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

[pemerton]

Rolling dice and adding bonuses is not a decision space. It is certainly things a character isn’t doing that a player is, but there’s no decision there.

Really? The player doesn't (in 3E) pull out their Power Attack spreadsheet? Or (in any version of the game) check that the cleric has enough cure spells to keep their PC up? Or draw inferences from previous damage rolls made by the GM for the opponents, so as to inform decisions about which PC risks taking which blows?

Additionally the player knew that if he had his character hope for X that He would have a chance to author just that. That’s not just players doing out of game activities like rolling dice that characters are not, it’s making different decisions about different things than the character would.

The player of any RPG knows that they are contributing to a shared fiction. That's not special to the runes case.

The player knows that their action declaration can succeed. But that can hardly be an objection!\

If this is your proposed solution I’d suggest you go back to the drawing board.

Solution to what?

I mean, I don't know what you need a solution to. But I know my own RPGing. The fiction is vibrant, the characters too, and the play is active, engaging and immersive.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

The player can't "dictate reality".

They did though. And so does the GM in almost every RPG.

They can contribute to a shared fiction. That's called playing a RPG.

No, that's called collaborative storytelling. It might be playing RPGs as well, but to be that it takes more than people contributing to shared fiction.

You seem to be thinking of the backstory (the "reality") as some sort of constraint that the players have to learn and navigate their way through. But that is not the only way to play a RPG.

It isn't, and I have never said it is or should. All am trying to do is to get you accept that if there is not a constraint in place that the player can only affect the fictional reality via causal capabilities of their character, the player and character decision spaces will diverge. I am not saying your style is bad, I am merely identifying a feature it obviously has. Some people do not like this feature, thus they do not like this style. Your denial of what is happening in games of this style is not helpful nor logical.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Really? The player doesn't (in 3E) pull out their Power Attack spreadsheet? Or (in any version of the game) check that the cleric has enough cure spells to keep their PC up? Or draw inferences from previous damage rolls made by the GM for the opponents, so as to inform decisions about which PC risks taking which blows?

This is good example, as players having access to plenty of tactical information their characters wouldn't and then discussing it midst of a rapid battle and making decisions based on it absolutely is a thing that causes the character and player decision space to diverge. Like no question about it. This is why combats tend to be the least immersive parts of D&D-like games for me, as we are making decisions mostly from this "tactics space."

 

[Enrahim]

You want to argue that because the player contributes to the authorship of something (the meaning of the runes), whereas their character does not causally affect the authored thing (ie the meaning of the rune), their decision space must be different. But you're wrong. It's not. That's part of the measure of good RPG design - it allows a player to contribute to the fiction without having to step outside of their PC. 40 years ago that was a design puzzle, but it got solved in the intervening years.

This is an interesting claim. I want to examine it a bit closer.

The player and character both recognise the runes. Both could recognise them as a possible way out, but for different reasons.

If we look from the player perspective, they recognise the runes as a game mechanical object that could be utilised for getting out - but only if they can come up with an in fiction justification for that to work. The player then brainstorms and might come up with several possible ways the runes could help them get out (map, teleport, summon guide etc). The player then have to decide which of these possible proposals they are going to go for.

This is a decission space. All of them have the same immediate game mechanical effect of removing the problem. But each of them also has side effects in terms of establishing different fiction that might be called upon in the future for game relevant purposes - even if they do not establish any immediate game mechanical effects.

From the character perspective we have the corresponding situation: They see the runes. They immediately recognise they might be possibly helpful, but it is not immediately obvious how. They then start to brainstorm, coming up with possible ideas for how they might help, and evaluate how plausible those seem. So far the thought process seem quite similar. But then it differs. The character do not need to make a stance on which of the possibilities they should go for. They rather have to decide if any of the possibilities seem likely enough to dare reading the runes. The character in the example deciding to declare "i think it might be a map" out loud appear to be hubris that is not required by the mechanics?

That is from what I can see the decission space is different. However the design appear to have some interesting features in terms of trying to hide this fact. That is the player and character's mindset can be close to synchronised, despite this extra layer of authorial decission on the player side.

 

[pemerton]

All am trying to do is to get you accept that if there is not a constraint in place that the player can only affect the fictional reality via causal capabilities of their character, the player and character decision spaces will diverge.

As I have posted, I understand your assertion. I disagree with it. The fact that the player's action establishes backstory elements that are, in the fiction, not caused by the PC, doesn't make the decision spaces different - beyond any general differences of the sort that I have been pointing to that attend all RPG play (ie the player knows that everything is fiction, that things are being made up, etc).

 

[Crimson Longinus]

As I have posted, I understand your assertion. I disagree with it. The fact that the player's action establishes backstory elements that are, in the fiction, not caused by the PC, doesn't make the decision spaces different - beyond any general differences of the sort that I have been pointing to that attend all RPG play (ie the player knows that everything is fiction, that things are being made up, etc).

I just do not believe you're thinking this logically then. The player has the ability to dictate reality to solve the character's problems, the character doesn't. The difference obviously is there and it not a small one.

 

[FrogReaver]

The player can't "dictate reality".

They can contribute to a shared fiction. That's called playing a RPG.

You seem to be thinking of the backstory (the "reality") as some sort of constraint that the players have to learn and navigate their way through. But that is not the only way to play a RPG.

As I posted not too far upthread in reply to @FrogReaver, you seem to be assuming something like the following:
When RPGing does not look like this, the notion of "manipulating reality" has no purchase.

Contributing to the shared fiction is not sufficient to call something an rpg, else pass the conch would be an rpg. An RPG is about contributing to the shared fiction via a player controlled character. Just so it’s clear I believe all your games have tons of this, but I believe these games have typically been structured in such a way that what actually happens in them is hard to talk about. There’s characters, in fiction acts, authoring, etc. But these games tie out of character authoring of things the character cannot control to player action declarations for their characters. I described this as overloading the action declarations earlier in the thread. This overloading doesn’t actually solve anything, it just makes it really difficult to discuss what’s really happening.

On ‘manipulating reality’ if reality is just the game world then players are expected to manipulate that through their characters. The complaint here is the player is manipulating the game world outside their characters. Backstory here isn’t required. The GM or some procedure could generate the fiction of the whole game world on the fly (though I’d have consistency concerns there) so the compliant isn’t really the lack of backstory, it’s the player authorship in that particular way, (not through their characters).

 

[FrogReaver]

I just do not believe you're thinking this logically then. The player has the ability to dictate reality to solve the character's problems, the character doesn't. The difference obviously is there and it not a small one.

If you go reread the original runes example just posted this looks to be exactly what happened there. The player was lost and wanted the runes to provide the exit, ie solve the characters problem.

 

[clearstream]

No it is not, or at least not any more than the player ability to accept any fact presented to them.

Thank you! I would rule out "No it is not" on plain facts of the matter: it is perforce players and not their characters that experience things. However, players can have experiences on account of what they pretend (one example of this is feeling sorry for a character in a story... why feel sorry for a person that doesn't exist?)

With that in mind, (and for other reasons laid out in background game studies) I think there is good grounds to propose at least two 'channels' or 'modes' of experience (which I will label P and C going forward)

P As a player I experience X as myself​

C As a player I experience X as I pretend my character experiences that X​

Seeing as characters can't experience game mechanics as such it must be that I experience those mechanics as P. Motives for believing that could include

I don't picture my character to be thinking "I will roll a d20 and add my strength and athletics modifiers to climb that wall"​

​

I can picture that my character successfully climbs the wall in the fiction no matter how the mechanics determine it. My character has no less climbed the wall whether GM said so, a coin flip decided it, or a procedure containing dozens of factors, steps and dice rolls did so.​

Like I said earlier, either the spell levels are diegetic in the setting, or they aren't. It is about the relationship between the rule and the fiction, and that certainly can be determined objectively rather than subjectively.

Spell levels can be associated with something diegetic in the setting and perhaps meet the test of entrainment, but regardless I want to give your observation its fullest effect. Hence I want to propose another condition for process-simulation...

concomittance when invoking and processing a written mechanic I want P and C to overlap​

association parts of the written mechanic are associated with things that are accepted as diegetic​

entrainment processing the written mechanic follows patterns that map to the behaviours of those things​

I can't pretend that my character experiences association or entrainment seeing as they can't be aware of the written mechanics side of those relationships, but I can unite the way I pretend my character thinks about spell levels with the way I as player think about spell levels. One can see that association and entrainment might be favourable in achieving that.

Supposing these notions are right, it ought to be possible to analyze different written mechanics to show that lacks and abundances in those qualities clearly separate them.

 

[FrogReaver]

This is good example, as players having access to plenty of tactical information their characters wouldn't and then discussing it midst of a rapid battle and making decisions based on it absolutely is thing that causes the character and player decision space to diverge. Like no question about it. This is why combats tend to be the least immersive parts of D&D-like games for me, as we are making decisions mostly from this "tactics space."

Yep. It’s one reason I view d&d combat as more of a fun minigame. It’s also why I don’t give much weight to critiques relying on combat mechanics.