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

[clearstream]

I mean, in a space opera, you're probably safe - FTL is such a genre cliche that you probably don't have to worry about players trying to fly their space ship to last week, but there are other situations in which this kind of thing can be an issue.

I wonder if genre conventions form a fourth type of fictional-fact? So that we end up with

Type-I facts - things true in our real world and in the imagined world

Type-II facts - things not true in our real world but true in the imagined world

Type-III facts - facets of things true in the imagined world, that are of kinds that match things true in our real world

Type-IV facts - things not true in our real world but normed as true in kinds of imagined worlds.

When a candidate type-IV fact is nominated, it meets with less resistance than it would were it type-II, even if it is otherwise no different from a type-II fact. You've identified another pay off in deploying type-IV facts: they seem to come with 'rules of engagement' in place.

 

[clearstream]

These are different, and understanding how they're different can be helpful in analysing RPG play - which can in turn help RPG design and RPG play.

What is behind the door? That's about revelation - and how revelations are handled is one important aspect of RPGing. Having players just decide is often not satisfying, if the revelation is meant to matter. Whether the revelation should be established independently of player concerns and conjectures, or rather by having regard for those, is a further difference in procedure that will affect the play experience.

Who wants to be crushed by the ogre this round? That's about adversity or (perhaps) consequence. In some RPG play, especially that focuses on combat, part of what the players are trying to do is manage adversity and consequence; so asking the players how to distribute it might be a bit deflating. On the other hand, whose rations do you cross off? asked in the context of adjudicating a difficult or lengthy trek would be pretty unremarkable. A combat system that works similarly to the rations example wouldn't be obviously bad.

What is the appropriate DC? is about expressing fictional states of affairs in mechanical terms. Having players input into this doesn't seem especially problematic for me, unless the DC is meant to reflect information known to the GM but not the players, in which case asking the players seems like an error.

Here drawing @Enrahim's attention to the Czege Principle. Roughly - "creating and running your own adversity isn't fun". From the internet

Ron Edwards' post that popularised it worded it as: creating your own adversity and its resolution is boring​

That was quickly amended by Josh Roby to: creating and running your own opposition isn't fun​

Ben Lehman worded it as: when one person is the author of both the character's adversity and its resolution, play isn't fun​

​

Avery Alder said: "there have been a wealth of amazing solo RPGs that have effectively challenged the Czege Principle. Creative answers have emerged to the question, "how CAN it be fun for a player to introduce and resolve their own opposition?"​

​

"One such creative answer is the Surprise by Complexity Principle, which says "when you create the adversity, you should not be sure you can solve it."​

A variant (that I don't know has been formulated but ought to be) is that "creating and running your own mystery isn't fun". To which of course there can be creative responses... perhaps some variant on the Apocalypse by Moonlight core mechanic.

 

[Lanefan]

Doesn't stop the argument by analogy from being a disanalogy.

Doubly so because people can literally, physically SEE you hurting someone else with a stick. Abuse of power is not directly visible. Triply relevant because the absolute-power "traditional GM" is specifically encouraged to hide their misbehavior from the players!

If someone's abusing power it - or its effects - almost invariably become visible pretty fast.

And again you do that same thing I keep complaining about and people keep telling me never happens: You are portraying this as a situation where there are only and exactly two extremes:

1. People who will never do anything wrong, so you should always trust them, and a failure to trust them is you being a bad player
OR
2. People who are determined to do the worst possible things, and thus you should get away as fast as possible.

The only ones we need to concern ourselves with in any significant manner are those who, when given authority, intentionally set out to abuse it. And despite the horror stories we hear, such people are in fact a relative rarity; similar to how we hear about loads of car crashes in the news and end up thinking cars must be deadly, meanwhile the VAST majority - as in way over 99% - of car journeys are completed without any incident whatsoever.

Further - and unlike the petty bylaw officer whose power has gone to his head but who you can't legally ignore - in an RPG setting you can always ignore the serious idiots by simply walking away.

The middle is feeling extremely excluded here. Your dichotomy is false. You can have someone who uses authority poorly without being, as you put it, "determined to abuse authority". You can have people who abuse authority thinking that what they're doing isn't abusive. You can have people who abuse authority thinking they genuinely have to, that there isn't any other way to make a good game. You can have people who abuse authority only in some specific circumstances, believing it justified when it isn't, but not doing it in most other situations where they correctly understand that it isn't justified. Etc.

And here we get into the topic of just what "abuse of authority" consists of, because I'm sure you and I see it quite differently. There's times IMO when some abuse of authority is or easily can be justified, either in the moment or in hindsight. Most of those other examples are of people who, once shown their errors, will either change for the better or join the significant few noted above.

There's also a missing "who cares, let it ride" element when it comes to minor stuff, as a lot of people just don't take their gaming that seriously.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

The only ones we need to concern ourselves with in any significant manner are those who, when given authority, intentionally set out to abuse it.

This is not only not true, it is literally something I've specifically asked about, in this thread, multiple times.

There are lots of other things worth looking at.

There's also a missing "who cares, let it ride" element when it comes to minor stuff, as a lot of people just don't take their gaming that seriously.

But this is just reiterating the "the only categories that exist are people who do no wrong, or people who specifically and intentionally set out to do wrong".

There are several other categories.

 

[Hussar]

You can repeat your personal requirements for a sim all you want and my answer isn't going to change. It doesn't matter if I named a dozen examples because it's obvious you'll just disagree.

"Personal requirements"? That's a bit rich. I mean, saying that a simulationist system should actually simulate something shouldn't be all that difficult.

So, let's see some simulationist systems where the mechanics provide no information for the narrative.

Given all the hoopla about 4e and dissociative mechanics, one would think that having mechanics in a sim leaning system that tie directly into the narrative would be a basic requirement.

But, that's the point. You can't actually name sim leaning systems that don't provide information for the narrative since that's the basic definition of a sim leaning system.

 

[Hussar]

How exactly do you think it will work? Can you point to one reputable source that contradicts it?

The speed of light is very much NOT relative to the observer. The speed of light is a universal constant. That's the POINT of the Theory of Relativity. The fact that you think that the speed of light is relative to the observer means that you really, really don't understand how the Theory of Relativity works.

 

[Hussar]

Are we doing science, or a craft?

When one is doing a math test, one is doing science. Being able to show your work is the basic, fundamental principle of maths or sciences.

 

[Hussar]

2. Speaking of fallacies—and I apologize if I sound antagonistic, it is not my intent—I think you are using circular reasoning as to why your definition of "simulation" is correct. This is my understanding of our conversation—please correct me if I am wrong:

• Me: Where is your definition of simulation coming from?
• You: Every simulation game in many decades satisfy this definition.

You formulated your definition because all simulation games satisfy that definition. But then how do you categorize a game as "simulation"? You use your definition. But where does your definition come from? The games you've decided are simulation. But then how do you decide if the game is a simulation? You use your defintion, and so on.

That's not circular. That's how all definitions are derived. Find a group of shared concepts, give it a name and that's the definition of that name. I didn't come up with the definition of simulation. I'm simply using it the same way that it's been used in usual parlance. In order of a simulation RPG to be considered a simulation RPG, the mechanics must provide some information for the narrative. That's what distinguishes a sim RPG from other RPG's. If the narration only comes post hoc, after the fact, in order to justify a largely arbitrary result that the mechanics have handed you, then it's not a simulation.

For evidence of this, I point to the rather large number of RPG's out there that are generally considered pretty heavily sim leaning. Every single time, these RPG's contain mechanics and systems which inform the narrative. That's how genre is always defined

 

[Enrahim]

When one is doing a math test, one is doing science. Being able to show your work is the basic, fundamental principle of maths or sciences.

Former math teacher here. No. Math is highly applicable to crafts of various sorts. I would have been really happy of a student consistently managed to get the right answer, even if they were completely unable to show their working. I would be even more happy if they were able to show their working.

But I would consider this significantly better than the majority that are able to perfectly well show how they get to the wrong answer.

 

[AlViking]

I guess you made a mistake in saying "everything looks normal" instead of "everything nearby, moving along with you looks normal". The galaxies you swish past certainly would not look "normal", and if you check out the cosmic microwave background you might find a very peculiar directionality.

Ah, I meant inside the ship itself. Yes, you would see different wavelengths of light which would look weird. I doubt you'd see much zipping by after you left the solar system because even at the speed of light it would still take over 4 years to get to the nearest star.