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

[pemerton]

whereas Blades in the Dark focuses on creating an experience of a drama about life in Duskvol, my living world approach is about visiting that world as a character within it. Blades creates a rich, character-driven drama with lots of depth, and its mechanics, like flashbacks, do an excellent job supporting that.

More importantly, it does so in a way that’s approachable for folks with limited hobby time, which is no small feat.

Earlier, I mentioned the difference between running a campaign where it feels like you’ve visited Middle-earth versus one where it feels like you’re inside a Tolkien novel about Middle-earth, or, more precisely, creating a Tolkien novel about Middle-earth as you play.

Having read Blades in the Dark and played it once with a friend, it struck me that the game is designed to create a drama (in the sense of a serialized TV show) about characters living out their lives in Duskvol. And that’s not just my impression, it’s explicitly stated in the rulebook.

Another way to put it: I could watch a compelling drama about life in modern Greece and get a lot out of it. Or I could travel to Greece and experience life there myself. Neither is inherently “better” than the other, but they are fundamentally different experiences.

is the implication of this supposed to be that play in your game is more vibrant and immersive than play of (say) BitD?

To me, that's not a plausible claim.

I mean, I read your post about bandits and lovers and the PCs waking up to a scream and so on; and watched bits of the video you linked to. And in this thread I've posted some accounts of my own Prince Valiant RPGing involving bandits and villagers and the PCs travelling through an imaginary mediaeval Britain. And I know what those sessions were like, as I was there.

And I don't see how, in any sense of the phrase, your session is more like "visiting" a place than mine.

I'm happy to talk about differences of technique involved - for example, I didn't track movement of NPCs across a map; I just made decisions about which NPC was where that fitted with what had been presented so far to the players, and that also fitted with what was set out in the scenarios I was drawing upon. But I simply don't accept your experiential way of trying to characterise the difference.

 

[Hussar]

I don't claim to be 100% objective.

Thank you for that. That's pretty much the only point I was making.

 

[pemerton]

Let's say there are no mechanics in play and what would have happened in the event of a Duel of Wits was instead handled with regard to fictional positioning and freeform roleplay. For any table that I personally care to play at the result of that would have established some fictional positioning I would consider binding.

If later on either party would act in way that seem contrary to events as they unfolded, I would ask questions.

Yeah, back when we played RM there were no mechanically binding PC vs PC social mechanics. But players were still expected to play their characters coherently and consistently, not just as instruments for meeting win conditions.

Just as one example, if a player thought that their PC was suffering from sorrow or depression, they were expected to suggest a roll on the Depression critical table; and that could produce mechanically binding results. Some players were more "honest" about this than others - and their PCs tended to get a correspondingly larger amount of screen time, as they were the interesting ones who actually had something closer to a real life.

 

[Hussar]

No. This discussion is about how some people (People 1) seem to think that other people (People 2) believe that the fantasy world actually, physically exists and advances on its own without GM input, because of shorthand terminology used by People 2.

I tried to explain that when People 2 say that the world progresses naturally, what they mean is that there is a logical chain of events that flows from actions taken in the game.

And I certainly understand what you are saying. However, I reject it. The events flow from whatever the Dm thinks will be interesting in play. This notion of the world having any sort of independence from the DM is ludicrous. A creation that is created, adjudicated, and adjusted by a single source cannot possibly have any sort of independence from that source. And it's fairly easy to prove.

If any of us took @robertsconley's setting and ran it for our own groups, within a very short time, each of our settings would progress distinctly from each other. Your setting, my setting and the original setting would look very different. If the setting had any sort of independent existence, it shouldn't though. After all, it shouldn't really matter who is running it. If we all bought the same car and drove it for the next year, by the end of the year, those three cars would be pretty much identical. Superficial differences only. (Barring, of course, some after market mods )

So, no, I reject this notion that the setting is somehow separate from the DM of that setting. It can't be.

 

[DinoInDisguise]

I agree player expectations are huge. I also think this is why plausibility matters in these campaigns (the players are aren't going to accept something that seems implausible, so the GM has to consider how it will be received by the players, and as a group they have to be on the same page)

Isn't plausibility the same as player expectations in the context of a fantasy TTRPG? Isn't that the whole point of Enrahim's post?

Plausibility seems to melt away as a factor, if clear expectations about the way a world works are defined. We do it for magic all the time. It's just that expectation is inherent in many systems, so it's not discussed. But if something falls within player expectations for a world, it also falls within their expectations of what is plausible in that world.

When we label "plausibility" as a separate idea from player expectations things get weird. All of a sudden worlds with slightly different rules become almost problematic because they break this nebulous idea of plausibility even if they fall within player expectations.

So I would guess that plausibility is really just player expectations by a different name. As I can, theoretically, get player's to expect implausible events and not run into issues because I am still meeting player expectations even if violating plausibility in a general sense.

Maybe I'm wrong, but I feel like “plausibility” is not an absolute concept in RPGs; and therefore is just a subset of player expectations.

 

[zakael19]

And I certainly understand what you are saying. However, I reject it. The events flow from whatever the Dm thinks will be interesting in play. This notion of the world having any sort of independence from the DM is ludicrous. A creation that is created, adjudicated, and adjusted by a single source cannot possibly have any sort of independence from that source. And it's fairly easy to prove.

If any of us took @robertsconley's setting and ran it for our own groups, within a very short time, each of our settings would progress distinctly from each other. Your setting, my setting and the original setting would look very different. If the setting had any sort of independent existence, it shouldn't though. After all, it shouldn't really matter who is running it. If we all bought the same car and drove it for the next year, by the end of the year, those three cars would be pretty much identical. Superficial differences only. (Barring, of course, some after market mods )

So, no, I reject this notion that the setting is somehow separate from the DM of that setting. It can't be.

And if there wasn't a degree of satisfaction and enjoyment to subjective creative vision in play (either from prep via map and key etc and or from moment to moment adjudication & description) we'd all be just playing board games instead. That reactivity is the magic of TTRPG play, even if it can also be the downside if done poorly; but we're talking about well-run games here mainly.

The presence of large communities around specific products on the internet really drives home the subjectivity once something hits the market. Dolmenwood has lots of "what does your X area look like" threads; I've previously mentioned here how vastly different everybody's Doskvol is; even fairly linear adventures have huge differences at the table depending on GM and what they bring in for their players or how they interpret encounters/outcomes.

It's really cool!

 

[Hussar]

Take out the word "most" and that's what we do. Our decision may not be the most plausible, but it will be plausible and that's all that is necessary for the world to run on its own logic and events to flow from what is plausible.

That is such a low bar that it's meaningless. All plausible means is that it is believably possible. In a fantasy world, there's pretty much nothing that isn't plausible. And, why would you think that every Dm/GM out there isn't setting the same bar? Do you think that people who play pass the story stick games are running things that aren't plausible? Of course not. Plausible is the lowest common denominator of any RPG play.

 

[zakael19]

That is such a low bar that it's meaningless. All plausible means is that it is believably possible. In a fantasy world, there's pretty much nothing that isn't plausible. And, why would you think that every Dm/GM out there isn't setting the same bar? Do you think that people who play pass the story stick games are running things that aren't plausible? Of course not. Plausible is the lowest common denominator of any RPG play.

I think "plausible" is best understood as the phrase "follows from the fiction and acceptable to the table." That is, the response / event / etc meets the player's shared expectations based on what's previously been established about the world and events to date and thus "feels right."

You certainly get negative responses when something feels "off" very quickly! "Wait, where did they come from?" "Hey, didn't you say that...?" etc, haha.

 

[Enrahim]

A creation that is created, adjudicated, and adjusted by a single source cannot possibly have any sort of independence from that source.

What setting in RPGs are the production of a single source? Almost all campaign pitches I have seen reference either known published fiction, or historical periods. This already sets a set of player expectations the GM should probably take into account. And just the act of players in the setting adds new material to the setting, and introduce new expectations that again guides the DM. Yes, the setting is of course not fully independent from the DM, but there are still mechanisms that could bind the DM to experience a dissonance between their own overall preferences, and what they feel the setting dictates.

Even without the presence of any others, we have the phenomenom of authors writing themselves into a corner due to the complexity of the setting they already have establishes prevent them from making their story progress the way they envisioned due to interactions they didn't fully comprehend when they introduced each new element.

 

[robertsconley]

is the implication of this supposed to be that play in your game is more vibrant and immersive than play of (say) BitD?

To me, that's not a plausible claim.

I mean, I read your post about bandits and lovers and the PCs waking up to a scream and so on; and watched bits of the video you linked to. And in this thread I've posted some accounts of my own Prince Valiant RPGing involving bandits and villagers and the PCs travelling through an imaginary mediaeval Britain. And I know what those sessions were like, as I was there.

And I don't see how, in any sense of the phrase, your session is more like "visiting" a place than mine.

I'm happy to talk about differences of technique involved - for example, I didn't track movement of NPCs across a map; I just made decisions about which NPC was where that fitted with what had been presented so far to the players, and that also fitted with what was set out in the scenarios I was drawing upon. But I simply don't accept your experiential way of trying to characterise the difference.

I’ve been reflecting on your recent reply.

Looking at it again, I see a familiar pattern:

• You open with a framing that subtly misrepresents my point.
• You follow it with a personal anecdote, watching my video, reading my posts, and use that to suggest there's no real difference between our games, which quietly dismisses everything I’ve laid out without engaging it directly. To compound this I created a detailed analysis where you offer none of your own.
• You hedge, so that if challenged, you can retreat into “just my perspective,” as noted in Umbran’s warning about slippery argumentation.

I’m not here to “win” a debate. I’m here to clearly explain how I run my campaigns so that others can evaluate, use, or ignore my approach as they see fit. I’ve been transparent about what I do, what its limitations are, and how it compares to other styles. That will speak for itself over time.

You can keep using rhetorical tactics to diminish and deflect, or you can engage in good faith discussion. That’s your choice. But I’ll be continuing to explain and document my methods for the benefit of those genuinely interested.