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

[hawkeyefan]

"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."

That very clearly says that if you don't think about your play with deep introspection, you can't expect to be taken as seriously as those who do.

It's a judgment that one way is superior to the other. Perhaps @TwoSix didn't intend it to be that way, but that's how it was written.

No, it’s judgment that devoting more time and effort to analysis of play leads to views that are more fully backed by analysis.

There is no “narrativist vs. simulationist” angle at play. It’s just talking about thinking about play in a deep way.

I don't need some deep understanding of other games and styles of play to have valid and serious opinions about how D&D plays. I do try to understand other styles from the rules that are quoted here from time to time, and I make an effort not to get them wrong. If I didn't, though, to just dismiss my opinions because of a lack of "deep introspection" would be wrong. I would still know D&D well enough to have valid and serious opinions.

I don’t think anyone would challenge your understanding of D&D, or your thoughts and opinions about it. Even if someone were to disagree with you about a given opinion, I don’t think anyone would say that you’re somehow ignorant when it comes to D&D.

But when it comes to RPGs overall, that’s less true. And one of the elements of analyzing RPGs necessarily means analyzing games other than D&D.

The phrase "deep introspection" sure does seem like code for "agree with me".

Or, quite possibly, it means what it says.

 

[Faolyn]

You can think critically about what you are designing without the kind of deep introspection folks like @pemerton and other Narrativists devote to it. What requires you to write academic essays about game theory in order to write a new subclass or a few monster statblocks?

Doing so actually requires you to understand the material (or else produce junk). And to understand the material, you need to think about it.

So do you need to write an essay? No. But that means trad gamers who are actually designing and producing trad game material have put in as much thought as the people who design and produce narrativist game material did. ...Unless you're saying that most trad game material is junk. Which I don't think you're doing.

 

[Enrahim]

Here's quite a big list of adventures for DW. I have an entire book of adventures for Monster of the Week called the Tome of Mysteries. There's a book of adventures, Nephews in Peril, for Brindlewood Bay, that's been sitting in my Drivethru wishlist for a while, and that's an even less mechanically-structured game than PbtA. There have apparently been podcasts about how to use pre-made adventures with PbtA games. I've seen links to fanzines and itch.io pages that have adventures for other PbtA systems.

There aren't a lot of pre-written adventures for PbtA games, after all. Or even for most non-D&D systems in general.

 

[Faolyn]

Does that mean you think there are no differences in gamestyle, just whether or not they write down definitions of what they're doing?

I've already answered this multiple times.

If a GM decides to slam a portcullis down, thus splitting the party in two, they're separating them. It doesn't matter if the actual game is AD&D or DungeonWorld, except that Bend Bars, Lift Gates is a part of Strength in one game and a fighter move in the other.

 

[Faolyn]

Nope. They look at what seem to go on in trad game, think they can codify it to produce the same behavior, and miss that the codification actuactually prevents the process that is actually going on in trad games.

And this right here tells me more than anything you honestly don't understand PbtA/narrative games.

 

[Faolyn]

@Enrahim, is that supposed to be a gotcha or something? There are some published adventures for PbtA games. There are thousands of published D&D adventures. I didn't say there weren't any.

 

[Enrahim]

Is it really so hard to accept that you did typical GM things, and that someone thought deeply about what typical things GMs do and wrote them down?

No. I did a typical DMing thing. I just point out that if indeed that was what the DW people tried to do they did a quite bad job out of it when they wrote down the list of principles.

I am pretty sure what they actually did was to look at a particular kind of game they liked, thought deeply about typical things the GMs of that particular style of game do, and wrote that down.

I see noone but you making claims that what they are doing is somehow capturing the entire width of D&D experiences.

Continuation on side note:

The point is, you added something dangerous to the world. You did so in order to hinder the PCs' movements and weren't sure they could get past it ("I had no idea if or how they would be able to get to the other side of this. They did admirably.") That's thinking dangerously.

No, it is not according to the description of "thinking dangerously" in DW. You correctly quote my intention: hinder progress. Thinking dangerously involve the intent of endangering something. The situaton didn't put anything or anyone in danger, any more than narrating a railway station. After all it would be dangerous if any character surprisingly decide to jump onto the tracks.

 

[Enrahim]

@Enrahim, is that supposed to be a gotcha or something? There are some published adventures for PbtA games. There are thousands of published D&D adventures. I didn't say there weren't any.

Neither did I. In context "absence" reflects back on your statement about "aren't a lot". I guess I could have been clearer if I had added "relative" before "absence" or something like that, but didn't think that was neccessary for comprehension. (It is part of the story that I myself dont know any of these adventures from before. I am not surprised by their existence though)

My reply was not a gotcha, but rather clearly showing the context of my reply.

 

[Enrahim]

And this right here tells me more than anything you honestly don't understand PbtA/narrative games.

Are you telling me that in PbtA you actually have the GM using the various player moves as tools they can invoke at will, and treat the fictional trigger descriptions merely as guidelines?? That would indeed be eye opening and surprising given all the seemingly contradicting claims I have heard.

 

[Maxperson]

I think you may have misinterpreted what @TwoSix was saying.

The point being made wasn't about in-game play involving deep introspection, it was about using out-of-game deep introspection to analyse the way you already play/DM.

No, I understand. Why would I need to do a deep delve into how I play in order to be able to have valid opinions about what I like and dislike about my style of play? Why does the deep introspection by someone else mean that I shouldn't be taken seriously?

The answers are, my opinions are valid, and those who dismiss my opinions because they do deep dives into their play are being arrogant and One True Wayist. Deep introspection isn't the One True Way.