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

[Enrahim]

In my view, the bolded is the best approach by far. Tony's not dealing with the wight, Dunwick is; and asking Dunwick what he's doing encourages Tony to think as Dunwick rather than as Tony.

Yes, that is the DW prescribed approach I do see it could provide an effect. I just know that is definitely not what I am currently doing. This formulation wouldn't come natural to me at all. Dunwick is not sitting around being able to answer questions I as GM am asking. Dunwick isn't even aware of my existence. And Dunwick is far to busy actively surviving to be answering any questions anyway.

I ask the player at the table I presume have a connection with Dunwick's mind, what Dunwick is currently up to.

Player note-taking, if they did such, could help cover off for lapses in the DM's memory.

Well, trouble is it might be much more effective if they say they want to seek out the hooded stranger that offered them a reward if completing a quest, than them saying they seek out Gravosar, assuming I would somehow remember that name. I think the ensuing awkwardness of me trying to figure out who they are talking about quickly outweighs any benefit of having created that name in the first place. (Not to mention that this name I threw out at random just happens to be awfully similar to Ravosar, a very important vampire in my campaign 20 years ago, that definitely deserved a name. Me throwing out that name in that group for the hooded stranger would again been highly likely to produce effects I would not consider positive)

 

[Lanefan]

Anyone playing a single game for more than a year is, almost by definition, not a casual player anymore. They're in it for the (very) long haul at that point. They've joined the D&D "club" if you will, rather than just attending an event.

There's people I've played with for ages who I'd still describe - and who would probably self-describe - as casual.

 

[Faolyn]

I have a couple of relatively recent examples for you.

A wandering monster goblin shot an arrow at the party and missed. Players reacted by withdrawing into a nearby room. Initiative was not rolled.

A player tried to cut a rope bridge and failed. I called for initiative with no hostile intentions declared, as timing of actions were essential. The situation defused in one round and some skill checks.

Neither of these would be "allowable" if the combat sequence were triggered if and only if a hostile action is attempted in fiction.

Neither of these were combat situations. In the first one, the PCs chose to retreat rather than attack or roll for initiative. In the second, there were no hostile intentions; you instead used the narrative to trigger a specific type of countdown, using the initiative system. So neither of these are what I'm talking about.

If you want to make a point of players initiated, I have also had longer time ago PvP instances where a character has acted out (for instance) unarmed attack, that has not triggered combat sequence.

Did you have the player roll to attack? If so, then you the player entered a combat situation because of a narrative trigger. Combat doesn't have to be to the death, after all. If you let it happen without rolls (either initiative or attack), then the players narratively worked out their combat without the need for rolls.

I cannot offer the top of my head remember any cases the PCs initiated attack against monsters in a situation where the combat sequence was not the obvious tool for the job. I do not remember how I handled the evil party more or less executing some farmers more than 20 years ago. I likely would not have cared about initiative for that today (but do not see myself running that kind of game either).

That also likely wouldn't be combat, unless the farmers were actively fighting back--but "execute" doesn't indicate that (at least that's not the image I have when it comes to an execution). In a narrative game, the GM would likely just let the execution happen, since that's unlikely to trigger a move. Unless the game or playbook has a specific "when you execute someone..." type of move.

 

[TwoSix]

And this is a pretty standard GMing tactic.

You know what? I want to know what the structure of one of your games is like. How do you set up conflicts and threats? Do you set up conflicts and threats?

Because this thread has a whole lot of heavily-narrative folks going into detail about their games and heavily-trad folks not actually talking about their games much at all other than to say "I don't do that." So lets hear how you do do it.

To be fair, a decent portion of the earlier epoch of this thread was Robert Conley going into detail on his highly prepped, “living world” games; I have absolutely no desire to dip into that well again.

 

[TwoSix]

There's people I've played with for ages who I'd still describe - and who would probably self-describe - as casual.

On that, I would very much agree. I have multiple players I’ve played with for a decade-plus who have no engagement with TTRPGs at all other than to play with our group. My wife is one of them. All of them would absolutely agree that they are casual players.

 

[TwoSix]

A lot of trad folks don't think about their play with the deep introspection and dissection the Narrativists seem to favor. That should be ok.

Have you noticed how defensive the trad folks are in this thread? It's because IMO they are being attacked.

It’s not an attack. But you can’t “not think about your play with deep introspection” and also be expected to be taken as seriously as those who do.

As an example, I have a ton of respect for the individual who made the blog posts about “blorb principles” we discussed a month or so back. And that person is advocating for nearly the exact kind of play you’re espousing here. But I have a strong respect for their opinion because they’ve tried other games, and can discuss those games’ principles with clarity, respect, and often affection.

That writer has a clear understanding that their sim-play is just one particular approach that they happen to enjoy and want to explore further. That’s the mentality I’d like to see as the dominant one here, and other places where TTRPGs are discussed.

 

[Faolyn]

The easiest to describe is the kind of game where I run a third party module. Then I do not set up any conflicts or threat myself, I relly exclusively on the ones provided in the module. Common practice for this play style is to tweak and personalise the module to the characters. I hence make very sure to inform my players that I am doing no such things when running that module for them. Running a module has also always been a decission based on player wishes. (Edit: what I do though is to be more lentinent than than the module might assume in how the characters can engage with the threat and conflict it sets up)

So in this case, the conflicts and threats have been set up by someone else. It's the same thing, really. Whoever comes up with the adventure needs to set those things up; the DW writers probably just assumed that most people would be writing their own adventures. There aren't a lot of pre-written adventures for PbtA games, after all. Or even for most non-D&D systems in general.

In my most succefull homebrew it was seemingly relatively unique. I here used a variety of techniques, but the bread and butter was to look at where the characters were going, and try to think of something interesting that could be found there.

An example sequence of such were: they had found they wanted to enter a castle trough it's sever system. I decided it would make sense it did not use the general sever system, as that made sense from a defence perspective. So they gathered information to find there was a sea cave nearby where castle waste were likely to come out.

So they went to the cave; i thought of something interesting that could be in a sea cave mouth, and came up with some frog people. The players then wondered about the religious habbits of these creatures. I went with the first that came to mind which they were able to neatly exploit.

Then while traveling up the cave river I thought it would make sense to introduce some green slimy stuff consuming organic material. I had no idea if or how they would be able to get to the other side of this. They did admirably.

Once they entered the castle, I decided they would find the presumed regent had died, and that their underage heir had keept this info from the people. This came to me at an inspired moment when it struck me that this was a ploy that would make some of the previous issues the players had observed actually make more sense.

So absolutely nothing minding the party composition at all, but rich situations a proactive group can easily engage with.

And all of this is what most of the DW-specific GM agenda and moves are about. There are many of the agendas and moves you didn't follow, but this seems to use a fair number of them, and you certainly don't need to use every one in every adventure. You had a "map" in your head that you left blank in places, allowing you to create a sea cave as you needed it instead of rigidly adhering to a single floorplan, and offered them an opportunity to use it instead of the more rigorously defended castle sewer system. You gave the monsters life by creating frog-folk religion instead of keeping them as nothing more than bags of hit points to be killed. You thought dangerous by including the green slime, which isn't a monster to be killed the traditional way. You spoke an unwelcome truth by revealing that the heir had been keeping secrets.

 

[Enrahim]

Neither of these were combat situations.

Well have I ever run a "combat" (technical term) without using the rules for "combat" (technical term)? No because the technical term is defined by usage of the rules. What I did reply to was:

So when the players decide they want to attack, you look at the situation and decide that they don't have to enter combat?

The context here was a claim that D&D had a in fiction trigger for a rule system(technical term)

Yes there was a situation where there was an in fiction attack that did not trigger combat(technical term). And there was an instance where combat (technical term) was entered without there being any in fiction attack.

In the first one, the PCs chose to retreat rather than attack or roll for initiative.

No, the PCs didn't chose to retreat instead of rolling initiative. I decided on the attack to not immediately call for initiative, but rather ask players for what their characters intended to do. Then, based on the PCs desission to retreat I chose to not call for initiative. If initiative had been triggered by attack in fiction, there would have been a chance of the goblin fiering another shot before the characters got away. It was I as GM that made the decission to not apply that tool in this instance.

The above was my main point. The rest of the post is just adressing the rest of the misconceptions about my previous post, just to not let them stand uncorrected.

In the second, there were no hostile intentions; you instead used the narrative to trigger a specific type of countdown, using the initiative system. So neither of these are what I'm talking about.

Nope. The rules and structure I used was spesifically those under the combat section defining the technical term "combat". There is no "countdown" rules using initiative system in D&D.

Did you have the player roll to attack? If so, then you the player entered a combat situation because of a narrative trigger. Combat doesn't have to be to the death, after all. If you let it happen without rolls (either initiative or attack), then the players narratively worked out their combat without the need for rolls.

Nice try. You said "enter combat". That has a well defined meaning in the context of D&D. It do involve rolling initiative. I have called for attack rolls in any number of non-combat situations.

That also likely wouldn't be combat, unless the farmers were actively fighting back--but "execute" doesn't indicate that (at least that's not the image I have when it comes to an execution). In a narrative game, the GM would likely just let the execution happen, since that's unlikely to trigger a move. Unless the game or playbook has a specific "when you execute someone..." type of move.

They did fight back, trying to defend themselves. The chances of them succeeding to even depleat any meaningful resources in the process was basically non existent tough.

 

[Micah Sweet]

So why does it bother them so much to learn that other people have taken those methods of play and given them a name?

I don't think you've hit the mark on what's bothering trad players here, but if you're right, maybe they just prefer a more casual, DIY style.

 

[Micah Sweet]

To be fair, a decent portion of the earlier epoch of this thread was Robert Conley going into detail on his highly prepped, “living world” games; I have absolutely no desire to dip into that well again.

Too bad, I love that guy's work, pretty much his entire philosophy really.