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

[EzekielRaiden]

LOL. The last time I just checked and the last time I used the term unconnected was nearly a month ago. So who is continuing to bang that drum?

Really? Because you were talking about things needing to be connected just a week-ish ago.

 

[AlViking]

The cook being startled is not unrelated to the failed attempt at burglary.

I've answered my logic on this likely dozens of times now. I think the only relation is the GM using fail forward.

 

[AlViking]

Really? Because you were talking about things needing to be connected just a week-ish ago.

The issue seemed to be my use of the word "unconnected". I acknowledge that there can be a chain of events of A causing B contributing to C, I just don't see a direct in-world cause and effect in most examples of fail forward. I see no reason why

But y'all have been banging the "ONE TRUE WAY! ONE TRUE WAY!" drum for quite a while. We just have different preferences and I disagree with A happens because B failed but if it had been successful A would not have happened. When B is only caused because GM is using fail forward, it's something I don't want to use.

 

[Maxperson]

I was asking how this is done in conjunction with fidelity to the setting.

I don't have to alter the setting to do it. If they are heading to a city and I have to prepare some things, I'm not going to prepare stuff that they would find boring. There could be a thousand things going on in Waterdeep, but the ones I'm going to focus on are the ones that 1) I know the players would find fun, and 2) be true to the setting doing it, and 3) establish these things in advance. Once established they don't change.

My prep is on stuff that won't result in bored players, isn't for the most part about establishing it in the moment, and remains true to the setting. Now as I said before, I don't have time to prep as much as I used to, so what I do prep is more outlines of things and the major NPCs associated with it. The little details I will usually have to improvise in the moment.

 

[Maxperson]

No one wants their players to be bored. That's not what Make the players' characters' lives not boring is addressing. As @Campbell pointed out, the agenda pertains to the PCs, not the players.

And as I addressed, it's a very bad term. The characters' lives won't be boring whether you do that or not. Why not use a term that's accurate like, "Make the moment interesting" since it's all about what's happening in that moment and has nothing to do with rescuing the characters from a life of boredom?

 

[Maxperson]

Here is the post that prompted this discussion of "faithful" portrayal of character:
Do you two, and @Maxperson, think that I'm wrong about The Riddle of Steel and Burning Wheel? Do you think I'm wrong to say that the sorts of expectations these RPGs place on the player, as to how the PC is portrayed, differs from Pendragon? (Or GURPS, or HERO, or any other system which includes personality mechanics that are meant to shape how the character is played.)

I'm saying that 1) those games are wrong if they attempt to appropriate a term for their exclusive use, and 2) other people are wrong when they say that we can't be faithful to our portrayals of character.

The term isn't owned by those games. Faithful has meaning as a word. I can be faithful to my character whether it's to stuff I have made up in my head, stuff I've told the players about, or a combination of that.

A lot of these terms are lame, because some of them end up being derogatory when speaking about other playstyles, and some of them attempt to redefine terms that are commonly used to mean other things in the industry, and then these bad terms get used to beat people over the head with and tell people they are doing it wrong(see being faithful to your character) in other games, which is One True Wayism.

The creators need to use terms that more accurate and neutral, and those using them need to keep them confined only to the game that uses them and not try to apply them anywhere else, except in the context of personal use. ie stating that you use X idea from Y game in Z game because it works for you.

Don't try to tell me that I'm doing X wrong where X can mean multiple different things and you want it to mean how Y game uses it when we are discussing Z game.

 

[thefutilist]

I'm not familiar with the Anthology Engine, just the In A Wicked Age rulebook.

My comment about talking is based on this from p 12:

Roll dice when one character undertakes to do some concrete thing, and another character can and would try to interfere. Every player with a character involved, including you as GM, rolls dice for their own character. If you have more than one NPC involved, roll separate dice for each.​

​

Don’t roll dice when two characters are having a conversation, no matter how heated it becomes; wait until one or the other acts.​

I think I get what it is doing. But I've stumbled over it a few times when GMing.

The framing of social conflict in a lot of those early games is a bit under developed. As a rule they don't want to force a priority change on you. Sorcerer for instance, uses a stick mechanic, you don't have to change your behaviour but your next action will be at negative dice relative to the successes your opponent rolled.

With IAWA I've seen it go either way. If it helps, I don't think Vincent uses the rules for social conflict (I'm 75% sure).

 

[FrogReaver]

I don't know what you mean by "rising conflict" or "rising action".

You do realize you used the term first to define narrativist?
You do realize I'm asking questions so I can understand what you mean by the term?

I mean what conclusion should I be drawing from you saying you don't know what I mean by it when we both know I'm asking questions to understand what you mean by it?

I can't think of any good explanations for doing that, so please help me understand.

 

[The Firebird]

I do, because what you've said there, vs what you said in the post I just quoted, don't match.

You can't have your cake and eat it too. You can't set down a standard which says "no PC control", and then also say "well some PC control".

The post you were quoting does not set down a standard of no player (not PC) control over the world. It explains one way why that kind of player controls results in less immersive play. I think you are reading into it "therefore it should never happen". But I didn't state that. I don't believe it.

unlike the light-spectrum analogy, there is no clean division, not even a fuzzy boundary.

I am confused as to where the clean division lies along the light spectrum. "The player determining their characters relations prior to play" and "the player deciding that the runes are a map leading out" are very different exercises of player control. You find this distinct from the light case?

 

[FrogReaver]

An attribute/ability rating in Cortex+ represents something - eg Godlike Strength d12 represents that the character has godlike strength.

But the roll of the dice doesn't represent anything. Choosing which two dice to take as the total, and which die to use for effect, is not a representational process.

I can't tell if this is just being pedantic or something else. Perhaps an example will help illuminate. Attack rolls in D&D. Are they representational? I say they are. What are your thoughts?