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

[FrogReaver]

I can't speak for others, but what I want is clear stakes. I want to know what I'm risking, what the potential rewards are, and how the rules of the game work in this situation. If @Lanefan tells me I am going to have to figure out what the rays do, that's fine. What are the ways to do that, and what are the benefits and risks of each strategy.

I think the stakes are rarely clear due to downstream effects of any decision and die roll.

What I don't want is a ton of long tedious low stakes prefatory play that could be elided.

I get that.

I don't want situations where I do the thing and some completely unknown factor is suddenly injected into play which snatches victory from my hands, or turns one level of risk/consequences into something different.

Some of us view soft moves into hard moves as doing exactly this.

 

[AlViking]

I can't speak for others, but what I want is clear stakes. I want to know what I'm risking, what the potential rewards are, and how the rules of the game work in this situation. If @Lanefan tells me I am going to have to figure out what the rays do, that's fine. What are the ways to do that, and what are the benefits and risks of each strategy.

What I don't want is a ton of long tedious low stakes prefatory play that could be elided. I don't want situations where I do the thing and some completely unknown factor is suddenly injected into play which snatches victory from my hands, or turns one level of risk/consequences into something different.

I don't want to know as a player what my character does not know. There should be a reasonable chance to understand what the risks are, both with passive knowledge and active investigation and information gathering, but I have no issues with @Lanefan's luminescent light show. Obviously I don't want to be constantly hit with "gotchas!", but now and then if I'm ambushed or walk into an unexpectedly dangerous situation I'm okay with it.

I don't have all the information I need to make every decision in real life so I have no expectation that the game will be different.

Edit - in addition, one person's low stakes is oftentimes another person's character and world development.

 

[hawkeyefan]

Except for the very many times when what makes the most sense is a continuation of the status quo, i.e. nothing happens, which isn't allowed by said rules.

And right then is where the overarching question of rules-first or fiction-first rears its head.

So there are a few ways to look at this.

First, have all those factors actually been set already? The weather and the location of people within the location and all that? In some games... even some games of D&D... that very likely may not be the case.

Second, even if all those factors have been established... it's still pretty easy to come up with something. The thief breaks his lock picks, and will now have to find another route into the place without use of his lock picks. Or, he spends so much time on it, that someone does come along... a guard, or maybe just lovers out for a tryst. These don't violate any kind of fiction-first approach. They actually help make the setting feel like its alive and moving and things beyond the PC are happening, which is a huge part of what everyone was insisting is vital to play.

Third, if nothing will happen if you fail... if there is no consequence... some people don't pick up the dice. If there are no time constraints, no risk of being discovered (which to me seems inherent to breaking in to a location, but whatever)... then why bother with a roll? Why not just let them break in? Doesn't seem to be any kind of violation of fiction first to let a thief pick a lock. In fact, making them roll despite the lack of risk seems more like a rules-first approach. It seems beholden to the idea that to succeed at something, you have to roll. But most games allow for the GM to decide a roll is not needed.

It's not just that the stakes have been set, but more so that the lockpicking attempt has nothing to do with the cook. Being discretely different events means that there should be different rolls to determine each.

Why would it have nothing to do with the cook? If you're breaking into a kitchen, and there's a cook there, it seems to me that the things are connected.

Also, there's no reason that a game cannot use conflict resolution instead of task resolution. Like we look at the entire situation... breaking into the kitchen and a cook being there... and then the player's roll tells us how the situation is resolved. A high roll means successfully, a low roll means unsuccessfully. On the unsuccessful result, what is the outcome? Maybe they can't even pick the lock, or maybe they do get in, but the cook notices.

There's no reason that we MUST use task resolution. Some games specifically use another approach.

Another thing is the level of realism, which may or may not be an issue to any particular traditional DM. For me it is. In order for the cook to be there in the dead of night, the cook would have to have woken up in the middle of the night for some reason, decided to get up rather than try to go back to sleep, then have that wake-up happen to be on the night that the PC is trying to pick the lock, and lastly have the timing be during the brief period where the PC is picking the lock.

Or perhaps as a servant, they must wake up super early to get the stoves going and start to prepare breakfast? Depending on the location... and one that has a dedicated cook sounds to me like a manor or a castle or a place of affluence (as does breaking in). As such, there are likely servants active at all kinds of hours.

Seriously... this inability to make fail forward work is kind of remarkable. People are actively using their imagination to make it not work. All you have to do is flip that. Use your imagination to make it work. The idea that one of these things is problematic and the other isn't, is very strange.

 

[AlViking]

So there are a few ways to look at this.

First, have all those factors actually been set already? The weather and the location of people within the location and all that? In some games... even some games of D&D... that very likely may not be the case.

Second, even if all those factors have been established... it's still pretty easy to come up with something. The thief breaks his lock picks, and will now have to find another route into the place without use of his lock picks. Or, he spends so much time on it, that someone does come along... a guard, or maybe just lovers out for a tryst. These don't violate any kind of fiction-first approach. They actually help make the setting feel like its alive and moving and things beyond the PC are happening, which is a huge part of what everyone was insisting is vital to play.

Third, if nothing will happen if you fail... if there is no consequence... some people don't pick up the dice. If there are no time constraints, no risk of being discovered (which to me seems inherent to breaking in to a location, but whatever)... then why bother with a roll? Why not just let them break in? Doesn't seem to be any kind of violation of fiction first to let a thief pick a lock. In fact, making them roll despite the lack of risk seems more like a rules-first approach. It seems beholden to the idea that to succeed at something, you have to roll. But most games allow for the GM to decide a roll is not needed.




Why would it have nothing to do with the cook? If you're breaking into a kitchen, and there's a cook there, it seems to me that the things are connected.

Also, there's no reason that a game cannot use conflict resolution instead of task resolution. Like we look at the entire situation... breaking into the kitchen and a cook being there... and then the player's roll tells us how the situation is resolved. A high roll means successfully, a low roll means unsuccessfully. On the unsuccessful result, what is the outcome? Maybe they can't even pick the lock, or maybe they do get in, but the cook notices.

There's no reason that we MUST use task resolution. Some games specifically use another approach.



Or perhaps as a servant, they must wake up super early to get the stoves going and start to prepare breakfast? Depending on the location... and one that has a dedicated cook sounds to me like a manor or a castle or a place of affluence (as does breaking in). As such, there are likely servants active at all kinds of hours.

Seriously... this inability to make fail forward work is kind of remarkable. People are actively using their imagination to make it not work. All you have to do is flip that. Use your imagination to make it work. The idea that one of these things is problematic and the other isn't, is very strange.

It's never been a question of "Could the GM come up with something interesting." We're not stupid. It's about approach to the game's fiction and preferences. In my game if the rogue fails their attempt to open the lock the characters have to find an alternate, perhaps less safe, alternative or they have to give up on breaking in. What some people call Fail Forward would have the game move forward by saying they still open the door but some additional threat or obstacle is added to the narrative that has nothing to do with the failed action declaration.

If there's a cook behind the locked door, they're there whether or not the attempt to open the lock succeeds. Of course there are other approaches to how this all works, that's why there are different games.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

So if the established fiction has it that it's about 2 a.m., the house is dark and quiet, the PCs' prior casing of the place has shown there to be no watchdogs or pets, the weather is benign so no chance of sudden downpours or thunder etc., and the Thief blows his pick-locks roll on trying to get into the kitchen, what next?

For me, this seems like a pretty obvious "nothing happens right now" situation - the Thief doesn't get in through that door and has to try another door, or a window. (it would be a most unusual house if the only way in was a door straight into the kitchen)

If ninjas dropping from the ceiling doesn't make sense then it's not going to happen. Same with a screaming cook. What's most likely to happen is nothing, other than the Thief has to either abandon the break-in or come up with a plan B.

I think the issue here is the difference between simple task adjudication and Narrativist 'fiction resolution'. Even in AW I'd like to see some generalization. Jane is breaking into the warehouse, of course she can succeed! If the place is entirely unguarded why even roll? Is there a secondary goal, like not leaving any sign of a break in? Adjudicate that! Honestly, the problem here is wasting time on nothingburger play. The place is completely safe, let's adjudicate whether you got what you wanted. Goodness! The problem is all this stakeless BS play.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I don't want to know as a player what my character does not know. There should be a reasonable chance to understand what the risks are, both with passive knowledge and active investigation and information gathering, but I have no issues with @Lanefan's luminescent light show. Obviously I don't want to be constantly hit with "gotchas!", but now and then if I'm ambushed or walk into an unexpectedly dangerous situation I'm okay with it.

I don't have all the information I need to make every decision in real life so I have no expectation that the game will be different.

Edit - in addition, one person's low stakes is oftentimes another person's character and world development.

I didn't really have a problem with his lightshow either. I might have made it a bit less complicated, but conceptually it's OK.

 

[Micah Sweet]

A desire to understand the greater world around us? Knowledge for its own sake?

I mean, I know all 50 US state capitals despite the fact I've only been to like 15 states. And I don't normally need the auspices of other state governments.

I know who the prime minister of Canada, and how their parliamentary system works, despite the fact I don't like in Canada or even live in a country with a parliamentary system.

It's just fun to know and understand things!

To be honest, I find all those things more interesting than why people like Narrativist games (and conversely, why people don't like what I prefer). At least, I feel there's a point (long since reached in this thread), where that knowledge has been acquired, and people look to be just trying to get to admit to being wrong.

I love knowledge for knowledge's sake, but I don't spend a lot of time analyzing things I've determined aren't fun for me.

 

[CreamCloud0]

dear lord, i missed one day of visiting this thread and i ended up catching up on it for days.

 

[Micah Sweet]

So I can better understand why I don't like it so I can avoid doing similar things in my own games? It might be there's some itch in my own play that I'm not quite sure how to articulate but is laid bare by a larger example. For example I might find something a bit off wandering monsters and their relationship to exploration turns. Looking at an unfamiliar example might reveal to me the thing I don't like is them not being foreshadowed as I don't know in advance what they will be (particularly a problem with the "roll again on a higher table" results some have) so instead of wandering monsters rolls I start to track the movement of all monster groups in the dungeon and can properly foreshadow them.

I might not realise that's particularly the problem I have with them until I read discussion of Fail Forward techniques and the responses to them (the old arguments about failing a lock pick attempt causing a bear to show up, for example) when I realise that's not wholly different in principle from exploration turns and wandering monster rolls (a roll is failed, a monster shows up because of it) The details are important of course (you can argue that it's time rather than lockpicking, but failing the roll causes you to spend the time, for example) and an insight might not be useful directly, but it can sometimes be illuminating.

Ok. That's reasoning I can get behind.

 

[Micah Sweet]

So there are a few ways to look at this.

First, have all those factors actually been set already? The weather and the location of people within the location and all that? In some games... even some games of D&D... that very likely may not be the case.

Second, even if all those factors have been established... it's still pretty easy to come up with something. The thief breaks his lock picks, and will now have to find another route into the place without use of his lock picks. Or, he spends so much time on it, that someone does come along... a guard, or maybe just lovers out for a tryst. These don't violate any kind of fiction-first approach. They actually help make the setting feel like its alive and moving and things beyond the PC are happening, which is a huge part of what everyone was insisting is vital to play.

Third, if nothing will happen if you fail... if there is no consequence... some people don't pick up the dice. If there are no time constraints, no risk of being discovered (which to me seems inherent to breaking in to a location, but whatever)... then why bother with a roll? Why not just let them break in? Doesn't seem to be any kind of violation of fiction first to let a thief pick a lock. In fact, making them roll despite the lack of risk seems more like a rules-first approach. It seems beholden to the idea that to succeed at something, you have to roll. But most games allow for the GM to decide a roll is not needed.




Why would it have nothing to do with the cook? If you're breaking into a kitchen, and there's a cook there, it seems to me that the things are connected.

Also, there's no reason that a game cannot use conflict resolution instead of task resolution. Like we look at the entire situation... breaking into the kitchen and a cook being there... and then the player's roll tells us how the situation is resolved. A high roll means successfully, a low roll means unsuccessfully. On the unsuccessful result, what is the outcome? Maybe they can't even pick the lock, or maybe they do get in, but the cook notices.

There's no reason that we MUST use task resolution. Some games specifically use another approach.



Or perhaps as a servant, they must wake up super early to get the stoves going and start to prepare breakfast? Depending on the location... and one that has a dedicated cook sounds to me like a manor or a castle or a place of affluence (as does breaking in). As such, there are likely servants active at all kinds of hours.

Seriously... this inability to make fail forward work is kind of remarkable. People are actively using their imagination to make it not work. All you have to do is flip that. Use your imagination to make it work. The idea that one of these things is problematic and the other isn't, is very strange.

No one is saying your use of fail-forward doesn't work for you.. they're saying it doesn't work for them, because it doesn't suit their expectations and preferences for play. Why then is there this push to get others on board with your way of doing things? Can we not just play our own game our own way?