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

[Paul Farquhar]

Ok, I reread the passage where you described the situation (post #5318 for reference). Indeed there is more meta than what I remembered. The question is: Would you have been more happy if you actually got to play out the failed bribery and reasoning attempt with the guard?

I wasn’t there, but if the account is accurate, I would have to conclude that the DM was wrong. The player controls the actions of their character, that includes doing things that are stupid if they choose to.

This is where simulationism comes in: in the real world, there is nothing preventing me walking up to a guard (such as a police officer) and attempting to bribe them. That would most likely lead to me being arrested, so the same thing happens in the game.

If I was in the particular situation described, I would politely leave the game. I’m not going to play if I’m not enjoying myself.

 

[clearstream]

What sort of simulation are you running with D&D that you can't run with (say) T&T? Or to put it even more bluntly, what sort of simulation are you running with D&D, that is distinct from just playing a RPG where the GM makes up most of the fiction?

Generally, D&D defines fictional kinds for a set of possible imaginary worlds. Some of those kinds are parameterised for use in play connected with sub-systems that drive narration (saying what follows from system and fiction.) That ordering of the imaginable space is productive in play.

There are mechanics for both weather and dodging in D&D and RQ, and there are no mechanics for dodging and weather in WHFRP... the objection isn't that D&D lacks candidate simualtive mechanics by simple enumeration. It's that some posters say that D&D mechanics do not give enough information, because they resist grasping how those mechanics are intended to work.

To my count D&D provides over two hundred candidate simulative mechanics, such as Weather, Environmental Effects, Fear and Mental Stress, Posion, Siege Equipment, Breaking Objects, Illusions, Malnutrition, Suffocation... etc.

D&D simulationist play is unlike FKR in that it is not entered into from a mechanical tabula rasa. It is the implementation and completion of those mechanics through DM as lusory-means that produces the distinct play. The way I understand your three (or as I suggested, four) categories is that "each approach is a special case of the approach(es) with a higher number than its own" lets in that the mechanical system itself can include a role for GM (seeing as (1) is a special case at one remove from (3).) I'm not sure that you intended this.

Upthread I said I wanted to dig into whether there was any reliable way to identify simulative versus non-simulative mechanics. Barring that, I think it is impossible to exclude D&D as simulative (the proposed exclusion of D&D rests on contended assumptions about what kinds of mechanics are counted simulative.)

 

[gban007]

Ok, I reread the passage where you described the situation (post #5318 for reference). Indeed there is more meta than what I remembered. The question is: Would you have been more happy if you actually got to play out the failed bribery and reasoning attempt with the guard?

In that case that paint this situation in a slightly different light. Still, from your description there is a bit of ambiguity. You are as a player told that the guard is ubribeable due to their loyalty being absolute. Do this player knowledge prevent the character from presenting a bribe to the guard? I could imagine a social dynamics where this is indeed in effect a veto, but that is not an obvious given.

Another interpretation would be that those summaries of the guard being unbribable and not possible to reason with was indeed a summary of your character's" conclusion after extensively having tried to bribed and reasoned with them. That is that in fiction your character action declaration was fully carried out (not vetoed), but it was decided to not be *played out. Such pacing techniques is in my view well within standard GM responsibilities, though I tend to be more explicit about it. "After offering the guard all you are willing to depart with, you are stuck with the feeling the guard has some extreme, misguided, loyalty that make them impossible to reason with"

Anyway, if you description is precise I agree something feel a bit "off" in this situation. I can even read it as an implicit veto against a character action. This veto seem benevolent in nature though. From what you write I guess you agree that you insisting on playing out the failing bribery and reasoning attempt would be considered disruptive player behavior? The implicit veto was simply in giving you as player the information you didn't have that made you recognise that it would be disruptive. As you were a good player, you got the picture, and no explicit veto was needed.

In this sense it is not that different from the more standard example of you saying something in character that the GM points out the character might not know, or know to not be true. For instance your character exclaims "There are no pink elephants!", and the GM points out that your character might not be so confident about that notion as you might think.

Is this a GM veto of a character action? Perhaps? And in that case I indeed believe I have been the source of numerous such vetos trough informing the players about facts of the world as they become relevant for proposed actions.

But if this is what constitutes a veto, then I think the overwhelming majority would indeed like the GM to use that veto power. I think most are grateful for being stopped from declaring something that their characters should know is foolish. I also think many would be happy to get the information needed to stop them from spending hours pursuing leads or approaches the GM very well knew was doomed from the start.

I dont know. I didn't really read @EzekielRaiden example ike that. Being told they are unbribeable - yes I think that is fair, outlining what the character would know. But saying they can't be reasoned with when all the background stuff suggested there should be a reasonable chance of reasoning with them? That didn't feel like something the character would know, instead ran counter to what character would know, like if chose sailor background in 5e and in known port and DM said no sorry you can't use your background feature here to get on ship - it runs counter to established fiction.
Now there may be a reason for it, but in this instance I think I would at least allow attempt to reason, even if no roll, and it may allow for some dropping or hints as to why can't reason with them, otherwise it feels like a railroad where if not choosing the correct solution, you are locked out, and nothing benevolent in that.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Now I think we are starting to tickle the real subtlety of "absolute power".

A school kid come to school with their new cool toy. They let their friends play a bit with it. This sharing is a nice bonding exercise. All the while though, the kid owning the toy provide clear instructions about what they find ok to do with the toy, and rapidly shoots down any idea the friends might have that they are worried might damage their toy. The friends, being good friends do not question or push, but immediately defers to the owner of this toy whenever they voice any opinion regarding this toy's use.

In what sense can this kid been said to have power over their toy? Can any of their friends be said to have power over the toy? Is the feature that noone are in a position to question the kid's ownership and related rights regarding the toy sufficient to call the power of ownership absolute? Or is the fact that the kid temporarily handed over some limited control to their friends a demonstration that their power of controll isn't absolute? Are even the two questions contradictory? Might it be that the kid holds absolute power over the toy in one sense, but not in another?

And in all cases is it hard to see how the act of sharing their toy, even if it might be in a very limited sense, might be a very strong expression of a wish for feeling like they belong?

Questions in order:

1. Their power is absolute, as you have presented it. They get whatever they want, with regard to the toy.
2. No, as you have said, the players explicitly have no power whatsoever. They immediately concede anything the owner desires, no matter what.
3. I would argue yes, specifically because of how you presented this. The others cannot question--period. Immediate and total concession in all cases.
4. They did not hand over any control--because of how this was constructed, "immediately defers...whenever they voice any opinion regarding the toy's use", "provide clear instructions about what they find okay". They have complete, total control over everything which happens to the toy (within the limits of physics etc., I hope we won't bog down into technicalities on that front). The other people are simply able to witness it in action, and possibly be the hands which implement an action--but they can do absolutely nothing without explicit approval of the owner.
5. I don't see them as contradictory; the answer is the same, just not the answer I can infer that you were expecting.
6. No. The owner holds absolute power. The other kids have none.
7. I do not see this as "sharing" the toy at all. They are permitting other children to witness the toy, perhaps to touch it or move it, but otherwise, they are simply extensions of how the owner desires the toy to be used. They are a means for the owner's ends.

Now, separately, we have the question of "might [this act] be a very strong expression of a wish for feeling like they belong"? And to that, I again answer no. This does not read, at all, like a child trying to belong. It reads, fairly transparently, like a child displaying their superiority. "Look at this awesome toy I have. You can see all the cool things it does. Don't even try to do something I don't want you to do though." And they have the instant, unwavering obedience of all of their peers.

As someone who in childhood often fervently desired to belong and almost always felt like I didn't belong, this is nothing at all like what desiring belonging looks like. Someone who feels like they don't belong, and strongly desires to, acts accommodating to the interests of others. Will, indeed, accept much suffering, if it will bring the feeling of belonging that they crave. Such a desire is at the root of a great many psychological disorders (consider eating disorders, for instance). I would suppress my own interests, fake responses or feelings, subject myself to experiences I disliked (sometimes intensely so!), and generally accept any demand or even abused piled on me if it meant I would keep the appreciation of those who offered it--and I know I'm far from alone in having that kind of experience.

Instead, the toy-owner is demonstrating: you desire to belong in my social group, because I have something that confers high status. Because you desire to associate with my high status, I have control over this situation; you will do as I say, and indeed immediately capitulate to any request I might make, simply because I make it. This is not a demonstration of a desire to belong with others. It is a demonstration of expecting others to want to belong with you. And that ordering is incredibly important. The former--the desire for belonging to a greater hierarchy or structure than oneself--necessarily involves casting off some part(s) of oneself in order to belong. It is a form of submission.

Hence why the converse, acceptance, is such a supremely valued element in human relationships. A person or group that accepts you, is one that does not ask you to change who you are in order to be connected in their group, in order to feel that you belong with them. Part of acceptance is recognizing that another person may not always be precisely what you would like them to be, but not judging them simply because of that. (Now, if their behavior is in fact harmful or counterproductive, that's another story.)

The toy-owner desires dominance, and expresses that quite effectively through being completely dominant over the interactions with the toy. The other children desire belongingness, and thus submit to the owner's desires. A toy-owner who accepted the other students--allowing them the freedom to act, but with the expectation that each use reasonable judgment in their use of the toy so that it not come to harm, and if it did come to harm, expecting recompense and apology from the child(ren) who caused that harm. That would be a child actually sharing their toys with others, rather than a child rigidly supervising the use of their toys by others.

 

[clearstream]

I think the Isekai thing is actually one of the most interesting challenges in rpg design.

You can of course get around it by having the players contribute to the setting. Another way is just to choose a genre and lean into it heavily.

But for more setting dense worlds (which I prefer) this is a bit of a challenge. There's a lot of rpg techniques to facilitate often in character creation - such as lifepaths being a notable one, or loresheets from Legends of the Wulin and Weapons of the Gods (which never really caught on).

This is one of the reasons I like historical settings. The players, even those without a huge amount of history knowledge know a lot more about Venice or France than they do about any fantasy setting.

This is also why I think a lot of arguments about whether the GM should allow Tieflings or stuff like that miss the point. If Tieflings don't fit your setting and a player wants to play one then you have already failed to communicate your setting (or to get basic buy in to the concept of the setting) which suggests that even if the player makes a new character there's going to be a lot of trying to communicate the setting in play.

The bigger challenge is, if you have a particular individual take on D&D that you want to promote is how to communicate it - eg when why when I ran my Silk Road China D&D game I stole the Icons from 13th Age as asking the players to create their characters with some kind of relationship or feelings about these important NPCs proved a quick and useful way to communicate key setting conceits.

Related to what you say, I find it very noticeable that the latest editions of both L5R and RQ both include a 'lifepath' process in character creation.

And I agree with what you say about allowing tieflings! If a player wants to play a tiefling when we set out to play RQ, we've probably missed some basic pre-game conversation and agreements. Switching to Bushido however, @EzekielRaiden's idea of allowing an oni is certainly more nuanced. An oni isn't a literal tiefling (there are significant differences) but (from the text) "Any entity (man, man-like being, intelligent creature, animal, spirit) that takes an active part in the Game is a Character" which I read permissively. I think a player could ask to play an oni and that could work in the Bushido setting.

 

[FrogReaver]

A person reading runes is also diegetic, it occurs within the world of the narrative. So now my episode with the strange runes is diegetic!

‘Runes cannot be read without first assigning them a meaning’.

How did they get assigned a meaning? In this case the player selected a meaning, rolled some dice and got a successful result. That’s the part that’s non diegetic that doesn’t occur in d&d. In d&d the player isn’t selecting the meaning of the runes subject to a successful die roll.

 

[pemerton]

I think the Isekai thing is actually one of the most interesting challenges in rpg design.

You can of course get around it by having the players contribute to the setting. Another way is just to choose a genre and lean into it heavily.

But for more setting dense worlds (which I prefer) this is a bit of a challenge. There's a lot of rpg techniques to facilitate often in character creation - such as lifepaths being a notable one, or loresheets from Legends of the Wulin and Weapons of the Gods (which never really caught on).

This is one of the reasons I like historical settings. The players, even those without a huge amount of history knowledge know a lot more about Venice or France than they do about any fantasy setting.

I put player contribution and the players' knowledge of history in the same basket, when it comes to understanding how RPGing works - because both remove the need for the player to ask the GM what they, as their PC, know and believe, and instead allow the player to rely directly on their own knowledge of the setting and their PC's place in it.

This is also why I think a lot of arguments about whether the GM should allow Tieflings or stuff like that miss the point. If Tieflings don't fit your setting and a player wants to play one then you have already failed to communicate your setting (or to get basic buy in to the concept of the setting)

100% this.

In my own experience, this sort of thing has played out in various ways. When I started my Torchbearer 2e game, set in the Bandits/Pale/Tenh region of Greyhawk, one player built this PC:

Golin, 43 year old Dwarven outcast - from a forgotten temple complex just inside The Pale. He is cynical and explosives-wise, and believes that explosive solutions are good solutions; he always looks for weak points in structures and mechanisms. As well as fighting, orating and Dwarf-y stuff, he is the group's cook. He carries a huge maul. His friend Vaxen (who may be the same personage as Vaccin?) is an alchemist from Jobe's tower; his mentor Grantham is a 7th level outcast; and his enemy is also called Golin, and cheated on the exams to get the best apprentice position. He is an orphan (or, at least, has repudiated his parents) and in memory of them wears an armoured glove worth 1D. He also wears galoshes as his raiment.

By default, I wouldn't have included a forgotten temple complex with a weird explosives cult. And of course the two Golins and the galoshes are a bit silly.

But it's not just my game. And as things turned out, the explosives cult inspired my particular take on the (Forgotten) Temple (Complex) of Elemental (Evil):

I've just written up the cults of the Forgotten Temple Complex; in addition to the normal tutelage that a temple provides (Theologian, Scholar), each provides tutelage in one or more relevant skills:

*Explosives (Fire, Air) - Alchemist, Cook

*Smithing (Fire, Earth) - Armourer, Jeweller, Smith

*Potions and Vapours (Fire, Water) - Alchemist, Enchanter

*Herbalism (Earth, Water) - Healer

*Wind and Sky (Air, Water) - Sailor, Survivalist

*Void (Air, Earth) - ??​

If the PCs try and spend a town phase in the Forgotten Temple Complex, they will have to join a cult first (Ob 3 Resources test) as their are no other accommodations (facilities are River, Shrine, Temple, Wall, Well).

Since that post, I've added Peasant to the Herbalism skill list, and Lore Master, Ritualist and Summoner to that for Void.

The evil NPC Golin has also figured in play, and was sinister, not silly.

On another occasion, when we started a Cortex+ Heroic Fantasy LotR/MERP game, I had written up PCs: a Dwarf, a Dunedan, a Noldor Elf, and Gandalf. One of the players asked if he could play Gandalf as a woman. I expressed a preference to stick to the more canonical version of Gandalf, and the player was OK with that. If he'd had a strong counter-preference, I guess I would have relented.

I see this as all being about getting on the same page, and establishing a shared understanding of the setting and the characters' place in it.

 

[pemerton]

I am sorry? I don't get the question? I have run several sessions simulating travel, fantasy life, diplomatic negotiations and various exploration expeditions, without any particular volience or dangers being in the cards at all. I think I would feel confident running a decent simulation of these armed with no support beyond the trad play structure.

Simulating for instance an armed conflict, or a delve into a dungeon known to contain dangers out to take you, I would not feel confident doing without the support of some pre-agreed upon rule for how to determine the severity of consequences beyond my own judgement.

What I don't understand is how these are simulations in any manner that is more particular than just playing a RPG.

I mean, when I play/GM Burning Wheel there is travel, life, negotiation, exploration etc. Likewise when I GM MHRP/Cortex+ Heroic.

But upthread I seemed to be told that my play is not simulationist. Why is it not?

 

[pemerton]

Generally, D&D defines fictional kinds for a set of possible imaginary worlds. Some of those kinds are parameterised for use in play connected with sub-systems that drive narration (saying what follows from system and fiction.) That ordering of the imaginable space is productive in play.

There are mechanics for both weather and dodging in D&D and RQ, and there are no mechanics for dodging and weather in WHFRP... the objection isn't that D&D lacks candidate simualtive mechanics by simple enumeration. It's that some posters say that D&D mechanics do not give enough information, because they resist grasping how those mechanics are intended to work.

To my count D&D provides over two hundred candidate simulative mechanics, such as Weather, Environmental Effects, Fear and Mental Stress, Posion, Siege Equipment, Breaking Objects, Illusions, Malnutrition, Suffocation... etc.

D&D simulationist play is unlike FKR in that it is not entered into from a mechanical tabula rasa. It is the implementation and completion of those mechanics through DM as lusory-means that produces the distinct play. The way I understand your three (or as I suggested, four) categories is that "each approach is a special case of the approach(es) with a higher number than its own" lets in that the mechanical system itself can include a role for GM (seeing as (1) is a special case at one remove from (3).) I'm not sure that you intended this.

Upthread I said I wanted to dig into whether there was any reliable way to identify simulative versus non-simulative mechanics. Barring that, I think it is impossible to exclude D&D as simulative (the proposed exclusion of D&D rests on contended assumptions about what kinds of mechanics are counted simulative.)

So D&D is simulationist, whereas T&T is not, because D&D includes weather rules? How many tables use those rules? To what end?

I mean, my Torchbearer 2e game features weather, environmental effects, PCs being Afraid, Angry, Hungry and Thirsty, Sick, Injured and Exhausted. Objects can (and have) been broken. Does that mean that my TB2e play is simulationist? Is simulationism now defined in terms of topics dealt with (in the rules, and/or in play)?

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Ok, I reread the passage where you described the situation (post #5318 for reference). Indeed there is more meta than what I remembered. The question is: Would you have been more happy if you actually got to play out the failed bribery and reasoning attempt with the guard?

Not really, no. Even if it were 100% purely diegetically presented--e.g. the guard puts up a perfect front and the player tries every plausible method and consistently fails no matter how high they roll--I would still have a problem with it, because it reads plainly as a violation of clear and established fiction. This is a priesthood all about defending faux-Egypt from external threats. The party has good evidence that an extreme external threat is imminent, and a person whose established backstory warrants some minimal degree of respect, even if that respect earns very, very little.

If I may, an alternative I would accept would be something like (summarizing, rather than presenting in "narration" as it were): The party speaks to a few different guards, several of whom are very standoffish or refuse to interact with the party in any meaningful way. Eventually, they find one who is very skeptical, but not so totally against any discussion--perhaps a pragmatic "if we let them think they had their say, they'll go away" kind of thing. So this guard arranges a purely informal, "this never happened" type meeting with a low-level functionary in the priesthood. That priest listens to what the party has to say, and then (without rolling) basically just stonewalls them, or maybe asks for conclusive proof, or something of the sort. In other words, the PCs were given a legitimate shot, they even got to kinda-sorta-ish speak with the priesthood proper, but they were still shut down. That would be good reason to think "hey, there's something really weird going on, these guys are supposed to be ALL ABOUT slapping down the enemies of Kemet with extreme prejudice, why are they suddenly demanding incontrovertible proof before they'll even look into it??" That would then, quite naturally, lead to an adventure to find out what the hells is going on with the Sutekh-Garyx priesthood--rather than a lead simply shut down with no explanation beyond "you have to trust me", it would actually show that even the priesthood itself is, or at least seems to be, behaving VERY weirdly and should probably be investigated.

In that case that paint this situation in a slightly different light. Still, from your description there is a bit of ambiguity. You are as a player told that the guard is ubribeable due to their loyalty being absolute. Do this player knowledge prevent the character from presenting a bribe to the guard? I could imagine a social dynamics where this is indeed in effect a veto, but that is not an obvious given.

Presume it makes no difference. The GM is narrating that their loyalty is absolute, so the characters know there's no point. How precisely they might have this knowledge is not, to my mind, particularly relevant.

Another interpretation would be that those summaries of the guard being unbribable and not possible to reason with was indeed a summary of your character's" conclusion after extensively having tried to bribed and reasoned with them. That is that in fiction your character action declaration was fully carried out (not vetoed), but it was decided to not be *played out. Such pacing techniques is in my view well within standard GM responsibilities, though I tend to be more explicit about it. "After offering the guard all you are willing to depart with, you are stuck with the feeling the guard has some extreme, misguided, loyalty that make them impossible to reason with"

I don't see how "not played out but fully carried out" doesn't still qualify as being vetoed. That's like saying a character can present all of their descriptions of how they attack an enemy in a combat, use up their resources etc., and then the GM says, "All of that fails. Next?" That's still a veto in my book.

Anyway, if you description is precise I agree something feel a bit "off" in this situation. I can even read it as an implicit veto against a character action. This veto seem benevolent in nature though. From what you write I guess you agree that you insisting on playing out the failing bribery and reasoning attempt would be considered disruptive player behavior? The implicit veto was simply in giving you as player the information you didn't have that made you recognise that it would be disruptive. As you were a good player, you got the picture, and no explicit veto was needed.

The point was precisely that it was something potentially (not guaranteed, but potentially) coming from an acceptable motive, but was (again, by construction) something that LOOKS really, really hinky. Like, in many other contexts, that exact action would be seen as pretty blatant railroading. Here, the player is giving the GM the benefit of the doubt, but (more or less) saying "it simply isn't acceptable to do this and then tell me 'you just have to trust me', that's ignoring my legitimate concerns and asserting that, simply because you're the GM, I have to go along with whatever you say no matter what."

In this sense it is not that different from the more standard example of you saying something in character that the GM points out the character might not know, or know to not be true. For instance your character exclaims "There are no pink elephants!", and the GM points out that your character might not be so confident about that notion as you might think.

I disagree--quite strongly, actually, because there the player is making a declaration while in ignorance, while here, the player was making a declaration specifically on the back of both GM-approved character backstory, and GM-established context and lore. That's a pretty significant gap, since your argument here is specifically deriving its force from the fact that the player is making a declaration of which the character is ignorant. Ranakht is not ignorant of the doctrines of the various priesthoods. He is not ignorant of his (extremely minor but nonzero) position in society. He is not ignorant of the desires and interests of the Hyksos to retain their authority and their influence in society. His proposal is confident because it is built on the back of substantial knowledge, not on a lack of information about alternatives.

Is this a GM veto of a character action? Perhaps? And in that case I indeed believe I have been the source of numerous such vetos trough informing the players about facts of the world as they become relevant for proposed actions.

But if this is what constitutes a veto, then I think the overwhelming majority would indeed like the GM to use that veto power. I think most are grateful for being stopped from declaring something that their characters should know is foolish. I also think many would be happy to get the information needed to stop them from spending hours pursuing leads or approaches the GM very well knew was doomed from the start.

Well, the point wasn't "GM knows this can't work and tells the player so". The point was that the GM knowing this can't work looks a hell of a lot like railroading. It's a plausible plan, supported by good evidence, and by other things the GM has explicitly approved and perhaps even allowed the use of in the past. A sudden reversal on something like that, without any explanation beyond "you just have to trust me", is a party foul.