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

[Enrahim]

Differences abound.
1) the significance of the details being ‘filled in’. For example - What the runes mean is a huge detail whereas what causes you to fall is an extremely minor one.

Now you compare reading runes with falling. That is not fair.

How is the meaning of the runes determined in a trad RPG? Pay particular attention nothing prevents a DM from postponing making that decission until it has been verified that the characters actually decipher them. The fact that the procedure could allow for making this possibility collapse in advance, doesn't change the causality properties of the situation.

2) how the GM in d&d chooses the specific narration is done with the whole probability space in mind and if asked to pick will pick among the most likely outcomes and probably the most likely outcome (or roll for which of those). This is not the process for the narration of the GM or player in the runes example. There is a lower threshold of plausibility that must be met, but beyond that and a few other constraints nearly any outcome can be chosen for whatever reason one desires. So for the player it will be outcomes directly speaking to character goals, which is basically the whole point as that’s how player driven is achieved in these games.

Or said another way, if the GM in d&d chose significant outcomes the same way as the player chooses in the runes example, it would be straight up railroading.

This is part of my argument. Who say the players are not upheld to the same standards of taking into account the entire possibility space and plausibility treashold in this game, as a DM in D&D?

(Indeed standard advice in some modes of D&D is that the DM should let their preferences as to "coolness" or "entertainment value" affect how they pick the outcome. So your observation isn't even universal to D&D)

Your argument seem to make an assumption that might be sound, but is far from explicit in this case.

3) in d&d players don’t just achieve their intent (whatever it may have been) with an action declaration on a success. They succeed at a particular task. Now if players then self limit intents to ones that can be achieved via succeeding at a task, then they will achieve those intents, but that just goes to show the difference lies in the scope of intents they can choose and still have come true. The runes being an example of a much broader intent than would be allowed to come true in d&d just because the player succeeded.

Yes, I pointed out there is a difference in terms of what is resolved: success at a task vs outcome of a situation. This make the scope of possible questions that can be resolved broader for the second kind. However this alone do not imply any causality difference. The resolution has still the same form: One of two outcomes is selected among. The details of each outcome need to be selected among an innumerable number of possible detailed outcomes. This selection results in a de-facto collapse of possibilities in the fiction that do not have an in-fiction causal explenation.

The fact that for trad the questions answered this way is restricted to a particular form doesn't strike me as particularly relevant from a causality perspective. The success or not of a tasks can still have very wide ranging implications, as scope of "task" is not restricted. For instance in Birthright there are rules for letting the success of a entire diplomatic mission be resolved in a single roll. (IIRC)

 

[FrogReaver]

Process-simulation means that what is desired is that all significant features of the phenomena are associated with features of the game process that will be invoked to resolve it. There's also some sort of sensitivity to the process timeline's mapping to the imagined causal timeline, although as I've illustrated above this is very often so janky that it surprises me anyone cares about it.

Process-simulation has numerous fairly well known (or so I thought) weaknesses. Not least of which is a sort of blindness to what is actually going on at the table compared with what is imagined to be going on in-world. And failures to see narratives as such. There are also cost of implementation barriers that early designs fell afoul of. When one deconstructs process-simulation mechanics for analysis, one often reveals glosses or elisions and calls for human decisions that are supposed to be absent... it's seldom supposed that the mechanics text literally maps to what is going on in-world. Rather the mechanic sustains a pretence or self-deception that satisfies folk.

I take this to be a form of noetic satisfaction with the text and the process rituals which is of course a perfectly respectable simulative-experience. Implying that my account of "simulationism" applies to process-simulation. (I take it to.)

I think your use of ‘significant’ is a major weakness. How is significance determined?

That is, if I assert the meaning of runes are significant but what causes a fall is not then is that process sim?

 

[chaochou]

And noone told me! Are you saying that all those wonderfully moments I had, witnessing the cool ideas my players came up with unfold in my simulation, was us playing the game wrong?

Lots of players like railroads. Lots of Gms like running them. Lots of those same people pretend that's not what's happening, by calling it 'simulation' instead of 'GM control of all the outcomes'. Some of them liked your post.

The resulting play may make for 'cool moments' but the pretense that there's anything other than GM authorship happening makes for appalling analysis.

And who has faced most scrutiny of their play in this thread? Not you, despite your whinge. To me that looks like @pemerton who has the audacity to allow players to propose outcomes and roll to see if they happen.

The central difference in his play is the eschewing of GM control (via predetermination) of the meaning of the runes. But none of the 'simulationists' will come out and say so as that would rather give their game away.

 

[clearstream]

But in a TTRPG-specific context, it is almost exclusively generating things where we don't already know for sure what the outcome will be. That's...why we use it. So it will tell us. If we already knew without doubt what the outcome would be, we would just do it, and skip the rigamarole.

Doubts about what outcome should be imagined include deciding whose preferred or proposed outcome the group will agree to. That can be met in ways other than process-simulation.

 

[AlViking]

Sorry, going to break my answer into two parts because I have two different answers for you @Faolyn.

The more personal answer is that I do appreciate sim systems. I LIKE them. I've played a lot of them. GURPS, Palladium, Warhammer Fantasy, even a brief stint of Harn. And these systems, which everyone, I think, agrees are sim leaning, are different from D&D. And what generally for me differentiates them is that the systems guide the narrative. It's not "I just make stuff up" when you play these systems. That's WHY I play these systems.

So, to then be told that, Oh, well, no, sim is so much more than that. Sim is just synonymous with RPG. Because all RPG's have mechanics that determine outcomes, and all that is required for Sim is for mechanics to produce outcomes, then all the RPG's I like are Sim is very, very often the path that's trod. It very often comes down to tribalism. Sim=good. What sim actually is is a nebulous cloud of preferences that changes depending on the mood.

I'd prefer a more concrete definition than that. And, to me, the point that sim games share is that sim games produce guidance to the narrative beyond, "make naughty word up".

I don't think anyone is arguing that there are not other games that lean more into simulation. Meanwhile I'm primarily concerned about simulationism, the idea that the characters only interact with the world around them through their character, that the GM isn't regularly adjusting the fiction to make the game more "interesting". I'm also not concerned about simulating the nitty-gritty details like climbing a cliff, having a chart tell me why I fell is kind of meaningless to me. If it matters I, or the GM, can come up with a more specific reason after the fact. Instead I want to simulate the feel of being a character in a fantasy novel. Much like I went on a ride at Disneyland* that simulated space flight I don't care about how the ride worked, all I cared about was the experience and simulation of being in a spacecraft.

We just look for different things out of our games.

*We had "forever" tickets from long, long ago that we found packed away. Not sure I would have spent the money otherwise.

 

[Emerikol]

I don't think anyone is arguing that there are not other games that lean more into simulation. Meanwhile I'm primarily concerned about simulationism, the idea that the characters only interact with the world around them through their character...

I am not sure whether that is exactly what simulationism means to many here but for me the player only interacting with the world through his character is of primary importance. It is why I despise dissociative mechanics. So on that point I am 100% with you.

 

[AlViking]

I think you are laying out the case well if we indeed had been looking at the player mailing a decission about what outcome they prefered. However consider the following interpretation of the situatuation:

The characters find the runes. The player of the runes expert is asked what their character thinks the runes might be when observing them from afar. The player is the natural authority to ask such a question, and it ask about a here and now state - the mental state of the expert. No causality concerns are being violated here as far as I can see?

Now the expert's frame of mind is established as a fact in the fiction. The expert then proceed to read the runes. The potential outcomes of this action should take into account previously established fiction. The expert's frame of mind is such an established part of fiction. Further the expert's level of expertise seem relevant for determining how important this established part of the fiction should be in terms of determining outcome. No escape from fiction or break of causality happening yet.

Now the limitation of the shape of the rules present themselves. The single roll is only able to select among 2 different outcomes. That is that among the wast number of imaginable outcomes of reading the runes only two of them can be selected as possible at this stage. This is an enormous active colapse of any in-fiction probability distribution. How to decide which two outcomes to chose? Further remember that this roll is not in the game presented as determining success or failure, but to determine between a favorable and unfavorable outcome.

I have as such a really hard time seeing how you can justify not having the runes being read as the way the expert thought they might being one of the two possible outcomes. It would make sense that this is aligning with the side that is increased in probability by high skill. The other outcome the game appear to delegate to GM's discretion, but likely with some guidelines. (Edit - it could in particular be that the negative outcome should align with lower skill. In this case runes meaning something else than the expert expected seem to satisfy this criterion)

So here we do have a causality issue. A decission made outside the game collapsed the possibility space i the fiction in a way that cannot be accounted for in the fiction itself. But how is this different from the GM choosing exactly what to narrate on a success or failure in D&D?


And note, when ask about their character's assessment, the player could come with a corrupt answer. But a GM could also come with a corrupt answer to any of the judgement calls they are making. For purpose of analysis this game appear to assume players to be held to the same standards as a GM i this regard. As such this would be outright cheating the game, and not something that should be needed to be taken into account when analysing the game as it is meant to be played.

The fact that this was promoted as a good example of how the game works is, I think the main issue. In most narrative games that I've read up on, the player is filling in details but it's always things their character could logically have known and makes sense for the situation. For example the Pirates of Penzante have a weird habit of breaking into song as they are boarding a ship, perhaps they do it because they gain a minor blessing. Meanwhile you only have maps to a building in a public space where you expect a lot of foot traffic from people that have never been there and you want to be helpful. In a dungeon? If people aren't there by invitation the last thing you want is to help them find the exit. Along with, of course, I can't think of any logical reason anyone could possibly know what those specific runes were.

So I agree, this particular hope feels like cheating. It doesn't really matter that a player made the decision instead of a GM, it was such an obvious "Get out of jail the dungeon free" card that it wouldn't make sense in the established fiction to me.

 

[AlViking]

I know why it matters to you: you're playing a game where a principal goal is for the players to (i) learn what obstacles/challenges has placed into the setting, and (ii) overcome them.

That's not the issue.

This is no more "simulationist" than anything I'm doing. As I've posted upthread, it involves a lot of "author stance" - more author stance than is necessary and typical in most of the RPGs I GM, which are easily approached in "actor stance" because all the player has to do is declare actions as if they were their PC, without worrying about what the GM has authored and having to poke and prod at the GM's world to learn it.

I think @Enrahim just explained it better. It feels like the player was allowed to cheat, the runes being directions to the exit are something they could not have possibly known ahead of time and also make no sense in the fiction. See my response to it just above.

 

[AlViking]

I've been wondering if one can arrive at the same result using D&D mechanics. Here is some relevant text

1. The Dungeon Master Describes a Scene. 2. The Players Describe What Their Characters Do. 3. The DM Narrates the Results of the Adventurers’ Actions.​

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the DM might ask the player to roll a die to help determine what happens​

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The DM has the ultimate say on whether a skill is relevant in a situation.​

An ability check represents a creature using talent and training to try to overcome a challenge, such as forcing open a stuck door, picking a lock, entertaining a crowd, or deciphering a cipher. The DM and the rules often call for an ability check when a creature attempts something other than an attack that has a chance of meaningful failure. When the outcome is uncertain and narratively interesting, the dice determine the result.​

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Athletics Strength Jump farther than normal, stay afloat in rough water, or break something.​

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Strength Physical might​

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History Intelligence Recall lore about historical events, people, nations, and cultures.​

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Intelligence Reasoning and memory​

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Skills here are those words I bolded. I want to compare a character breaking something with a character conjecturing some ancient runes show the way out.

Player 1 "We have to get through that trapdoor. I believe I can break it with a bit of effort"​

Player 2 "The sand is pouring in fast! Can I help?"​

DM "The crawlspace is too narrow for more than one person to get at the trapdoor"​

Player 1 "We have to get through! Can I apply Athletics to force it?"​

DM "Yes, the trapdoor is made of stone so Strength (Athletics) against a DC of 20."​

DM (continuing) "But working in the crawlspace makes it hard to apply your strength, so make that with disadvantage"​

Player 1 (rolling) "13 on the lowest die plus 4 for Strength and 3 from proficiency Athletics, it takes all my skill to manage it"​

DM "The thick stone of the trapdoor resists your efforts to break it, but then the rods that close it suddenly give way and it falls into a void... with you nearly following"​

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Player 1 "We have to find our way out. I believe those runes could indicate the right way out"​

Player 2 "If we're still here after sunset, those things awaken! Can I help?"​

DM "Only someone skilled in History has any chance of reading these runes to see if they do"​

Player 1 "We've got to get moving! I'm trained in History so...?"​

DM "Yes, they're from the Founding Time so Intelligence (History) against a DC of 20."​

DM (continuing) "But the chance of them helping you find the right way out is slimmer, so make that with disadvantage"​

Player 1 (rolling) "13 on the lowest die plus 4 for Intelligence and 3 from proficiency History, it takes all my skill to manage it"​

DM "The runes seem at first hopelessly obscure but then you make out symbols for warning and undeath... and for light! It's got to be the tunnels going East that you should follow."​

​

I don't think the DM in the second imagined sample of play has broken any rule in D&D. In both cases the outcome was uncertain and narratively interesting. Characters didn't do anything non-diegetic. DM is as empowered to say the stone trapdoor can be forced as they are to say the ancient runes indicate that the tunnels going East will lead to light (indicating the way out).

Some approaches to play would have DM work out what the runes indicate in prep, but the D&D does not mandate that.

An encounter centered on exploration might involve the characters trying to disarm a trap, find a secret door, or discover something about the adventure location. An exploration encounter could also involve the characters spending a day crossing a rolling plain or traversing vast caverns.​

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The DM’s Role. If the characters can’t figure out how to solve an encounter or aren’t sure what to do next, you can remind the players of things their characters have already learned or call for Intelligence (Investigation) or similar checks to see if their characters can remember and connect things that the players might be missing.​

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Surely a virtuous instance of "call for Intelligence (Investigation) or similar checks to see if their characters can remember and connect things that the players might be missing" would be when something a player says prompts DM to do so!

@pemerton for vis.

You can make something that sounds similar in D&D, that does not make them the same. First, in pemerton's example if the check had been a failure not only would the runes not have been interpreted, something would have happened that made the character's predicament worse. I guess you could interpret that as they read the runes incorrectly and head in the wrong direction. The issue there is that as a player I know I read the directions wrong. Of course I'm going to play along and go the wrong way but that makes it less enjoyable. In this case, was there any reason to believe that the builders of this ruin believed in a balance of dark and light, ying an yang? If it was just a temple dedicated to the evil god trope, I don't see how it makes much sense.

The bigger issue is that it would feel like the DM controlling the flow of the game (railroading, if taken to the extreme) when it happens on a regular basis. It's not something I may not notice if it happens irregularly enough and I used to put my thumb on the scale frequently myself. If there's a miraculous escape option, you just happen to stumble upon the evidence or clue you need because of coincidence, reinforcements come along at just the right time to help the group because they're about to fail or the enemy's reinforcements show up because the fight was too easy? Those things happen on even a semi-regular basis and I'm not going to be enthusiastic about that game. Especially if the change to fiction doesn't make sense in context.

 

[pemerton]

Why do you assume there is?

Because it's a dungeon. With Strange Runes on a wall. And the player, as their PC, is conjecturing their meaning. All of that suggests to me that there is evidence on which an inference has been based.