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

[pemerton]

I don't think it is practical, possible or even desirable to have a RPG where the GM doesn't to some degree make decisions that affect the direction of the game. It is just about under what sort of principles the GM operates when making those decisions.

What's more interesting to me is the hoops that people will jump through to try and argue that a player affecting the direction of the game can't possibly be plausible or logical or "simulationist" or whatever, even when - for instance - the likelihood of their character's conjectures being true directly tracks their character's degree of knowledge (as established by character build elements).

But what the mechanics do, is cause the player's conjecture to be right.

Yes. That's the point. If they didn't, then there would be no point having Cunning Expert be a thing, as there would be no way of representing the likelihood of an expert's conjecture being true.

That is not what happens in the fiction

Obviously.

that's why there is a disconnect between the player and character decision space. That is why it is completely different than killing orcs and whatnot.

There is no "disconnect" that is any different. I mean, we could have a RPG where the GM describes the bodily movements the Orc is making, and the player has to then describe their PC's bodily movements, and the GM adjudicates whether the PC has properly responded to the Orc's feint, footwork, parry, etc. But in most RPGs, instead the player just rolls a d20 and the success of their roll determines all these other facts about what the Orc does, how accurately their PC anticipates the Orc's bodily movements, etc.

The strange runes case has the same structure. It just treats time in a slightly different way - instead of anticipating the Orc, and that anticipation being correct because the PC is a skilled duelist who can predict their foe's movements, the PC anticipates what the runes will say when read, and that is correct because the PC is a Cunning Expert who knows what strange runes are likely to reveal.

 

[Micah Sweet]

What's more interesting to me is the hoops that people will jump through to try and argue that a player affecting the direction of the game can't possibly be plausible or logical or "simulationist" or whatever, even when - for instance - the likelihood of their character's conjectures being true directly tracks their character's degree of knowledge (as established by character build elements).

Yes. That's the point. If they didn't, then there would be no point having Cunning Expert be a thing, as there would be no way of representing the likelihood of an expert's conjecture being true.

Obviously.

There is no "disconnect" that is any different. I mean, we could have a RPG where the GM describes the bodily movements the Orc is making, and the player has to then describe their PC's bodily movements, and the GM adjudicates whether the PC has properly responded to the Orc's feint, footwork, parry, etc. But in most RPGs, instead the player just rolls a d20 and the success of their roll determines all these other facts about what the Orc does, how accurately their PC anticipates the Orc's bodily movements, etc.

The strange runes case has the same structure. It just treats time in a slightly different way - instead of anticipating the Orc, and that anticipation being correct because the PC is a skilled duelist who can predict their foe's movements, the PC anticipates what the runes will say when read, and that is correct because the PC is a Cunning Expert who knows what strange runes are likely to reveal.

Fighting the orc is abstracted. It isn't disconnected from the in-universe fiction.

 

[Maxperson]

I never said anything about their hopes. You said you don’t think an expert in their field would have a better theory prior to obtaining first-hand experience than you would be able to come up with.

Not without other information to go on.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

There is no "disconnect" that is any different. I mean, we could have a RPG where the GM describes the bodily movements the Orc is making, and the player has to then describe their PC's bodily movements, and the GM adjudicates whether the PC has properly responded to the Orc's feint, footwork, parry, etc. But in most RPGs, instead the player just rolls a d20 and the success of their roll determines all these other facts about what the Orc does, how accurately their PC anticipates the Orc's bodily movements, etc.

The strange runes case has the same structure. It just treats time in a slightly different way - instead of anticipating the Orc, and that anticipation being correct because the PC is a skilled duelist who can predict their foe's movements, the PC anticipates what the runes will say when read, and that is correct because the PC is a Cunning Expert who knows what strange runes are likely to reveal.

This obviously is not true. Causality is completely different in these cases. If the character attacks an orc and the orc dies from it, the causality is the same in both the fiction and the mechanics. This is not true for the runes.

And this is not a trivial matter, but one that will become apparent at the table, as the in-character and meta decision making diverge.

If a character who is a greedy and curious treasure hunter sees the runes, it might make sense for them to say: "I might not be an expert, but I've seen some runes on my adventures. I'll have a gander, mayhap these runes mark a location of a great treasure!"

Now in mechanics this means that the player of this character gets to decide what the runes mean on a good outcome, but as their skill is not as good, than the rune expert's they have a high chance for them to cause them to be something bad. But as none of this is true in the fiction, there is no reason fro the character to behave otherwise. What's the etiquette here? Is one supposed to play one's character like the world behaves like they think, or should we metagame and take the completely different reality of the rules into account? Will we perhaps now have a writers' room discussion between the players, where they decide what character's should hope and invent reason for the other characters to wait for the rune expert to examine the runes?

 

[AlViking]

What's more interesting to me is the hoops that people will jump through to try and argue that a player affecting the direction of the game can't possibly be plausible or logical or "simulationist" or whatever, even when - for instance - the likelihood of their character's conjectures being true directly tracks their character's degree of knowledge (as established by character build elements).

Yes. That's the point. If they didn't, then there would be no point having Cunning Expert be a thing, as there would be no way of representing the likelihood of an expert's conjecture being true.

Obviously.

There is no "disconnect" that is any different. I mean, we could have a RPG where the GM describes the bodily movements the Orc is making, and the player has to then describe their PC's bodily movements, and the GM adjudicates whether the PC has properly responded to the Orc's feint, footwork, parry, etc. But in most RPGs, instead the player just rolls a d20 and the success of their roll determines all these other facts about what the Orc does, how accurately their PC anticipates the Orc's bodily movements, etc.

The strange runes case has the same structure. It just treats time in a slightly different way - instead of anticipating the Orc, and that anticipation being correct because the PC is a skilled duelist who can predict their foe's movements, the PC anticipates what the runes will say when read, and that is correct because the PC is a Cunning Expert who knows what strange runes are likely to reveal.

Even as GM I don't change the fiction on the fly to help the characters. Once the session starts the fiction is fixed. I don't care if your games aren't like that, it would just be nice if you'd try to understand why it matters to some of us.

 

[hawkeyefan]

Not without other information to go on.

But that wasn’t what was said. Location and the like. Not full context, but enough to make an educated guess.

But either way… experts in their field tend to more accurately theorize or guess about details related to their field.

 

[gban007]

What does a simulation do?

It seems to me that the basic-english answer is, "It tells us how and why new things happen, when we put into it what things we already know about."

"How and why" precisely is what "simulation" does. We can't just wish that away by saying "well it's only for success so it's doing the only thing it needs to do".

This differs from my view of simulation.
My basic English answer would be, when we put into the things we know about, it will output what would occur in a real situation.
Whether it tells us how and why is less useful, but often a simulation model is built on understanding why certain things occur for certain inputs, to then replicate outcomes and ideally be able to come up with correct outcomes for set of inputs that hasn't been observed in real life yet.
But where it is only replicating known outcomes (like id argue some computer simulations do) we dont need to know how/ why, as was already built in model, we just want to know that outcome for given inputs.

 

[gban007]

Yes. Or at least I'm better at it than a pile of text.

And no, I don't think an archeologist is better at figuring out what some random piece of writing is than I am without reading it first. That piece of writing could be a grocery list, poem, a request for aid or a billion other things. That's why they work so hard at translating things and don't just guesa.

Without a Rosetta stone though, the initial transactions would sometimes require conjecture i believe. This symbol is here often, so more likely a vowel equivalent. This set of letters is often found on toilets, so likely indicates something to do with toilets, and can build from there.
While I have an issue around describing an archeologist as hoping runes mean something, and that driving any likelihood of it being so, I think you could fairly describe an archeologist as conjecturing runes mean something based on context, and it being so.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

But is that a diegetic sound?

I don't think it is practical, possible or even desirable to have a RPG where the GM doesn't to some degree make decisions that affect the direction of the game. It is just about under what sort of principles the GM operates when making those decisions.

You won't hear me argue otherwise. As for the diegetic argument, you may notice my distinct absence.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Right, which is why I narrate all player actions as the outcome of a small army of bugs that follows them around, puppeting their PCs, and they nod along.

Do you need to enjoy congratulationing yourself for seeing through the matrix here, or could you do that somewhere else, so we can get on with figuring out why we like these games?

Mmmmm, that was a butter knife!