Huh? How do the PCs perform actions without the "outside" influence of the players declaring them? How do the PCs form beliefs about their surroundings without the "outside" influence of the GM telling the players what their characters can see? Etc.
D&D General [rant]The conservatism of D&D fans is exhausting.
- Thread starter Reynard
- Start date
The Firebird
Commoner
It seems obvious to me that in the spear case Y depends on X. In the spear case, P(Y|~X) is 0; there cannot be a dodge if the spear is not thrown. Not so in the runes case, where they may be a way out regardless of whether they are read.
Likewise we can reasonably say "the spear throw caused the character to dodge (or to fail to dodge)". But that construction doesn't work for the runes.
Enrahim
Hero
Oh. I almost misread you there. I first tought you were talking about general play of the rpg, but you are apparently talking about the particular instant of play. This changes my answer.
Do you remememer some hundred pages ago how you rejected my attempts of reading something GNS-like into individual moments of play? You appeared to argue that GNS was working on a more holistic basis, needing to take into account all of play.
I think something similar is at work here. I don't think it is possible to take @clearstream 's concepts of simulationistic experiences and usefully translate that to a way to label an isolated moment of play as "simulationistic". The obvious attempt of such a translation is "Can a player have one of the simulative experiences in this moment of play?". However with such a criterion even then play of making a move in tick tack toe could be labeled "simulationistic". Two players might be playing as a side activity to pass the time waiting for their turn while playing a highly immersive rpg, and tick tick toe is so second nature to them that they can perform the moves without breaking immersion. This just as many report rolling a dice is not immersion breaking for them.
I cannot see any good coming out of labeling this move in tick tack toe "simulationistic". And as such I do not want to take a stance on if the incident of reading the runes can be labeled "simulationistic". As with the tick tack toe play it clearly happened in an environement that could produce simulationistic experiences the way clearstream describe. However as apart from tick tack toe, there are merits to this situation that possibly could open it to be usefully labeled "simulationistic" via some other labeling scheme I cannot recognise right now.
I hope this answered your question?
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Enrahim
Hero
I do not want to be associated with that claim.
For one thing, it is far from obvious to me that (i) and (ii) is applicable to the situation.
Another thing is that (ii) appear to be (modified) GNS, which I do not like being mixed into the context of clearstream's experiences.
A third thing is that you are apparently here trying to take these experiences and associate it with instances of play (see my prolonged reply to that above).
A fourth thing is that you appear here try to take a GNS concept and apply to an instance of play- something you way upthread pointed out to me shouldn't be attempted.
Mod Note:
Your rhetoric is right at the edge of acceptability here. You might want to dial it back to a more civil level.
EzekielRaiden
Follower of the Way
That word certainly set a tone, but it was not the only contributing factor.
Well, some of it was in that, and some was in the phrasing surrounding it (e.g. "whenever they voice any opinion"), and in the instantaneousness of it, but it was also reinforced by the responses after.
This may be a critical miscommunication. I see a difference between the non-owner children proposing something (and then immediately getting shot down), vs pushing back against something the owner has said. Commentary and criticism on the owner's opinions are, necessarily, forms of pushback. They represent someone speaking for their own preferences and interests without immediate obedience. Now, that doesn't mean that pushback requires active action. The other children could pause--keeping the toy in an unobjectionable state--while they make their case that no, the owner's opinion on X specific issue isn't well-formed or isn't applicable or (etc.), and thus the other child(ren)'s opinion should hold sway.
I mean, sure, but the point was that there was symmetry between what I had already said, and the example you were giving here. I wasn't meaning that to say "SEE THIS IS WHAT YOU SAID ALL ALONG". Instead, it was to say that in your effort to provide an analogy that, I presume, you expected me to say "no, that isn't absolute power", you did in fact replicate exactly what I had said before.
I stand by my position that, but for your claim that it is solely and exclusively people "being good friends", it simply does not read as such. Hence my counter-claim that declaring that something is X, while giving good evidence that it is not-X, is reason for someone to say, "But you clearly made it something that isn't X, just calling it X does not make it so."
Well, firstly, I think it's important to address some of the...let's call them "side" conversations that came up along the way.
One of the things you brought up was the idea that every child in this scenario was also a toy-owner, who would also have the same declarative ability regarding the use of their respective toys. I think that reveals a pretty serious fault of the overall analogy, namely that it means the analogy is dependent on the assumption that all of the children are peers in every functional way. All of them have (non-fungible) equivalent toys, and all of them can participate in exactly the same way. That is simply, flatly, not true of the "traditional GM" model of TTRPGing. Quite the opposite. Hence why I had made the assumption, which I felt was valid but you did not, that the toy-owner is of special status.
Because, moving back to the "traditional GM" model...yeah, the toy-owner not only does have special status, the thread has made very clear that they are claiming that special status. That the GM can "pull rank"--meaning there is a hierarchy, with the GM at the top and the players at the bottom. If the toy-owner/other-children model completely and totally excludes any conception of hierarchy, then it may miss out on extremely important details, and thus produce false results. (I very much believe that it does produce false results, which is part of my pushback against the notion that this is ONLY happening because the friends are good friends and for absolutely no other reason.)
Secondly, as your own elaborations demonstrated, it's a hell of a lot more complex to "harm" a setting/campaign than it is to harm a physical toy. You were most vehement that the racecar should not be driven over ANY rough surfaces, only smooth ones or pre-constructed, pre-approved tracks. I don't know if you saw what I was doing there, but I was intending that to correspond to illusionism (the false perception that you can go wherever you want, when in actuality you're restricted to a pretty narrow slice of the world, namely, only clean, smooth surfaces) and railroading (literally being on a rigid track/path where the only results that can happen are those that the person with authority has approved). Again, this pointed to the idea that the toy-owner child wasn't really allowing any risks to occur.
But then, when we actually got to talking about things, you indicated that the players could make changes--perhaps even permanent, wide-ranging changes that the GM might not like, but would accept if they were done in the right way. That, to me, conflicts with your depiction of the toy-owner's behavior--and thus creates another important point of disanalogy. "Harm" is concrete when it's about a toy--scuffed paint, physical damage, cracks, broken-off pieces, etc. It's extremely abstract, and thus difficult to quantify, with a setting. That introduces both problematic ambiguity (what if the GM has an extremely restrictive view on what constitutes "harm" while the players have a loose view, or vice-versa?), and the aforementioned possibility of an action that is only acceptable or unacceptable depending on how it is done, not on what the action actually is, which can't really occur with a physical toy (or at least I'm struggling to conceive of a way that it could happen).
Sure. But you had given in the example that the server was able to do that. Perhaps it's late, or you're there on Christmas Eve when most other families are celebrating at home. (For example, I'm given to understand it is semi-traditional in the United States for Jewish families to eat at Chinese restaurants on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day, because Christmas doesn't really do much for either of them, they have other holidays.)* PS: My resturant experience is that it is very rare indeed to be instantly served by a waiter. Too many other customers that is competing for their attention. My power definitely do not feel absolute among so many kings
EzekielRaiden
Follower of the Way
Okay.
Do you think most players would view it that way? That if you were introducing this style to someone new, they would view it that way?
Imagine someone whose only exposure to D&D is seeing Honor Among Thieves and good episodes of an actual-play podcast (doesn't have to be Critical Role but that's the most likely one), so they're excited to play the "real thing". Would you expect them to take that attitude?
Because that--to me--is the crux here. Something SEVERAL people have used as a criticism of "narrative" games, both in this thread and elsewhere, is that they depend on the group already being highly aligned in terms of both what they want out of the experience, and what things they're expected to accept without comment. But now, with this argument, that seems to be no different for the "traditional GM" approach. That also requires the players to be highly aligned with what they want out of the experience, and even more about what things they're expected to accept without comment.
If you're relying on pre-existing understanding, if that's supposed to be something that generally applies--which the people who have upvoted you seem to be saying--then doesn't that rather weaken several of the arguments already made?
NGL, this is--or at least really obviously reads like--you saying that the campaign can't actually matter to people like me. That's pretty insulting. Imagine if I had said something like "In games where the players really matter, enthusiasm is vitally important to the GM as well as to the players." I'd have you guys jumping down my throat--and rightly so. This is sorta what I mean about the "double standard" I've mentioned previously. Wrong things, even hurtful things, are totally okay...when they come from one specific side.
The campaign matters to me, immensely so. It matters to my players. They have, in fact, also praised me for how consistent and well-built it is, that it makes sense, that people have understandable motives and act on them in reasonable ways, that it has a cohesive concept and direction, that there have many times where they failed to connect the dots when they absolutely could have, and that cost them--and other times when they connected the dots better than I did, and thus it benefited them.
But I haven't poured my heart and soul into really, frankly minor things like "this setting ABSOLUTELY CAN'T have gnomes" or whatever. I've put it into the themes of the campaign. Dragons are rare in the Tarrakhuna (as much a limitation on myself as on the campaign). Demons and Devils are powerful and dangerous--you don't mess with them without a good plan. Celestials...nobody knows for sure! (Well, the party does now, but originally they didn't.) Genies are the fantastical powerful species du jour. It's what I call a "chiaroscuro" world--like the painting technique, which emphasizes the few lighted, colorful things against pitch-dark shadows.. There are plenty of bright things. There are also dark shadows, and some pretty terrible stuff happens in them some of the time. Those shadows lengthen, deepen, intensify--and may snuff out the light, if no one works to maintain it. There may be assassin-cults and twisted abominations of ancient evil magic and the leftover detritus of a collapsed-and-fled genie empire built on the backs of mortal slaves. There may be horrible addictions and callous merchant-princes and tyrannical rulers. But there is hope--both in the form of heroes willing to step up to the plate to make a difference, and in the ordinary people who make those heroic acts possible, and who knit together the resulting aftermath into something that can stand the test of time (rather than being a flash in the pan, bound together only as long as a hero can hold it).
That, to me, is what a "game where the campaign really matters" looks like. That's the deeply important structure getting the attention it deserves, as far as I'm concerned. I just flat-out don't understand why "you ABSOLUTELY CANNOT play gnomes" or "bards are FORBIDDEN" in any way contributes to the bones and muscles and organs of a setting. They're barely even skin-deep things. That doesn't mean they don't matter. But they're just...they're incredibly superficial as far as campaign-effort goes. To make such an ENORMOUS deal out of such superficial elements doesn't make sense to me. It's like obsessing over the font and kerning of a novel, as though that were of equal weight to the character-building or the editing.
clearstream
(He, Him)
It was the exploring and developing the conception that heightened appreciation. Were the stash of gold genuinely extrapolated from that, and not part of a separate pursuit of power over the game world, that would be one thing. I think the amount stipulated was 1,000,000gp? That seems less representative of anything concretely drow.*
I suppose it raises the question, can I fake a simulative experience? Certainly I can give false testimony, but I'm thinking here of whether insincerely dropping 1,000,000gp in from other motives would be incompatible with sincerely experiencing something simulationist?
*Taking the reference to mean that D&D drow are the subject, so that I can access objective standards for what drow treasures are like. The final treasure in Vault of the Drow comprises four well-hidden, heavily trapped chests
Chest 1 contains 11,230 g.p. and 3 packets of 12 applications each of the special dust of disappearance.
Chest 2 holds 4,389 p.p.
Chest 3 contains 20 potions and 8 scrolls (all clerical or of protective nature).
Chest 4 contains 37 pieces of jewelry set with gems (1,000 - 6,000 g.p. value each), a sack of 103 10 g.p. base value gems, a small pouch with 41 50 g.p. base value and 29 100 g.p. base value gems, and an ivory box (covered with an invisible contact poison which must be saved against at -6) lined with satin which holds 13 diamonds (base value 5.000 g.p. each) and a talisman of lawfulness.
Something over a quarter million worth in gold pieces. To me an unembellished 1,000,000gp doesn't enhance my appreciation of anything drow, but I agree that some sorts of treasures could.
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clearstream
(He, Him)
Without thinking of BW specifically, but a thought raised by some sorts of possible objections: suppose I hold both positive and negative requirements for what I'm willing to count as "simulationist"? So whereas I hold the positive requirement
I observe some sufficiency of game text articulating heuristics to be incorporated into the cognitive processes of play in light of other text such as principles and examples that are productive of any of immersive, noetically satisfying, explorative or investigative experiences of a subject when used in accord with its principles and for that purpose
I also hold the negative requirement
I observe some scarcity of game text etc... counter-productive to any immersive etc...
And this is because such text can act to spoil or shatter the play-world itself. This might better explain how folk like @Hussar select the games they preference as "simulationist". For them, D&D is excluded even if the weather mechanics are simulationist, because they see other text that spoils their experience. I put that down to their resisting the game's principles for how that text is to be successfully used.... but I think the point stands, because that text still spoils their experience.
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EzekielRaiden
Follower of the Way
Okay...but...MANY participants in this thread have specifically said that that's an essential part of that authority. Enforcing constraints in terms of "pulling rank" over players asking to play a race the GM didn't originally plan for, for example. In-fiction integrity looks, to me, like it is at least an overwhelming majority of "bright line" type stuff, with at best a moderately-sized minority of bedrock-level stuff--most of which is in the form of things like "don't declare you have laser eyes" or the like, aka, expecting that players respect the tone and theme the game is using.
I'm not sure what you mean by "mystery" in this context. And, on reflection, I'm not super sure what you mean by "setting exploration", either.
Do these things just mean that the GM hides information until the players say the right things (possibly backed up by rolls) for it to be revealed to them? That seems rather...thin, so I suspect there's more to it, but I'm not sure what it would be.
Right. In general, I expect most groups to resolve a disagreement by discussing it collectively (perhaps after first having smaller private conversations first), weighing opinions, and agreeing to a particular course of action; slight deference would naturally be given to GM opinion,* but even though their position is important and powerful, it's not without limits. Now, I personally think the "we HAVE to keep the game MOVING" example is drastically over-used, but yes, that is a concern that shouldn't be casually dismissed. (That said...if the rules were clear and well-written to begin with, there'd be fewer such arguments and thus less need to worry about needing to "keep the game rolling if this isn't really the
moment".)
*One might say that, in a group of four or five players and one GM, the GM has maybe the equivalent of two votes, and always wins in the event of a tie. That way, the GM can't just unilaterally ignore the players, but as long as the GM can convince even two people, not even half the players if there are five of them, they get what they want. And if the players are conversely unanimously overruling the GM more than extremely rarely, that's a good sign the group is dysfunctional and needs to do something different.
*One might say that, in a group of four or five players and one GM, the GM has maybe the equivalent of two votes, and always wins in the event of a tie. That way, the GM can't just unilaterally ignore the players, but as long as the GM can convince even two people, not even half the players if there are five of them, they get what they want. And if the players are conversely unanimously overruling the GM more than extremely rarely, that's a good sign the group is dysfunctional and needs to do something different.
