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

[Maxperson]

I just treat the two bolded pieces as synonymous; that a player asking "Is there a Cleric in town" means that player's character is going about making that same inquiry in the fiction, and I'll answer according to the situation.

I don't, because there are a bunch of ways to try and find a cleric. One player might ask around town. Another might walk the streets looking for a temple. A third might not think it that important and just hang around the bar half keeping an eye out for a cleric that walks in. And so on.

I'm not going to assume what way the player wants to accomplish it and I don't want to have to ask for clarity. Just make a declaration about what your character does and be done with it.

 

[hawkeyefan]

Same here, for the most part; but if a general handwave is enough to provide a vaguely-simulative experience on the player side, that's good enough for me - and takes a lot less work than the other options.

Well it’s certainly enough to work for an RPG. I just don’t think it’s a simulation. “It’s kind of like this” isn’t really putting in the work to get to simulation.

Which is why I say that they are similar, but still distinctly different. Only the player can hope the mechanic and roll work out to change the fiction, rather than fail and potentially turn out badly instead.

Well of course. Only the player can hope about any roll that they make.

As for “changing the fiction”… this phrase or similar ones have been used very often to describe many examples in this thread… and I think they display a lack of understanding on the part of the user.

No fiction is being changed in the runes example or the cook example or the random encounter example. Fiction is being established. There’s a difference.

If the game functions in such a way that the GM has not predetermined everything, then some elements of the fiction will need to be established during play. When that happens, nothing is being “changed”; it’s being established.

 

[pemerton]

Contributing to the shared fiction is not sufficient to call something an rpg, else pass the conch would be an rpg.

I didn't say it is. But it is part of playing a 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.

There is not the least difficulty in saying how MHRP works:

*The PC is subject to a Lost in the Dungeon complication, rated at d12.

*The GM frames a scene, that includes a Strange Runes scene distinction.

*The player, as their PC, has the idea that the runes might reveal a way out, or at least help work out where in the dungeon the PC is.

*The player therefore has their PC read the runes, with the purpose of the action being to reduce or eliminate the complication.

*The respective dice pools - one for the PC, one for the Doom Pool - are put together, and rolled, and totals and effect dice established. The player's pool includes Solitary Traveller and Cunning Expert - these are the features of the PC that make them apt to be able to reason about, and potentially read, strange runes. The GM's pool includes the complication.

*The player succeeds, on this occasion as best I recall with a d12 effect, and so the complication is completely eliminated: in the fiction, the PC has read the runes and realises that they reveal a way out of the dungeon.​

The action declaration is straightforward. Its resolution is straightforward. What is happening in the fiction - that is, the character is reading the runes and thereby learning a way out of the dungeon - is quite clear. The only reason it is perturbing anyone is because some prior GM authorship of the meaning of the runes was not part of the action resolution process.

The complaint here is the player is manipulating the game world outside their characters.

But the player is not "manipulating" anything but dice. They are contributing to the authorship of the setting - in this case, the runes. But that is not "manipulating" anything. When JRRT wrote LotR, he wasn't "manipulating" Middle Earth. He was creating it.

The mode of creation in RPG play is different. But it is still creation, or authorship.

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.

But the player did not "dictate reality". They contributed to the authorship of fiction.

You don't object to a player solving the problem of their PC being attacked by an Orc by declaring actions and rolling dice. Nothing different happened in the runes case. Your objection is simply that the action resolution did not include or make any reference to prior authorship by the GM.

 

[pemerton]

They also know if they are doing so via their characters or via outside character authorship.

Suppose that the game is one based on GM-authored backstory. The player knows that the runes their PC reads were not actually written 1000 years ago. They know that they were made up by the GM, either on the spot or perhaps in the course of preparation for play.

In my MHRP/Fantasy Hack game, the player knows that the runes their PC reads were not actually written 1000 years ago. They know that their existence was made up by the GM, when framing the scene and mentioning the Strange Runes scene distinction; and that their content was (i) conjectured by them in the play of their PC, and (ii) settled by the roll of some dice.

You seem to think the difference between knowing the GM did it and knowing the GM did some of it, and the dice did some of it is profound. I don't.

Further: consider the GM-authored-backstory case, and suppose that somehow the players are supposed to puzzle out the meaning of the runes. They are not asking themselves the sorts of questions that an archaeologist would ask, like "Who wrote these?" and "Why are they here?" They have to ask the questions that a puzzle-solver will ask, like "What clues has the GM given us?" and "What did the GM likely have in mind in placing this puzzle?" and "What role do these runes play in the scenario?" There is no actual ancient civilisation that left these traces; there is only an act of authorship about which the players have to try and reason.

The difference between knowing that the GM has set us a puzzle and knowing that I want to succeed on my dice roll is real - those are different sorts of game play - but it's not as if one is more "true" to the character's situation than the other.

 

[pemerton]

Isn’t everyone’s?

I dunno - it's not that hard to find people posting about their dissatisfaction with their RPGing. But maybe they're not being sincere?

In any event, if you accept my testimony as to my own play, than I don't know on what basis you are saying the design question I identified has not been answered.

 

[pemerton]

You're playing a different game than I do.

<snip>

the GM would have decided what the runes meant before the character ever saw them.

I know. You have made this quite clear.

A character changing their knowledge of the runes wouldn't change what the runes mean which, in the games I play, the character has no control over.

In the game I was playing, the character had not control over the meaning of the runes either. The runes had been written by some unknown person long ago.

They just hoped for what the runes meant and then because the roll was successful the runes matched what they hoped for. That' fine. It's your game. I don't understand why you refuse to follow the most basic of logical conclusions.

The character doesn't roll dice. The player did.

Suppose I told you that combat in your D&D game is city, because warriors defeat Orcs not by fighting them with swords, but by rolling dice and performing simple arithmetic and geometric calculations. Would you agree with that description? I assume not; so why do you keep misdescribing my MHRP game by saying that the character did a thing which they didn't?

You can keep the action resolution of combat - which happens in the real world - separate from the fiction of combat. Are you really incapable of doing that in any other context?

The character only had the fictional ability to read the runes. The player decides what they mean.

The player doesn't decide what they mean. The player advances a possible meaning, corresponding to their PC's conjecture. The resolution process, which involves opposed dice pools, decides whether or not the player's declared action - to reduce or eliminate their Lost in the Dungeon complication, by reading the runes hoping to learn a way out - succeeds.

 

[pemerton]

If a player chooses to author some fiction, that is absolutely something their character cannot do.

I don't see the point of this.

In a D&D combat, the player - through rolling dice etc - contributes to a fiction in which an Orc is dead.

In the imaginary world of D&D, the player's character - by dint of deft footwork, skill with a blade, etc - kills an Orc in battle.

The PC can't kill an Orc just by wishing and rolling dice. But the player can make it true that their PC killed an Orc, by wishing and rolling dice. That's how the game works.

 

[pemerton]

It's not hard to understand. People just don't like it.

It seems hard to understand, because posters - eg @AlViking - keep posting that the character determined what the runes mean.

 

[pemerton]

The character decides that they try to persuade the cleric to cast the spell, and they speak words to do that. It is all in-character, there is no divergence to meta decisions like there obviously is in the rune case.

The rune case has no "meta-decision". The player says "Maybe these runes will help us get unlost", and puts their dice pool together, and the declared action is resolved. Where is the alleged "meta"?

I mean, of course the player knows that the result of the declared action will effect the fiction. But the player in your game knows that your decision about the fiction will affect the result of the declared action. Why is one "meta" and the other not?

 

[Enrahim]

Never mind. Thought I saw a a way do deescalate, but upon closer inspection it didn't read the way I intended.