is so popular it drowns out other styles of play, while we have still quite a few players that actually want to have some narrative controll. What to do? Make a game that cannot be played in this most popular way. That way players that really want narrative control are assured the GM will have to grant them some narrative control. Meanwhile those that don't want narrative control can keep playing the old game that allows for that playstyle.

And I find this absolutely tragic. It splits the hobby, as these new games forces players to make narrative choices. So players that want to take narrative choices cannot play with those that don't want narrative choices - as they are playing different games. GNS theory being it's own self fulfilling prophecy.

And why do I find it tragic? Because I have indeed played games providing extremely rich narrative choices, while having players not wanting to make narrative choices playing full-worthy along. And that was made possible by the traditional game structure

So I think this is the crux. I think what you describe as the "Traditional GM" might be a GM that is running the kind of traditional play that is characterised by players not having narrative control. Traditonal games that is characterised by having a GM that stands over even the rules is the enabler for this kind of play. However concluding that "Traditonal games" must produce "traditional play" in this sense is false.

I have run traditional games where the players have made narrative choices I didn't even know existed in the situation. And I am not (only) talking about small scale tactical narration like befriending the frog people vs attacking them. We are talking making the campaign about a civil war rather than a blackout mystery. To leave the city just after the full conflict lines of the city intrigue in the center of the campaign got revealed. To who was in charge of the city, when they returned.

Provide the players with a rich environement with things to latch on to, and make it clear they are supposed to make use of it, and the GM quickly do no longer have control over the narrative. After all, a narrative requires characters, and the characters are not under the GMs control in trad games.

This style of play is appear to be very uncommon though. Living world / westmarches might approach this, but is not quite the same. The players are still (typically) limited to a menu consisting of the limited (tough plentiful) things the GM has prepared in advance. So I wouldn't consider that the same kind of narrative freedom as I feel I have been able to provide with my approach.

So I have GM-ed games of D&D where partially taking control over the narrative has indeed been an overt action from me as GM. But I do acknowledge that in most of the games I have run I have indeed been in total control over the (overarching) narrative. And that this was not due to some power trip, but as a requirement for fulfilling my role in the activity me and the players had agreed to engage in.

 

[Maxperson]

Well, you'll want to talk to @Lanefan about that, as he's rejected both the idea that failure needs to have any meaning, and the idea that success needs to have any meaning (I presume separately, as if both are true simultaneously I'm pretty sure even he would say "don't bother", but I could be mistaken.)

Why? He and I agree on a lot of things, but not everything. People on the same side of a discussion can disagree over specifics.

This, for instance, is one of the reasons why I don't think it so horrendous to talk about, for example, a guard or servant* to walk past a secondary servants' entrance into the house. Keep in mind, in medieval, renaissance, and early modern periods, servants had their own halls, staircases, etc. they were supposed to use. At essentially all times other than "direct personal service" situations, servants were supposed to stay completely out of sight. Dusting, sweeping, mopping, etc. were to be done while the family was asleep, unless a sudden emergency occurred (e.g. a major spill caused by the family or guests), or the family needed special service (e.g. "we're hosting prestigious guests for supper, get the house completely spic-and-span!") So it's very much A Thing that, during the wee hours, various servants would clean, prepare, organize, etc., etc. so that the family could rise fresh and ready the next morning, seeing only their direct personal servants (e.g. the ladies' personal maids, the gentlemen's manservants, the butler of the house, etc.)

The issue has never been that a cook(or whoever else) could be there. It's the timing of the cook being there being dependent on PC skill with lockpicking. Someone less skilled taking the exact same amount of time on the lock with the same amount of noise is more likely to run into that cook.

To many(if not all) of us on my side of the issue, that's pretty hokey.

 

[pemerton]

I do disagree here. There are countless possible goals the player could have declared he reads the runes in order to obtain.

I'm telling you what actual goal he had, in the actual play of the game that I'm reporting on.

The con of the runes example is that it breaks the simulation.

There is no "simulation" to be broken.

A "con" is a downside or a problem with something. The fact that the player was able to establish, via his action declaration for his PC, that the runes revealed a way out, is not a downside or a problem. It's part of what makes that particular system worth playing. If I want to play a different sort of RPG, then I can do that too.

Also, the "kill an Orc" example, here's a thing that the player establishes, when their PC kills the Orc: they establish that the Orc didn't dodge. And this is not a ubiquitous feature of RPGs: in RuneQuest, the player doesn't get to establish that. The GM, controlling the Orc, gets to make a dodge or parry roll. Which we could structurally compare to the GM making a roll on the Strange Runes table.

This is why I say that (i) the boundaries are subtle, and not easily drawn; and (ii) that for some posters, they seem to conform very strongly to how they are familiar with D&D doing things.

But imagine someone who responds to the Orc dodging issue as you are responding to the what do the strange runes say issue, and you will understand why so many players of RQ, RM, and similar "mechanical simulationist" RPGs have trouble taking D&D combat seriously.

 

[pemerton]

Out of interest what is the relevance of (c) - are we talking like healthy characters? I'm not understanding the connection here for the word fit specifically.

As in "fit for purpose". The character must be able to meaningfully engage in the conflict that is arising across a moral line.

Just as in other fiction, so in RPGing I think there's a lot of scope here. Characters who are fit for irony, for instance, may be different from characters who are fit for idealism.

 

[pemerton]

I don't know who Eero is and don't really care but the quote is rather demeaning to anyone who doesn't play the game their way.

How is it demeaning to point out that Battletech can't easily be played as a narrativist RPG? It's a bare statement of fact.

That doesn't mean that we're playing a glorified board game.

And I don't even know where this comes from.

 

[pemerton]

Please stop calling me a hypocrite. It's insulting. You want to play your very different game from mine? By all means. All I said is that I prefer to abstract very little, and that's all I meant. I often have to abstract more.

I'm not calling you a hypocrite. I'm just expressing some incredulity at the apparent gap between what you say you prefer, and the RPG you actually play. Especially because you keep calling me a hater of simulationism etc; yet it seems to me that I do more simulationist RPGing than you do!

 

[AlViking]

How is it demeaning to point out that Battletech can't easily be played as a narrativist RPG? It's a bare statement of fact.

Because he's using Battletech as an exemplar of all sim games and in my limited experience with it (it was too expensive for me even if I do enjoy painting minis) pretty much solely based on combat.

And I don't even know where this comes from.

A game without moral quandaries or any kind of roleplaying, with just tactical decisions on how to defeat your enemy (e.g. Battletech) have been termed by some people as glorified board games elsewhere, although not on this particular thread.

 

[pemerton]

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.

The idea that's it silly if a player establishes it, but perfectly reasonable if the GM establishes it, is to me a manifestation of an assumption that play should be predominantly GM-driven.

Was there an exit right there?

I don't remember. I don't think it came up. As best I recall, once the PCs had established their bearings in the dungeon, by reading the runes, they headed down to the Vault of the Drow.

(Also, in case it's not obvious, there was no map and key in this game. MHRP doesn't use map and key resolution.)

 

[pemerton]

Because he's using Battletech as an exemplar of all sim games

No he's not! In the paragraph I quoted he (i) mentions Fate (a game which most naturally supports simulationist play) and (ii) expressly contrasts Battletech with Fate and other "simmy" RPGs that are more easily drifted to narrativist play:

some Simmy games are just more easily drifted towards Narrativism, while others are easier for Gamism. Sure, Fate can do Narrativism, but if you think that proves that Sim and Nar are similar, you should try playing Battletech and see how Narrativist you’ll feel yourself.​

A game without moral quandaries or any kind of roleplaying, with just tactical decisions on how to defeat your enemy (e.g. Battletech) have been termed by some people as glorified board games elsewhere, although not on this particular thread.

Have you played White Plume Mountain, or Tomb of Horrors, or Keep on the Borderlands, or the G-series, or Ghost Tower of Inverness, or Mordenkainen's Fantastic Adventure? These games don't have any "moral quandaries". They are about beating the dungeon.

If you want to call them glorified boardgames, I guess that's your prerogative. Given that they are the foundations of the entire hobby, it seems to me to be obvious that they are paradigms of RPGs.