D&D 5E Respect Mah Authoritah: Thoughts on DM and Player Authority in 5e

[Manbearcat]

What all of these bear more resemblance to than winning or losing anything is finishing something. Satisfying a completion urge. They are--each and everyone--more like finishing a story (or maybe a chapter) as a reader or as a writer, than like winning (or plausibly losing--some of the end states are ambiguous and I could see being seen either way).

Finishing a story has never, ever felt like winning to me. Never as a reader, and not as a writer. Finishing a song in the MIDI space (or getting one all the way together as part of a band, back when the rocks were still cooling) never felt like winning.

Now, clearly, my point of view on this is ... probably deeply alien to you, and to some of the other posters still bothering with this thread. I'm ... fine with that.

It definitely does feel alien to me.

So a couple things...and I hate to do this...but...

1) The dictionary definition of "win" is "be successful in a conflict, contest, or endeavor." There is no clause appended to the end of that stipulating "terminating any future conflicts, contests, or endeavors."

2) I come from a deeply athletic background and a hard childhood. The merger of those two things created a cognitive space that is deeply focused on RIGHT NOW. I set small goals and I work intensely to complete them, desperately trying to not let "the long view" arrest my focus on, and satisfaction from "right now." "Stacking" is a term you see often these days. That has been used in athletics and martial arts forever. You have a conflict, contest, or endeavor before you. You defeat it. You stack the next victory on top of that one and you keep stacking.

One rep at a time, one play at a time, one contest at a time, etc etc. Each of these are enormously consequential. A break in the chain (physically like an actual injury setback or mentally/emotionally like a reorienting of my self-belief in a bad way) is a terrible thing. Don't let it happen. Win > Stack > Rinse/Repeat. Don't look into the future. Don't focus on things you can't control.

I have to wonder how much deeply different environmental inputs meeting different nature is what we're haggling over here.

3) There is an enormous amount of advanced metrics right now about "micro-wins." For American Football (for instance), "play wins" (4 or more yards in a non-3rd-and-long situation or achieving the line to gain for a 1st down or achieving the goal-line for a TD) are taking over the field of analytics because they're showing themselves to be an extremely predictable and stable metric for evaluating offense and defense production.

The same thing happens in baseball. ERA is a terrible metric (particularly for Relievers) precisely because it takes this giant view of a season long campaign and it tries to extrapolate actually pitching production. Meanwhile, you might have a Reliever who has had 50 Appearances, 47 of them were immaculate (Holds or Saves; eg "Wins"), while 2 of them were train-wrecks and 1 was a net loss. Their ERA is massively inflated (lets say its 3.75...awful for a Reliever)...but their actual Hold/Save Ratio? Elite. That latter metric is "who they are." You put them on the mound and they are reliably going to produce.

---

I'm writing this to you specifically because we're friends and I want you to understand how my brain plugs into all of this. I figure it may also be conducive to others (the conversation at large) to know my wiring as it relates to this.

Thoughts?

 

[Campbell]

I think the language around winning and losing seen in most traditional roleplaying game texts is harmful to the culture of play. Basically it has created a culture of play where developing skill as a player and like trying hard to accomplish the game's objectives is looked down on. All the attendant shame (meta gaming, optimization, etc.) that gets thrown on players for actually looking at and playing the game as like a game does a great disservice to this community and it starts with that language around winning and losing.

 

[prabe]

@prabe,

Can you redo that analysis of @Manbearcat's post using the term "goal" instead of "win condition?" Would your examples change? If so, what's the difference in that you see between completing a goal and winning a goal? Is this just a semantics issue?

I really see those as story things, not game things. Specifically, story beats emerging from play. I think the game is about making the story, and what the rules are about is who gets to decide, now, where the story goes and what it's about. I guess this is why I don't see TRPGs as winnable or losable (though I'll admit some play sequences do disturb me greatly). This doesn't exactly feel like a semantics issue to me, but if it feels like one to you it might be one--arguing over whether it is seems ... pointless.

It's clear that I approach these games from a much more author-like place (not necessarily always Author Stance, as I understand it) than it seems most people do. It probably makes my positions seem ... somewhere between unsupportable and impossible, to you.

 

[Manbearcat]

A relatively well known game that always has either a winner or a loser but never both is solitaire.

I think competitive games require both a winner and a loser, but not all games in general.

I decide to suffer for an hour (whatever the activity is) in order to increase my mental fitness. I achieve it. I win.

I have a brutal workout that I've yet to complete in 7 minutes. I finally beat 7 minutes. I win.

I've never shot below an 80 on a Golf Course. I get a 79. I win.

I get tapped by this same guy's ridiculous choke game over and over and over. Get tapped...just defend the choke variations he puts on me. I get kimura'd and I tap. But I successfully defend a series of 3 chokes. I win.

 

[Ovinomancer]

TO EVERYONE DISAGREEING WITH THE PREMISE THAT WIN CONS EXIST IN TTRPGS

I want to throw several things at you so we can collectively evaluate your/our thinking on this. Ready? Go:

1) My Life With Master - At the final conflict with the Master, your Minion has attained Love (a currency that accrues, or doesn't, in the course of play; through the series of conflicts that make up the game, you've established relationships with the Townsfolk that have effectively awakened your character and allowed them to surmount their worse inclinations/disposition) greater than your combined Fear + Weariness (same). Maybe other PCs haven't maybe they all have? Maybe you're the only Minion that has done this?

Now the Endgame conflict with the Master is enabled and we cut right to the action to find out if you depose/kill the Master/Mistress or not. Anyone whose Love > Fear + Weariness is in the conflict. This_is_not_easy.

Is getting to this endgame conflict a Win Con?

Is getting to it and then defeating the Master/Mistress a Win Con?

Win Condition 1 -- get to endgame
Win Condition 2 -- complete endgame by defeating Master

I see these very clearly, and these are large WCs, because the game it entirely bent towards asking these two questions.

2) D&D 4e - You've authored a Major Quest for your character in the Heroic Tier of play; "Open the Gates of Man and Watch the Horde Pass Freely Through." It turns out that, in the course of the Heroic Tier of play, we all discover that this isn't a tangible thing. Its intangible. At the end of the Heroic Tier, you've won enough conflicts to have many allies in the Points of Light setting at your back when you confront "The Keeper." This is an upleveled (Level +3) Social Skill Challenge and you have to stake all the hearts and minds that you've won in order to convince The Keeper. Your Skill Challenge is a success. You open the heart of The Keeper who in turn opens the Gates of Man. The last scene of the Heroic Tier is watching the Horde pass freely through the gates.

Quest completed. If the group plays Paragon Tier (they may not...this may be a wrap), it starts from here.

If that's a wrap, Win Con?

If that's not a wrap and this Major Quest profoundly shapes Paragon Tier play (while of course establishing a significant amount about the setting and your character), Win Con?

Win Con either way?

WC1 -- complete the major quest
WC1a -- understand quest objective
WC1b -- gain sufficient allies to have enough resources to address WC1
WC1c -- define conflict for WC1 in a way that's surmountable given WC1a and WC1b.

Yup, I see these laying out this way. WC1 is dependent on the sub conditions being fulfilled to be completed. Again, major question of play is being addressed here.

3) Aliens RPG - You're a Scientist for Weyland-Yutani. Below is your Agenda.f

PERSONAL AGENDA: That Weyland-Yutani inspection team won’t be so snooty if you can leapfrog them and get an alien to the Company first. You just need to get a live specimen and get off LV-426 alive. Who will be laughing then?

You successfully commander the evac and get a live specimen and yourself off LV-426. The final scene is you entering cryostasis as The Mother plots the course for your destination.

Win Con?

Oh, clearly.

4) Dogs in the Vineyard - Your backstory initiation scene (the situation is player-authored and the GM plays the antagonism/obstacle) involved you getting picked on (again) and your goal for the scene is "I won't let my temper get the best of me so that I end up beating yet another initiate into an inch of their life." You fail and therefore gain the 1d6 Trait "I can't lick this awful temper." When you deploy it in conflicts its apt to help you when you can use it, but its certainly a much better chance to earn you Fallout than a d8 or d10.

In the course of play, you lose some conflicts and therefore take Fallout. You throttle back that d6 Trait to a d4 which makes it a significantly complicating feature of your life. When you deploy it, it will help you because you've got an increased dice pool, but you're more apt to get Fallout (negative affects to your character that affect them thematically and their attendant PC build structure). Now your Temper is really causing you problems.

In a conflict in a Town, you're able to use that Trait in a social conflict, not escalate to violence, and win the social conflict (you get what you want without having to go to fists/knives/guns). Between Towns is Reflection. That Trait goes back to d6 because it helped you.

Rince, repeat in another Town. Now its a d8 (a major asset).

Win Con? No? Ok...

Rince, repeat another Town. Now its a d10.

You've mastered your temper and its an asset to your life as a Dog.

Win Con now?

So, this one I like because it's complex and not the direct focus of play like the ones before. Here I see the Win Con as clearly established up front, with the statement "I won't let my temper get the best of me..." This seems the question, and hence win condition, of the entire example -- we're seeing if the character wins or the temper wins. And it goes back and forth. The character loses this win condition, then loses it again, then, slowly, starts to win it. It iterates, each new session being another iteration of the win condition, another new test of it. And, at the end, it's still not fully answered, just that iteration of it is clearly and unambiguously a win -- the character has the best of their temper in that moment.

5) Dungeon World - Its the End of Session move, you've got the following Alignment; Save an innocent from the cruelties of man. You've got a Bond with your Wizard companion; I'll show Mork that kindness pays off. You rescue a fox cub who was down a well project that was abandoned by prospectors. The cub is near death due to exposure and dehydration, etc. You win the conflict to get it out of the well and then you win the conflict to restore its vitality. You now have a Fox cub Cohort (with some kind of move/Skill that helps you due to love). You also learn something new and interesting about the world; There is a prospecting group that is ravaging the countryside and throwing salt-of-the-earth folk off their land for a pittance of a return (and this triggers a new Bond or Alignment statement).

You mark xp for Alignment and Bond and Learn Something New About the World at End of Session. Mork's player changes their alignment from Neutral to Good.

Win Con?

Maybe you level up from those 3 exactly. Win Con?

Yup, I see these as clear win conditions. Nice, again, that these are about overall play, but rather smaller moments in play that address only a part of the entire play for a session. These smaller goals, and how XP is awarded to them, is a nice example of how different systems encode this kinds of win conditions in ways that are pretty different to D&D. It also opens up the understanding of how you can get these "wins" at this smaller, iterative resolution and how they build up play and shape it in clear ways. Ways that are generally opaque in D&D because of how that system operates.

6) Blades in the Dark - You're possessed by your friend's Demon Rival due to a Consequence of the Score prior. This only manifests intermittently (a Fortune Roll based on the Magnitude of the Demon; 3d6 so if a 6 shows up when you make an Action Roll, the GM is taking over and afflicting a Desperate Consequence on the Crew).

The Demon manifests horrifically in the subsequent Occult Score; a ritual to adjure the Demon. Its likely to kill your friend (its Rival). You determine that the only way to save your friend is to throw yourself into the Spirit Well that is being used as the nexus for the ritual (thereby destroying both you, your spirit, and the Demon). You succeed at the Action Roll.

You cast your character into the spirit well after you momentarily regain your normal visage from the Demon in order to glance at your friends with a smile of "its ok...I've got this." You're over the lip and gone...the Demon with you.

Basically like The Exorcist.

You're making a new character or you're changing one of the Crew's Cohorts to become a full fledged PC.

Win Con?

Oh, gods, no. Cults are the worst crews, they're Blades on Hard Mode, and there's no winning at all. At least, that's what I've been lead to believe.

/inside joke

Yeah, no, especially since I'm aware of some of the particulars of that game (not a player in it, just have some insight into it), that's absolutely a win condition for that game. Desperately needed, in fact.

 

[FrogReaver]

It definitely does feel alien to me.

So a couple things...and I hate to do this...but...

1) The dictionary definition of "win" is "be successful in a conflict, contest, or endeavor." There is no clause appended to the end of that stipulating "terminating any future conflicts, contests, or endeavors."

2) I come from a deeply athletic background and a hard childhood. The merger of those two things created a cognitive space that is deeply focused on RIGHT NOW. I set small goals and I work intensely to complete them, desperately trying to not let "the long view" arrest my focus on, and satisfaction from "right now." "Stacking" is a term you see often these days. That has been used in athletics and martial arts forever. You have a conflict, contest, or endeavor before you. You defeat it. You stack the next victory on top of that one and you keep stacking.

One rep at a time, one play at a time, one contest at a time, etc etc. Each of these are enormously consequential. A break in the chain (physically like an actual injury setback or mentally/emotionally like a reorienting of my self-belief in a bad way) is a terrible thing. Don't let it happen. Win > Stack > Rinse/Repeat. Don't look into the future. Don't focus on things you can't control.

I have to wonder how much deeply different environmental inputs meeting different nature is what we're haggling over here.

3) There is an enormous amount of advanced metrics right now about "micro-wins." For American Football (for instance), "play wins" (4 or more yards in a non-3rd-and-long situation or achieving the line to gain for a 1st down or achieving the goal-line for a TD) are taking over the field of analytics because they're showing themselves to be an extremely predictable and stable metric for evaluating offense and defense production.

The same thing happens in baseball. ERA is a terrible metric (particularly for Relievers) precisely because it takes this giant view of a season long campaign and it tries to extrapolate actually pitching production. Meanwhile, you might have a Reliever who has had 50 Appearances, 47 of them were immaculate (Holds or Saves; eg "Wins"), while 2 of them were train-wrecks and 1 was a net loss. Their ERA is massively inflated (lets say its 3.75...awful for a Reliever)...but their actual Hold/Save Ratio? Elite. That latter metric is "who they are." You put them on the mound and they are reliably going to produce.

---

I'm writing this to you specifically because we're friends and I want you to understand how my brain plugs into all of this. I figure it may also be conducive to others (the conversation at large) to know my wiring as it relates to this.

Thoughts?

Win can be a synonym of success. But that’s doesn’t mean all winning is done in the context of winning a game.

so I’ve got to ask win what?

the rest of us are talking about winning a game. You are talking about winning things other than the game. A football analogy might be the receiver winning his matchup against the corner. But winning your matchup (being successful) isn’t winning a game.

 

[Ovinomancer]

I really see those as story things, not game things. Specifically, story beats emerging from play. I think the game is about making the story, and what the rules are about is who gets to decide, now, where the story goes and what it's about. I guess this is why I don't see TRPGs as winnable or losable (though I'll admit some play sequences do disturb me greatly). This doesn't exactly feel like a semantics issue to me, but if it feels like one to you it might be one--arguing over whether it is seems ... pointless.

It's clear that I approach these games from a much more author-like place (not necessarily always Author Stance, as I understand it) than it seems most people do. It probably makes my positions seem ... somewhere between unsupportable and impossible, to you.

I think I'll take this one offline with you, because I have some questions that I do not want to ask in the open to explore this. Thanks!

 

[Ovinomancer]

Win can be a synonym of success. But that’s doesn’t mean all winning is done in games.

so I’ve got to ask win what?

the rest of us are talking about winning a game. You are talking about winning things other than the game. A football analogy might be the receiver winning his matchup against the corner. But winning your matchup (being successful) isn’t winning a game.

Yes, you seem to be talking about winning a game. At no point has @Manbearcat, who introduced "win conditions" and clearly defined them when he did, been talking only about winning an entire game. You've staked out a completely different approach and are trying to insist that your approach is what was meant all along -- it isn't.

 

[Manbearcat]

Win can be a synonym of success. But that’s doesn’t mean all winning is done in games.

so I’ve got to ask win what?

the rest of us are talking about winning a game. You are talking about winning things other than the game. A football analogy might be the receiver winning his matchup against the corner. But winning your matchup (being successful) isn’t winning a game.

EDIT - Answering "Win What?"

* Win the right to stack wins.

* Win feeling good about yourself.

* Win momentum (see stacking wins and feeling good about yourself).

* Win controlling the trajectory of play (see all of the above).

* Win arresting a spiral (see all of the above) or bouncing back when things are getting away from you.

* Win a step change (sometimes things are dramatic in their impact on our lives and our play and our outlooks).

* Win companions.

* Win overcoming your worse nature.

* Win getting ready (mentally and physically) for the next contest/conflict/endeavor.

Look at my post directly above describing my wiring on this (which, obnoxiously!, includes the definition of "win"). That should have explanatory power here.

I don't agree with the framework of "winning is exclusively a macro-classification (it definitely is a macro-classification...but not exclusively) meaning all contests, conflicts, and endeavor results along the way are not relevant for qualitative evaluating play (how the macro-win occurred and how we felt in the course of things)." And I don't agree that "to win there must be a loser."

I don't think either of those hold up to scrutiny.

An American Football game is won at the preparation level (practice and gameplanning) prior to even playing. You can ABSOLUTELY win or lose in that phase. Then you win or lose at the play level (stack 2 play losses in a row and you're looking at 3rd and long or a Turnover...that is a HUGE thing in the game of football). Then you win or lose at the drive level. Then you win or lose in the situational play (did you make more and more meaningful situational plays than the other team and how was your Red Zone Efficiency). In days of yore, time of possession, penalties, and 3rd down conversion rate were primary metrics (for evaluating winning and losing), but they've faded dramatically due to the nature of the changes in the game's ruleset.

 

[FrogReaver]

I decide to suffer for an hour (whatever the activity is) in order to increase my mental fitness. I achieve it. I win.

as I previously mentioned it’s trivial for an individual to turn a solo activity into a game. Create some parameters for winning and losing. you now have a game.

I have a brutal workout that I've yet to complete in 7 minutes. I finally beat 7 minutes. I win.

I've never shot below an 80 on a Golf Course. I get a 79. I win.

see above.

I get tapped by this same guy's ridiculous choke game over and over and over. Get tapped...just defend the choke variations he puts on me. I get kimura'd and I tap. But I successfully defend a series of 3 chokes. I win.

If you are just making up the rules for winning in your mind then at best you’ve created an individual game. Your opponent is unaware of that game and while he is the one choking you, he’s not playing that game.

in the context of rpgs - those aren’t individual games like the examples you listed here. A single player cannot just assert ‘I win the game when x happens’.