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

[pemerton]

When I asked you if every single thing a player wants to do needs to be rolled for, you said no.

Correct.

The actual rules state "say yes or roll the dice." So why not "say yes" to the question of "do I see a cup?"

<snip>

the GM could have said yes instead of having them roll the dice.

As the rules state quite clearly, the GM says "yes" when nothing is at stake. When a player's PC has the Belief I will bring Joachim's blood to my master, and when that PC is faced with the prospect of Joachim's blood flowing away across the floor, and therefore declares "I look for a vessel to catch the blood", there is something at stake. To make it crystal clear - what is at stake is whether the blood can be caught. So the dice have to be rolled.

You keep claiming that there was something at stake here, but I'm not seeing it-

Yes, I believe you. This is why I also keep saying that, to me, it seems that you are not understanding how scene framing and action resolution work in Burning Wheel. Because if you did, you would recognise how the example that I've provided illustrates the rules for scene-framing found on p 11, for when the dice must be rolled found on pp 11 and 72, for how to establish intent and task found on pp 24-25, and for what follows from success found on pp 30 and 32.

I have said that the rules in BW go against the rules in basically every other game out there, and not in a good or innovative way.

Well, I know basically three broad categories of rules to govern when the dice need to be rolled.

One is "if you do it, you do it". Apocalypse World uses this. I also think this is the best way of playing Classic Traveller; although the rulebooks from 1977 aren't completely clear on the issue, they tend to incline this way. This is also the standard way of resolving D&D combat.

Another is "say 'yes' if nothing is at stake, or otherwise roll the dice". BW uses this. So does Dogs in the Vineyard (which is where BW gets it from). Prince Valiant is not quite as clear, but I think this generally works best for Prince Valiant also. Marvel Heroic RP, and 4e D&D outside of combat, are not completely clear but also I think work best this way. Different games may use different heuristics to work out when something is at stake. I've explained the BW one in a fair bit of detail in multiple posts in this thread.

A third is the GM decides when a roll is called for. Again, there can be different heuristics for making that decision. Most of classic D&D non-combat works like this - Moldvay Basic sets out some good heuristics for this in ch 8 of the rulebook. 5e D&D also works like this, but I'm not sure if the heuristics are as clear as the Moldvay Basic ones.

I don't think your claim about "most" RPGs is empirically grounded, unless you are relying on the fact that most actual events of playing a RPG use some non-4e version of D&D.

When I asked you why the PC wasn't carrying a waterskin, you said that PCs are ordinary people and don't carry adventuring gear.

That is an artificial restraint as waterskins are only peripherally adventuring gear--a D&D-style adventuring party may carry them, but so will perfectly average people during the day, since a lot of people engage in activities that make them thirsty. I can understand saying that a typical BW PC isn't going to carry a weapon or magic item on them, but a waterskin or wineskin?

As I believe I posted already, Jobe and Tru-leigh were at their accommodations (from memory, a tavern or similar establishment) and had drugged the assassin Halika. They then travelled through the catacombs beneath the city to Jabal's tower. But they got lost on the way, meaning that Halika awakened from her stupor, and - realising what had happened - set off at speed to the tower, to get there before Jobe and Tru-leigh could take Joachim. And she did, thus finding herself able to decapitate Joachim.

Jobe and Tru-leigh had left their accommodations to sneak into Jabal's tower. They were not decked out for a camping trip. I don't recall what either was carrying, other than their clothes, and in Tru-leigh's case probably his snakes.

@Lanefan you asked a few times why someone couldn't have a cup on their character sheet, especially if they knew that they would have to gather blood at some point soon. When you replied to him, you didn't answer him, but instead quoted some text that didn't address the actual issue. At some point, @SableWyvern replied, but said "I have no experience with BW, but this just sounds like a roundabout way of saying, "I don't want to play Burning Wheel, but if I did play anyway, I'd do it without buying into the premise and actively trying to subvert it."" To me that sounds like "it's not in the spirit of the game."

If you want to say that the player didn't think to be prepared by carrying a cup or vial around with them, then OK.

From pp 17 and 21-22 of Hub and Spokes:

Let’s take a look at what comprises a character in this system: He has stats, attributes and skills; Beliefs, Instincts and traits; Resources, relationships, reputations, affiliations and Circles; and of course, he’s got his gear and stuff that he totes around with him.

All of these elements affect how the character is played, and thus how the game is shaped by the character’s actions. . . .

No fantasy roleplaying game would be complete without stuff: Swords, armor, books, spells, clothes, shoes, lanterns, etc. All of the bits and pieces to make you feel right. In this game, gear augments an ability or reduces (or increases) a penalty. Swords augment your Power stat when your character is trying to kill someone. Lanterns reduce penalties for Perception tests in darkness. Clothes keep those social skill test obstacles down.

Gear is initially acquired in character burning. In play, gear is purchased via a Resources test or even just granted by the GM during appropriate scenes: a knight is granted a new sword and suit of armor by his liege, or a magic helmet is found in the burial mound of a long-dead god, for example.

Mostly though, gear is window dressing that adds detail to your world.​

I guess I have assumes that posters who are as curious as you appear to be about a RPG will have downloaded the free rules and had a look through them.

 

[pemerton]

There is no world that exercise causal potency. Where you say the world, you are actually talking about the GM making a decision, using whatever heuristics and processes they think will ensure "consistency".

In Burning Wheel, the GM uses different processes - not ones that foreground their ideas about "world consistency", but ones that respond to player-determined priorities for their PCs.

The idea that one is more "meta" than the other has no foundation that I can see - they are simply different GMing principles.

Pemerton can you please illustrate what you mean here by providing a simple example to highlight how these different GMing principles may play out at the table...

• traditional GM will make a decision on an outcome to ensure consistency; and
• BW GM will play out the same example but respond to player-determined priorities.

I'm struggling to understand your comment in a later post where you say fiction doesn't have causal impact.

My observation that fictional things don't have real world effects is simply that effects in the real world have real causes. And imaginary things don't exist, and so don't cause anything.

For instance as I imagine it, battle in dungeon causes commotion, that commotion results in noise.

Yes, that is an example of a person imagining something. Part of what they imagine is that noise is caused.

The fictional causal impact would be that GM/module decides or a dice mechanic would determine if this noise alerted the other creatures in the dungeon. The players would be very much aware the risks associated with that noise in the dungeon.

If by whatever means the GM uses, the creatures are alerted, the GM/module or dice mechanic would determine how the creatures respond. A trad GM may use the intelligence of the leader, the fictional positioning of these creatures (morale, distance to noise, chain of command to BBEG, number of creatures, the type of noise heard...etc) to decide how these creatures may respond

Yes, the GM imagines that that noise might have a further consequence - ie that someone who hears it might investigate it, or be warned by it. This is more imagining.

IF the GM then decides to roll a die - say, a wandering monster die - that is a decision followed by an actual process in the world (a die is tossed, and lands, and the result read). The GM then looks up their table, or whatever other wandering monster process they use, and starts imagining more stuff - let's say that a group of Orcs rushes towards the battle to see what caused the noise.

The actual causation in the real world here is fairly clear: the GM imagined some stuff, which prompted them to roll a die and look up a table (or similar) which in turn prompted them to imagine more stuff. But the imagined stuff didn't have any actual effects. The actual events, of the GM imagining stuff and then deciding to roll a die, had actual effects.

I don't think that any of the above is especially profound. But when someone says that the imaginary world responds to what the players have their PCs do, that is a metaphorical shorthand for what I've just described. The shorthand is harmless enough, but it's a mistake to be misled by it. For instance, as @hawkeyefan posted way upthread, despite the shorthand it is the GM who is making the decision, and so they incur whatever responsibilities flow from that (and Gygax has an interesting discussion of this in the intro to his DMG, in the context of wandering monster checks).

Now beyond the scope of a dungeon or at least that example within a dungeon, I can see what you mean if there is an existence of hidden backstory i.e. PCs impresses king and his daughter, hidden backstory being a suitor exists and now feels the PC is a threat with the causal impact being suitor makes moves to hurt the image of the PC in the eyes of the king and his daughter.
In that instance, the player is not directly aware of the risks associated with their actions and thus fictional causal impact is just a stand-in for GM decides.

I don't think there is any more of a 'stand in" in the second case than the first. Both are examples of the GM making a decision based on their imagining of in-fiction causal consequences.

But in the first one, if the players are familiar with the tropes of dungeon play (including wandering monsters as a GM-side device) then - as you note - they can meaningfully plan around and respond to the creation of noises. Whereas in the second one, it seems that there is a much greater likelihood of the players making largely blind action declarations, given the rather baroque nature of the fiction that the GM is imagining.

This is why I am generally doubtful that the approach described by Gygax in his essay on Successful Adventuring is straightforwardly generalisable to "living world" play.

Have I answered my own question?
Unless the risks are known at the table (if hidden backstory exists), you believe that fictional causal impact is just another term for GM decides. Thus the Living World is an exercise in GM decides - or its at least that's how you view it?
And that is not to say that the fiction is not consistent, logical and naturally flows, but it is incorrect to put the fiction ahead of its author as to what actually drives the causal impact?

What you say here is not really what I'm saying - though bits of it are in the neighbourhood.

As I've posted above, any reasoning about the imaginary stuff involves the GM making a decision. There's no getting around that, as fiction doesn't author itself.

Reasoning about the fiction can involve all sorts of heuristics. Plausibility is one. But I think in dungeoncrawl play tropes are just as important - eg, as per your example, dungeon crawl play worries a great deal about noise, and connects it to wandering monsters; but doesn't worry very much about air supply, although I think that from a plausibility perspective that might be a problem with all those torches and breathing creatures and poison gas traps and so on.

But anyway, the use of heuristics to make a decision doesn't stop it being a decision.

If players are able to anticipate likely decisions - generally this will be because they know the heuristics - then they can collect information, plan and respond. They can exercise control over their play, and over the consequences that flow from it.

But if the players can't anticipate likely decisions - eg because the heuristics are not known to them (consider my example, upthread, of a party of neophyte RPGers being asked to play through a dungeon crawl involving ear seekers, trappers, and pits that open when you prod 5' in front of them); or because the heuristics operate on unknown and unpredictable elements of what the GM is imagining ("secret backstory") - then their play becomes blind, or near-blind. And thus they exercise little agency.

This is why, upthread, I have posted that GM-decision-making is not, per se, inimical to player agency. (Just as you having the authority to play your cards in bridge doesn't stop me from controlling play, if I get a good hand and am a reasonably skilled player.) But it can be, if the method of GM-decision-making puts the players into the position of blind action declarations.

 

[AlViking]

Well, only when I am accused of lying, or when you say X is clear in response to a post where I've explained in detail why its not the case that X.

I don't understand some aspects of BW, in part because I'm not going to spend money to buy rules I'm never going to play. Then because my understanding is unclear, you accuse me of lying.

I've given simple answers. But you reject them, I think because of the apparently radical ideas that (i) the GM would frame scenes always having regard to player priorities for their PCs, and (ii) there is no resolution of conflict by consensus.

People have told you multiple times that we have very basic questions that we believe have simple answers. For whatever reason you keep giving the same responses and using game terms without explanation. Then you turn around and blame the people who still don't understand because you aren't clarifying anything.

 

[Bedrockgames]

So, a question then:

Do you have total control over your own thoughts and actions? Do you always succeed at the things you want to succeed at and fail at the things you want to fail at? Do you only feel fear when you wish to, and never when you do not wish to?

We aren't going to resolve the question of free will here in a thread on D&D.

But this is a separate concern from who controls the character. The point of agency is the player to be in control of their character, and deciding such things for themselves (i.e. they get to decide if their character is feeling fear in that moment). But note I said I think people often go too far here, I like fear effects in a game. At the same time, when people complain about a fear check disrupting their agency, I understand what they are talking about

 

[AlViking]

I hate to re-litigate the definition, but generally agency is meant to mean "ability to move towards a goal/specific result." This sort of deep-held control seems to less be about agency and more about, well, control or OC-style character-conception. It doesnt really tell us anything about said character's ability to achieve materially important goals?

When playing an RPG my fictional avatar doesn't exist and therefore has no agency. Only I, as a player, can have agency. In a true hardcore railroad if I say my character goes right and the GM tells me that no they actually go left the GM has taken away my agency because they are now the one in control of my character.

Make sense?

If I say my character stabs the orc in the face and I roll a 1 and the attack fails, that can't affect the character's agency because the character's agency is already 0. However I as a player still exercised my agency by my declaration of my character's action. If anyone (i.e. the GM) or anything (i.e. the rules) say that no, I do not attempt to stab that poor stabby-face orc in the face, my agency has been taken away because I am no longer in control of my character. Just the same as the railroading GM that told me my character went left.

I don't really care if you agree with my definition of agency any more than I agree with your definition of agency. But my definition is just as legitimate as yours.

 

[Bedrockgames]

So, what exactly is different here? D&D still allows entirely mundane creatures or effects to strike fear into the hearts of PCs, if they fail a roll to resist it. What makes this different from the things @pemerton has described? Why is what D&D does, and has done for two and a half decades, acceptable, while BW is unacceptable? Per your own descriptions, D&D takes away your agency just as much as BW does!

I never said either was unacceptable. I was pushing back on a definition of agency that doesn't include control of thoughts and actions. Different games will interfere with those to different degrees. There is no problem in my mind with what BW or D&D are doing. But I see players raise agency concerns all the time around these kinds of things in games (which isn't me critiquing the presence of those things, it is me trying to draw our attention to an aspect of agency)

 

[Bedrockgames]

I’ve snipped your post up a bit, not in any attempt to change the context, but rather to focus on specific things that jumped out at me.



If I as a player choose to put something on the line… if I knowingly take a risk… and it doesn’t go my way… isn’t that part of play? Is that a reduction in my ability to play the game? Or is it a consequence for play not going my way?

Again, I am not criticizing games dong this. D&D even does it at times in different ways. My point is even if you are choosing the risk through informed gameplay, the consequence leads to a moment where you are clearly losing agency over the character. The point isn't to say therefore this thing is bad, and the games agency is utterly ruined, it was simply me pushing back on your claim that control of thoughts and actions were not losses of agency if loss of them was a result of fair gameplay. Agency seems quite bound up in your ability to control your characters thoughts and actions (to me and I would wager to the majority of RPG players )

 

[TwoSix]

People have told you multiple times that we have very basic questions that we believe have simple answers. For whatever reason you keep giving the same responses and using game terms without explanation. Then you turn around and blame the people who still don't understand because you aren't clarifying anything.

I'll be honest, if you can't understand @pemerton's posts, that's a "you" thing. Everything in @pemerton's posts here I've seen is laid out logically.

Plus, having threads that go on for thousands of posts with people getting more angry that @pemerton is essential a messageboard final boss with nigh-infinite HP is a long-standing ENWorld tradition.

 

[Bedrockgames]

The “questionable definition” you’re talking about is the actual definition of the word.

And no one is “diminishing the amount of agency operating in multiple styles of play”. I don’t even know how you can draw that conclusion. My posts have not… can not… change the amount of player agency available in your or anyone else’s game.

1) There are multiple defitions of agency and people have been selecting the ones most convenient to their argument. Definitions of agency shift from one discipline to the next. Agency in RPGs has a particular meaning. You can tell this when you hear players complain about loss of agency in a campaign and it is clear what they are complaining about. I also think agency is a malleable term depending on the context in an RPG. I think what you are talking about has more to do with control of the game than with agency, and you are largely limiting the discussion to the players engagement with the mechanics and not the setting, which overlooks half of what is going on.

In terms of diminishment: you are. This all arose over a claim that sandboxes, which most people consider a pretty maximal agency style, was really not so. And it comes in a conversation where people are trying to frame sandbox as a gm driven style of play (and being contrasted with styles and systems like BW or PbtA). Throughout this discussion you have consistently been trying to deduct agency from sandbox play and criticizing our framing of sandbox. At the same time, I have been very accepting of your claims about BW and BitD or PbtA, and also very inclusive about saying systems like that can still be sandboxes in my opinion.

 

[AlViking]

No. My point is quite simple: imaginary things do not have causal impacts.
...

People talk all the time about what their characters do. I say that my barbarian stabbed the orc in the face. Since neither my barbarian or the orc in question exist, it is technically incorrect to state that. I should really say that I declared an attack action for barbarian targeting the orc (no called shots in D&D, so no face-specific stab) and rolled a high enough number to exceed the orc's AC reducing the orc's hit points.

I see no difference between that and talking about thinking of what is happening in the fictional world as determining causality and chain of events. It will never be perfect, it's just a GM's best attempt to think about logical consequences of ongoing events in the world and whether or not they are impacted by the influence of the characters. But that's quite a mouthful so instead it's "causal impacts".