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

[DinoInDisguise]

Okay. If it’s obvious, then how would anyone ever determine that someone else is playing their character either faithfully or unfaithfully?

This doesn't address the sweeping assertion @TwoSix made. It simply reframes the issue from the perspective of an outside observer. But the original claim went much further, arguing that no internal metric is sufficient. We read;

You can’t faithfully portray a character without some sort of metric to measure that portrayal against.

“I’m faithfully portraying the headcanon I have” doesn’t meet that standard. It’s a semantic distortion.

He continues, on clarification, defending the idea that there needs to be an external metric by telling me that I can't call following an author's intent faithful;

But you can't call it a faithful portrayal without being able to measure it against something to be faithful to. I'm not arguing about the play, I'm arguing about the terminology.

And just to cut off any assertion that that wasn't what was meant, I clearly stated my position as being about the validity of author intent. We see that here;

If I say my character is cautious, but I play them recklessly without reason, I’m not staying true to my concept. But I don’t need someone else’s metric to realize that. My own creative goals provide the standard.

If I create a character and roleplay them based on the personality I imagined, it would be strange for someone with no insight into that character’s design to claim I’m being unfaithful. As the author, my intent matters. The perception of others is merely a differing, often less informed, opinion.

To argue otherwise suggests that a creator can be told they’re wrong about their own creation by someone with less knowledge and only inferred context. That undermines the entire concept of authorial intent.

Follow that logic far enough, and we lose the autonomy of self-directed, character-driven roleplay. Instead, we get roleplay by committee; where perception overrides intent and subjective portrayal is no longer valid unless externally approved.

If I’m the creator of the character, then portraying my headcanon is being faithful, because my intent defines the standard. TwoSix’s claim just doesn’t align with how authorial intent actually works in any meaningful creative context.

Reframing the argument to be from a third party perspective doesn't change the issue I was addressing.


TLDR: Authorial intent is the gold standard for what is traditionally considered a faithful portrayal in creative works. Reframing the discussion doesn't change that.

 

[Pedantic]

What? I've pointed out previously that there are people who view various PbtA games, including AW, as gamey because of the move structure. And, while I can't speak to MHRP specifically, Cortex is incredibly gamist with step up/down, buying off hitches, etc.

I'm late to the party, but I think there's a subtle broadening of "gamist" going on here. Sometimes it seems to mean "a game that's about pursuing an agenda of making strong gameplay decisions to achieve victory", and other times it seems to mean "a game with overt mechanics that don't map causally/temporally to fictional events."

I don't think those are really that comparable. The latter might lead to the former, but it isn't guaranteed to.

 

[hawkeyefan]

It wasn't.

So you’d be okay with it if the players didn’t find it unimmersive?

Your posts can come across as "this is the way" whether you intend it or not. You include things like "...true of some folks’ processes of play. They continue using some processes out of habit..." if that doesn't apply to anyone else, why include it?

I didn’t say it didn’t apply to anyone else. Clearly, I intended it to apply to some folks. Ones I’ve observed. Including me… it’s something I did quite a bit.

Is it something you do? I have no idea. I never directed the idea toward you. You said it’s not something you do, and I have no reason not to believe you.

As far as the rest I was just stating my opinion. I'm not offended by random people on the internet, I'm just giving my take on the issues raised.

Sure. I just think your continued used of “unconnected” is flawed.

 

[The Firebird]

So you’d be okay with it if the players didn’t find it unimmersive?

Yes

 

[pemerton]

Well, I think you view them that way. I think some other proponents of them may view them as more gamist since their resolution mechanics are at least somewhat less DM dependent (at least from the descriptions of AW I've seen). At least that's the vibes I've gotten. Could very well be mistaken.

I was replying to @The Firebird, who (at least as I understood things) used the word "gamist" in the sense of playing for winning/achievement (what has also been called "Step on Up").

 

[EzekielRaiden]

I'm late to the party, but I think there's a subtle broadening of "gamist" going on here. Sometimes it seems to mean "a game that's about pursuing an agenda of making strong gameplay decisions to achieve victory", and other times it seems to mean "a game with overt mechanics that don't map causally/temporally to fictional events."

I don't think those are really that comparable. The latter might lead to the former, but it isn't guaranteed to.

Oh, certainly. I find the difference frequently--not always, but very often--comes down to whether one likes "gamist" things or not, or equivalently whether one prefers some other thing (almost always "simulation") more.

Folks who are gigantic fans of sim treat "gamist" as the latter almost all of the time, and specifically cite that as why they cannot stand gamism. For my part, I would not quite use the first definition you gave, but it's very close. I would instead phrase it as "...to achieve one's goals in a measurable way"--that is, while victory is by far the most common goal, it isn't the only one. We can see this in, for example, those who set out to optimize a concept rather than trying to develop the single most optimal path through a game (or, if two+ paths are close enough so as to be indistinguishable, developing at least one of them).

Usually, when I'm optimizing, I'm doing that first thing, optimizing a concept. Most of the time, I start with a theme, or a preference, or a question. ("Question" being like my 5.0 Bard-based build that asked, "Can a single character learn every skill?" The answer was "yes, but it's probably not worth it to learn ALL of them".) Within that starting point, I try to stay on-theme, to develop a story which genuinely explains why a person would follow that path. This usually isn't too hard, and often actually helps the optimization, as it promotes certain paths over others. That's a pretty pure expression of strong gameplay decisions...where "victory" isn't really the focus. Like...doing a thing in such a way that it is effective at tasks is certainly in there! But the goal is the fulfillment of the concept, just in an effective way, rather than the many ineffective ways there might be.

That said, I do think this disagreement about what "gamism/gamist" means is quite relevant. It's easy to talk past one another if we forget it.

 

[pemerton]

All rolls are decision making devices. Some rolls also represent fictional activities. Wandering monster rolls do that. The roll represents the chance the party encounters wandering monsters while in this particular area.

What does it mean to represent a chance?

The PCs are travelling through <wherever>. It has a certain population density, and those beings that populate it have a certain degree of aggression/inquisitiveness/other traits that make them prone to interact with travellers. This all sets the chance for wandering monsters (eg 1 in 20 or 1 in 6 or whatever it is).

Different creatures are more or less likely to be encountered (eg some are very rare, some are very timid, etc). This is all reflected in the wandering monster table (so eg bears are more common than brownies).

But I don't see that the roll of the dice itself represents anything at all. It dictates whether an encounter occurs, and if so what it is that is encountered. But what is it representing?

Not the stealth of the PCs: that's either built into the chance for an encounter in the first place (Rolemaster does this) or built into the chance for surprise in an encounter (D&D generally does this). Not the facts about the area's inhabitants, which have already been reflected in the various ways I described above. The dice roll is just a decision-maker.

Why are those things required for fail forward? The only requirement I can see is that failure drives play forward via complications.

What does "drives play forward" mean? And also what does "failure" mean? These things are relational/relative/contextual. They depend on : situations with an implicit trajectory of threat and promise; action declarations with express or implicit intents, so that there is some desired outcome of the action which can then be used as a touchstone or measure to aid in determining what will count as a failure; etc.

Just consider the cook: without some context - what is the desired outcome of the action, what is the trajectory of threat and promise - then how do we even know it counts as a failure. If the goal of the PC as played by the player is to slaughter everyone in the house, then the cook is an opportunity, not a failure.

 

[Faolyn]

I think you are misunderstanding the argument. The use of quantum in this thread encompasses method--'things are quantum for the players but not for the GM' is a meaningful statement. People are not just using quantum to mean 'authoring here and now because of a real world prompt'.

Also, the claim is not that the slave traders using human ears is less 'real' or 'true'. They both have the same status in the fiction. It is that giving that narrative control to the players makes it more difficult for the players to immerse themselves as their characters. For example, because it heightens the PC/player distinction.

How so?

If anything, it should let players be more immersed in the fiction, because they have a part in making it. The fiction isn't just an infodump that is (often) ignorable.

 

[zakael19]

How so?

If anything, it should let players be more immersed in the fiction, because they have a part in making it. The fiction isn't just an infodump that is (often) ignorable.

This seems to be one of those hard-line sticking points. Some of us think that being asked to add details from your character's viewpoint would enhance the experience because of shared ownership + having to imagine senses and knowledge and then push that into the conversation.

Many others seem to think that having to imagine that vs simply ingesting and clarifying what a singular authority puts forth removes the player/themselves from their preferred experience (perhaps walking towards the classic "even knowing/interacting with mechanics removes you from total immersion").

 

[The Firebird]

How so?

If anything, it should let players be more immersed in the fiction, because they have a part in making it. The fiction isn't just an infodump that is (often) ignorable.

The PC/player distinction I brought up earlier. If the player is clearly different than the PC because the player is exercising control over the fiction in a way the PC couldn't, then it feels less immersive.