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

[Old Fezziwig]

Yes! I’m sure the ensuing arguments will get us to 8k!

(What is it about AW’s dice resolution mechanic that makes it fit the process-validated outcomes for you? Is it merely the openness, or something more I’m not quite grasping? There’s a lot of GM adjudication and interpretation happening around partial hits / Hard Moves. Clarity of stakes is hoped for but not always given on the negative side, which is part of why I think Harper has been refining his explicit stating of position/effect over the years.)

I'm not sure I'm following that either. I'm with you that, on a success, it seems obvious, e.g., 10+ your little dude has done it to have done it. (That feels like the wrong tense.) But it's getting fuzzy for me on rolls of 9-, where the process for determining what happens in the fiction is less concrete.

 

[robertsconley]

Constructivism says, “If we follow the rules, like rolling the dice or spending a token, whatever happens is valid,” while internal realism says, “It’s valid if it makes sense within the world we’ve already built and how things have played out so far.”

Both constructivism and internal realism value plausibility, consistency, and world logic, and procedures, but constructivism puts following the rules first, while internal realism puts following the world’s internal logic and established facts first.

 

[robertsconley]

Putnam may have moved away from internal realism because he was concerned with how we know truths about the real world. But that doesn’t apply here. In a fictional world, like an RPG setting, when a sandbox campaign is the focus, internal realism actually fits better, because the only “truth” is what follows from what’s already been established. There’s no external world to appeal to, just consistency and plausibility within the imagined one. That’s exactly the kind of reasoning I’m applying when I talk about world logic.

 

[zakael19]

I'm not sure I'm following that either. I'm with you that, on a success, it seems obvious, e.g., 10+ your little dude has done it to have done it. (That feels like the wrong tense.) But it's getting fuzzy for me on rolls of 9-, where the process for determining what happens in the fiction is less concrete.

I would totally see saying that Blade’s resolution mechanic is process-validated when executed correctly; doubled down in the Threat Roll which is explicit about the entirety of stakes.

One of the more interesting responses to the TR I’ve seen from folks in the Blades community is that they dislike the level of pre-framing of negative outcomes. I’ve had a couple of people argue strenuously that contemplating and stating up front the complication(s)/consequences(s) is somehow constraining creativity. How fascinating is that!

 

[hawkeyefan]

You’re admitting both outcomes are plausible, so picking one doesn’t break world logic, it follows from it. That’s the contradiction: you say the logic holds, then claim it doesn’t the moment I make a choice.

I agree with you that it doesn’t break world logic. But the GM picking one is the GM determining how things will go. Determining the direction of play.

Yes, I created the world, but once it’s built, I treat it like a working machine. The people in it, the places, the factions. they all follow logic based on what’s already been established. I don’t decide what happens based on taste or drama; I decide based on what would reasonably follow.

And when combined with the above, determining the direction of play does seem to lean toward GM as storyteller. I don’t think that it must be so, but I think it’s likely… and I don’t even know if we can say if it’s happening or not.

If you’ve created the NPCs and know their traits and goals, then you know how they’re going to react to things. And since you also created all the other elements of the setting, you know how everything will go. You can just turn on the machine and let it run.

Yes, the PCs can impact this. They can change things up… but, you’ve already accounted for this, right? Not these specific PCs, but you’re arranged all this stuff for a group of PCs. So that’s likely part of the thought process throughout, too.

It’s so many GM decisions interacting with other GM decisions and then the players’ decisions, followed by more GM decisions.

Again… this is why I see it as so GM focused.

 

[Lanefan]

Duel of Wits is subject to Let it Ride, the same as the rest of BW, so it'd last until there's a meaningful change in circumstances. I'm not sure of a useful example of something in the fiction being unchangeable such that there'd never be a meaningful change in circumstances that'd be useful. If you have something you want to propose, I can take a hack at suggesting something?

I lose a DoW and agree to do whatever you tell me to do.

That effect lasts until one of us dies? Or until we're separated for x-distance or x-amount of time? Or ... ?

 

[pemerton]

I was talking about how the rules say the duel of wits isn't designed for one-on-one arguments

But it doesn't say that!

 

[Bedrockgames]

I agree with you that it doesn’t break world logic. But the GM picking one is the GM determining how things will go. Determining the direction of play.

The direction was determined by the players and the GM reacted. This is the part you guys keep overlooking. And players are constantly coming up with things the GM hasn't considered. Yes the GM is responsible for the world, so the GM makes world based decisions. That doesn't make the game GM driven (pretty much all trad play is structured on the GM managing the world in some ways). But the GM also relies on system, tables, etc. It isn't all purely coming from the GMs choices. But typically the GM might describe an area of the map and then there is extensive Q&A. So the players might go to a city and start drilling down looking for something specific. And the GM hasn't thought of that in most cases. He may have thought of the necromancers guild the players were asking around for, but he didn't anticipate a question of who opposed them in town. So the players often drive things by forcing the GM to create. And no matter what they are driving play because sandboxes are all about what players want to go and where they want to go. A GM driven game would be "Here is an adventure I prepared for you, please go on it". That isn't what is happening in a sandbox.

 

[Campbell]

Well, that is read as an attack on our playstyles, since railroading is generally thought of as a negative. Seems pretty straightforward, especially with your bespoke definition of railroad.

The same can be said for implications that Narrativist play is not meaningful. Personal stakes, finding out who the character are under pressure and emotional heft are the central emphasis. Telling someone striving for narrativist play their play is not meaningful is about the worst thing you can say about their play.

 

[pemerton]

See how folks are telling you about their playstyle and what they do and how think about it, and your response is to tell them they're wrong about those things?

Whether or not something is a model isn't a matter of preference. It's about the role it plays in a reasoning process.
If I told you that my campaign gets at the truth because I gut birds and read their entrails, would you just nod along and say "it's all preferences"?