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

[pemerton]

I guess this still seems to me like the GM adjudicating the world. They're still deciding how it plays out. The difference is they're encouraged to do so with reference to the characters stated goals rather than (just) the established content of the setting.

There's no "encouragement". There's a rule. If the GM doesn't follow the rule, the game won't go. (In the same sense that, if you try to set up your game of chess on a plain table as opposed to a chequered board, the game won't go.)

This is where the lack of verisimilitude comes in, imo. If the NPCs I encounter keep testing my character, they feel designed for the character, rather than independent entities.

I don't know how much, if any, experience you have playing Burning Wheel (or Torchbearer). I can attest that, in my experience, the game is as verisimilitudinous as any of my (19 years of) Rolemaster play. Personally I find it more so, because of the intimacy of attention to the character that the system encourages.

When you say "if the NPCs I encounter keep testing my character", though, I think you are missing some of the ways that colour and conflict are related. The PC meets many people. Most of them are not in conflict with the PC. Hence, they are colour, and typically mere colour. So no tests are required; free narration, often fairly quick, will do the job.

It is scenes with stakes on which we spend out time, and which involve tests.

Here's another example of play, which I hope conveys some sense of the way situation is established, and with it setting and NPCs (the game is a bit atypical, in that it is two players who both play and GM, each framing the adversity for the other's PC; but the principles and procedures are otherwise the same):

Our last session ended with Alicia and Aedhros sitting out-of-the-way on the docks, Aedhros quietly singing Elven lays. I had set as homework for my friend to determine what trouble might result from this, to be the start of our next session of this game. It turned out that, despite having over 20 months to do his homework, he hadn't!

(I had done some homework of my own, writing up the Elven Ambassador to Hardby, and the Ship's Master from last session, as NPCs. But we didn't end up needing them.)

After a bit of prompting, he decided that a petty harbour official came up to Aedhros, telling him to move on and stop begging. (The singing being treated as busking, and hence a type of begging.)

Aedhros's response was to sing a short verse of the Rhyme of Unravelling, breaking the official's belt with the result that his pants fell down. I decided that Aedhros kept singing, sufficently to give me a test to cause the official intense sorrow (this is the Dark Elf version of Wonderment from spell songs). The official - Will B3, we agreed - fell to his knees weeping bitterly, in remorse for all his pointless past actions (including his harassment of Aedhros). An attempt to further grind him down with Ugly Truth (untrained on Perception, and suffering a +2 Ob penalty from the Deceptive trait) failed.

My friend decided that this was about the time that Alicia awoke - she has an instinct If it shines in the dark, steal it, and he wondered if there was anything shiny revealed by the falling down of the official's trousers. I suggested a key. Alicia wanted to steal it as he wept. She called on the spirits of the coastal sea to help, and a mist rose up on the harbour. The successful Spirit Binding gave a helping die for a beginner's luck Inconspicuous test, lifting the key from the helpless, weeping man.

One of Aedhros's Beliefs was that Only because Alicia seems poor and broken can I endure her company. To keep her poor and broken, he pick-pocketed the key from her - an easy success for B4 Sleight of Hand with Stealthy and Inconspicuous FoRKs against untrained Observation.

Alicia, unaware of what Aedhros had done, wanted to know what the key opened. She Persuaded the official to tell her (an easy success against Will 3). I (exercising GMing powers, not playing Aedhros) decided that it opened the strongroom in the harbour office, where records and the like are kept. Alicia and Aedhros agreed to break into it, to find information that might help Alicia pursue her Belief that I will one day be rich enough to BUY a ship, and/or help get revenge on the master of the ship the two of us had sailed on.

Aedhros confirmed with Alicia that she can read; he reads and writes only Elvish.

He then suggested that the two of the get some lunch. With Resources 0 this required one of his cash dice. My friend suggested that a failure meant the food was bad. I read out the wound descriptions and a Light wound ("the pain from an extremely hard gut punch") seemed appropriate. The test failed and so we chundered up our "meat" pies. Aedhros made the Ob 2 Health test to recover pretty quickly. Alicia failed, and so was -1D down. She needed to rest to recover more Tax.

While she rested - "among the bins", as my friend put it - Aedhros went off to find someone who might know where the office was. His three Circles are the Elven Etharchs, the Elven Wilders, and the Paths of Spite. The lattermost seemed appropriate, together with his +1D Reputation as "ill-fated for himself and others". I told my friend I wanted to find a Half-Orc or similar ill-favoured fellow who might fall in with someone like me. It was Ob 3 Circles (someone with distinctive but not rare knowledge); I succeeded on the check, and met Grellin, a Half-Orc who believes herself The smartest lady on the docks. As played by my friend, it quickly became clear that a duel of wits was going to be required to get her to agree to my price of 1D of coin, and so we quickly burned her up - City Born, Labourer, Thug and then - after I asked how old she was, was told mid-to-late 20s, saw that Smuggler would bring her there and confirmed this with my friend - Smuggler. Straight 4s for her stats.

The Duel of Wits was predominantly her Haggling 3 vs my Beginner's Luck Will 6. Her body of argument was 7 and mine was 9. The debate went on for 3 exchanges - I won, but had only 3 body of argument left and so had to compromise. She had wanted half - I agreed to double my offer to 2D of coin, and to acknowledge her as the smartest lady on the docks.

We returned to Alicia, who was finishing resting around nightfall. I enjoyed introducing her to Grellin, the smartest lady on the docks. She was suitably put out. In the ensuing conversation, she patted her pocket to show that she had the key we needed, only to notice it was not there (Perception vs Ob 2, a double obstacle penalty on an Ob 1 Observation test). I (Aedhros) produced the key. I think it was about then that we made opposed social checks - Ugly Truth from Aedhros, with a cutting remark that I can no longer recall but must have been about her ineptitude vs Begging from Alicia (untrained Will), pleading that I give the key back - as per her Instinct When challenged, grovel. Aedhros succeeded, kept the key, and asked Alicia what the weather would be. She predicted clear, moonlit skies - helpful for us to see where we would be going - but the Perception test for Weather Sense failed (I called in the spirit retribution at this point, which made an already rather hard test even harder) and so (as decided by me, again using my GM authority) it started raining.

With a bit of discussion we agreed that if there's a locked strongroom then there must be an outer door to go through first. We also agreed that there would be the petty official there, and a guard. A roll on the die of fate had the official alone (50/50 for alone or company) and hence sleeping.

We discussed how we would get through the first door, and my friend - reviewing Alicia's spells - noticed that she has Chameleon. So he decided she would turn invisible.

Chameleon is 8 actions to cast, but we were in no great hurry and so he decided to cast as carefully as possible - x8 = 64 actions to get +4D (the maximum bonus, equal to the spell's Ob 4).

With Alicia's B5 Sorcerery reduced to B4 by the lingering effects of the bad pie, this was 8 Sorcery dice. Alicia's Will of B4 was reduced to B3 by the Light wound. And she had 1D of Forte (B4 reduced to B3 by the wound, and 2 tax remaining). That was 12 dice in total, to allocate to two test against Ob 4 (casting and tax; casting patiently allows allocating Sorcery, but not Will, dice to the tax check). I think a Persona may have been put into one of the pools, but in any event both failed: she took 1 tax (and so once again fell unconscious) and the casting failure was garbled transmission. This is the first time we've ever had that result in our BW play, and we rolled diligently on the Wheel of Magic. Instead of a Control Heaven, Personal Origin, Sustained duration effect on the Caster, Alicia had created a Transmute Water, Presence Origin, Instantaneous duration Natural Effect.

We discussed a bit what this might mean. After one false start (my initial idea that she had transmute some water in the harbour went nowhere) I suggested that her eagerness for money meant that she had transformed the rain in her Presence into coins! My friend suggested low-value coins - copper pieces - and we agreed it was a 1D fund.

He then wanted Alicia to make a roll to master the new spell. We got out the Magic Burner and applied the Abstraction and Distillation rules to get an Obstacle for it - after applying the rule that includes a modification for powerful effects, it was Ob 5 and 66 actions of casting, to turn rain in the Presence of the caster into a 1D fund of copper coins. The fainting Alicia (fainting due to her tax) attempt the Ob 5 Sorcerer test to try and learn this new spell - her player got three successes, and so it is an Ob 7 spell for her.

Alicia was now lying, unconscious, in a pile of copper coins that had "rained" down on her. We agreed that Grellin, who is unused to such sorcery, was struck with awe by the Ob 7 Steel test for witnessing pronounced sorcery. Aedhros, on the other hand, could only see yet more evidence of the ill fortune and ineptitude that brings all things to ironic ruin. At least, until . . .

My friend was urging me - mightn't Aedhros have at least a hint of pity left in his heart, and be moved by Alicia's plight? Aedhros's relevant instinct, here, was Never use Song of Soothing unless compelled to - Song of Soothing being the Elven equivalent of herbalism. There was also his Belief about why he can stand Alicia's company - would that remain unshifted even seeing her so broken even as her poverty was slightly lifted?

I told my friend I would make the Song of Soothing test, and see where that led me. The obstacle for a Light wound is Ob 2, doubled for no tools. The skill is open-ended (natural Elven magic), and so despite being B3 plus 1D from my Rhyme of Rules FoRK, I was able to get my four successes and restore Alicia to consciousness. We then played out an exchange in which we both went for Mouldbreaker - Aedhros's Belief is now Only because Alicia is not entirely without capability can I endure her company. Alicia's Belief that The strong do what they may - I will do what I must to survive was changed by the fact that Aedhros had had her utterly under his power, and with coin all about her to be taken, and yet had healed her instead: now she Believes that I will be compassionate to the poor.

I narrated (again, wearing my GM hat) that the raining coins had attracted the attention of the ragged poor who huddle about the docks even when it is raining. Alicia's player decided to give them money - and having earned a Persona point from Mouldbreaker spent it to amplify her 1D fund so as not to lose her fund from tax. But both his dice were failures, and so the fund was spent being compassionate to the poor!

Aedhros, moved by his Belief that I will never admit I am wrong, drew himself up to his full Dark and Imposing height (he was once Fair and Statuesque, but became Dark and Imposing when he began down the Paths of Spite and became a Dark Elf). I rolled Beginner's Luck Oratory, telling the poor who had taken the coins to return it. My friend set an Ob of 3 or 4 (my memory isn't perfect here, but he was including the rain that would make it hard for Aedhros's voice to travel) and with the double obstacle penalty that was 6 or 8, for my Will of 4. I drew Heart-seeker - my black metal long knife - to drive the point home, and may have also put in a point of Persona, but the check failed. All the wretched heard was "coin", and they advanced on Aedhros looking for more! I asked my friend how many actions I had - he said that these were sick and wretched types, advancing at no great speed, and so I had about 8. I only wanted 6, so that was enough - with 6 actions I was able to sing the Rhyme of Unravelling to undo the seams in their rags, so that their clothes would fall from them. I succeeded, and they were rendered naked in the rain. My friend's description of the scene - the sores on some, the scars on others - was quite evocative. I got my desired effect - they were demoralised, and shamed, and left me alone.

It was now time to break into the strongroom.

In play, the petty official, and Grelin, and the ragged poor, all came across to me as quite verisimilitudinous.

 

[pemerton]

Given that I've - in multiple posts - stated that BW is not a sandbox game (see eg post 3663 for the most recent of probably half-a-dozen such posts in this thread); and have said nothing in any post about whether or not D&D can be played as a sandbox, other than to identify Gygaxian dungeon-crawling as a type of sandbox - I have no idea where you are getting this from.

You make <snippage> no effort to really justify why you think a story driven game is a sandbox and D&D is not.

You seem not to be reading what I post, as you are attributing to me opinions that are largely the opposite of the ones that I posted in reply to you, and have reposted just above.

ou make no effort to explain how the principles could apply,

Obviously I disagree with this, given that I've posted hundreds, probably thousands, of words doing exactly this, plus have posted and linked to many actual play examples. Have you read any of them?

 

[AlViking]

Except that it can.

It can't 100% perfectly prevent problems. That, I agree with.

But rules absolutely can, and do, make a difference. They do so all the time in our daily lives.

Rules--particularly ones that are known and public--make it easier for well-intentioned people to avoid accidentally doing something wrong, and make it harder for ill-intentioned people to get away with things. Rules provide a floor from which to negotiate, and importantly, well-constructed rules legitimately do help keep people on the same page, thus reducing the chance of major problems.

It's simply false to say that rules never make a difference--even when those rules aren't "obey or we'll force you". Just because they aren't a perfect shield doesn't mean we should pretend they make no difference at all.

I disagree. If someone is being an asshat, they aren't going to pay attention to the rules of the game. If someone yells at someone else at the table, there is no rule that will fix it. The PHB and DMG repeatedly state some variation of "don't be an ass".

Give me one clear scenario, one rule that you would think would change things. Because I've seen people be abusive playing UNO, it has nothing to do with the rules of the game it's the person in the seat.

 

[AlViking]

You seem not to be reading what I post, as you are attributing to me opinions that are largely the opposite of the ones that I posted in reply to you, and have reposted just above.

Obviously I disagree with this, given that I've posted hundreds, probably thousands, of words doing exactly this, plus have posted and linked to many actual play examples. Have you read any of them?

I will grant that you've posted a lot. But obviously people who have never played the game have no clue what you're talking about. I was just trying to provide feedback that using the same approach repeatedly is not working. Not only is the game so different from D&D that it seems to be comparing apples to oranges, you just don't get that people don't understand the flow of play past perhaps one or two scenes.

It's great that it works for you, from what I've read it wouldn't work for me. But that's not the point. You're trying to prove .... well I'm not sure what you're trying to prove anymore. It's like giving people a motorcycle repair manual to explain the difference between a car and a motorcycle and people ask about rolling down the windows so you just repost the manual.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I strongly disagree with this. I can see your point narrowly, as in "it is hard to know what world politics will look like in 10 years". But if I enter a store, I have a good idea how the propieter will respond. If I make a reservation, I know what to expect. If I insult someone and I know their personality, I can guess how they would respond.

I think 100% predictive accuracy is much too high a standard here.

These are all areas where the referee has to make a ruling. Ideally they'll have thought it through beforehand. If not, then they can make a ruling that strikes them as reasonable in the moment. This then becomes part of the world and should be followed in the future.

A good referee will do so impartially.

That's the problem when any of us bring up realism, verisimilitude, or plausibility. You get a response that either insists on a strict definition that can then be picked apart, or you get a refutation based on the inability to get 100% of everything right. A straw man of perfection is generated that is subsequently set up as the enemy of "good enough" or "best we can manage" that is what we want and are supporting, to somehow "prove" the impossibility of our desires, and therefore our preferences.

I'm getting very tired of this. We have a way, you have a way (with nuance and variation within each, of course). Both are viable. There are similarities and differences, but probably more of the latter. One side trying to convince the other of the wrongness/incoherence of their style or of their argument for it is accomplishing nothing productive, and runs the constant risk of offending the person with whom you are arguing.

Y'all go on ahead. I'm going to stay here and build a nice little house by the stream.

 

[Maxperson]

Really? I wasn't just exploring Canyonlands on vacation because I already knew it was there? Because the views I saw, the trails I travelled? I know I wasn't the first one to ever experience them, but it was the first time I had ever experienced them. There is only a infinitesimally tiny fraction of the world outside of places like the deep ocean where I would be the first one there, where there wasn't some sort of label attached to a place.

I may be going to a specific destination on the map but the journey is new to me.

Exactly. Someone else getting there first doesn't change the fact that you are exploring. Either that or we have to tell all the cave explorers that find cave paintings that they aren't explorers because a caveman got there first.

 

[Faolyn]

I disagree. If someone is being an asshat, they aren't going to pay attention to the rules of the game. If someone yells at someone else at the table, there is no rule that will fix it. The PHB and DMG repeatedly state some variation of "don't be an ass".

Give me one clear scenario, one rule that you would think would change things. Because I've seen people be abusive playing UNO, it has nothing to do with the rules of the game it's the person in the seat.

I've seen games that say things like "if you're a bigot, you're not allowed to play this game" (well, the phrasing is a bit saltier, but you know what I mean). Of course, these warnings are usually on games that bigots wouldn't want to play in the first place. Although I saw one on a game (can't remember which one, but you played as either an animal or an animal-folk) that effectively said "if you're into bestiality, you're not allowed to play."

On a more generally useful note, games are increasingly bringing up boundaries, lines and veils, the X-cards, and so forth. While the idea of these tools is to help prevent unwanted material from coming up in a game, they also can help by telling players it's OK to say "this behavior is not OK." (Look, gaming is a social thing and as such, there's going to be pressure for people to not make waves by stopping people who are being rude or worse.) At any rate, telling players to sit down and talk about what sort of creatures or events are or are not acceptable in the game also gives them to opportunity to talk about what behaviors are or are not acceptable.

A hypothetical rule that says "if there are disagreements about how a mechanic works, go by what the book or GM says in order to keep the current session moving smoothly, but after the session, discuss the problems then and come to a decision before the next session--and it's OK if the group's decision goes against what the book says or the GM had previously ruled" would help keep a very common form of conflict to a minimum.

 

[Maxperson]

Sure, travelling somewhere with the intent to explore that place when you get there, is travelling. That is the most tautological of tautologies and is not in dispute. But that doesn't seem to have anything to do with what was originally being discussed, which is whether or not exploration can be an ends in itself.

If anything, it seems to me that you are now proving the point you were trying to argue against. The travelling in this case is just something that takes you to the goal, and the goal is the exploration of the place you're travelling to.

It's not as if famous real world explorers teleported to the places they explored. They all had to travel to those destinations to begin their explorations.

 

[The Firebird]

The essence of a railroad, in my view, is GM control over the fiction.

I think this is the closest thing I've seen to a thesis statement about what you think railroading is. But I think the jargon is holding it back here because many unrelated concepts fall into "control over the fiction". Consider:

1) The GM writes "captain Sparrow, large ship, +25% to base travel costs" before the game.

2) The GM writes "pit trap, 10 ft deep, activated by 10lb weight".

3) the player says "I walk down the hallway tapping a 10 ft pole".

4) the player says "I look for a ship captain in town. I want to find someone to hire for our journey.

5) the player says "I try to trick the goblin into falling into the previously discovered pit trap".

Based on your previous responses, I suspect (1) is considered control over the fiction if it is decided during play, but perhaps not if before play. I suspect (2) is the same. I think you would not consider (3) nor (4) to be control over the fiction. But (5) would be, because the player learned that information already.

Personally I would consider actions like (3) and (4) to exert meaningful control over the fiction. But it seems like if the players can only take actions of this type, as in a fixed world sandbox, you consider this railroading.

I think your thesis statement needs to be clarified by what exactly control over the fiction means.

 

[Maxperson]

I also appreciate your attempt to bring nuance to these scenarios. But again I fear that it is over complicating the analysis and I still don't have a good understanding of what precisely you think is railroading. At the moment it seems to me like a "I know it when I see it" standard. And maybe that is the extent of it.

It's hard, because he's redefined railroading as a personal definition, so it doesn't really align with how the rest of us use it. That may be where your confusion is coming from.