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

[pemerton]

You think football isn’t a specific game? Wow. Good luck.

I thought @chaochou's point was this: a football club is, in principle, an open-ended/"infinite" endeavour. Just like a D&D campaign. Hence, if this is sufficient to show that there is no winning or losing in D&D, it follows by parity of reasoning that there is no "winning" or "losing" for a football club either. Which seems like a counterintuitive result, hence showing the original reasoning to be flawed.

I think chaochou's point is reinforced by his actual quotes of win/success conditions from various 5e D&D sources.

 

[Lanefan]

Is everybody here still playing the original campaign they were in when they first picked up a d20?

Playing? Yes, in a way; and the second PC I ever rolled up is still active.

DMing? No.

 

[Lanefan]

I thought @chaochou's point was this: a football club is, in principle, an open-ended/"infinite" endeavour. Just like a D&D campaign. Hence, if this is sufficient to show that there is no winning or losing in D&D, it follows by parity of reasoning that there is no "winning" or "losing" for a football club either. Which seems like a counterintuitive result, hence showing the original reasoning to be flawed.

A football club can and does have individual or short-term wins and losses - a game, a championship, relegation, etc. - but in the long run the only real win condition is a steady state: the club keeps going; in contrast to the loss condition where it goes bankrupt and folds.

D&D is the same. There's individual or short-term wins and losses - a successful combat, a completed mission, a character death, etc. - but in the long run the win condition is also in fact a steady state: the game keeps going; in contrast to the loss conditions of a TPK or the game folding/collapsing.

I think chaochou's point is reinforced by his actual quotes of win/success conditions from various 5e D&D sources.

I'm blocked by that poster so I have to ask: are those win conditions short-term as noted above?

 

[Umbran]

This is misplaced. D&D is never played without a goal ...

Because you know how everyone in the world approaches the game?

-- the rules may not tell us what goal, but they don't do anything unless a goal is in mind. They are conflict resolution rules -- they don't do anything without a conflict. Once a conflict is established, we have win conditions again.

I find this lacks nuance, and feel it hasn't been really true since the first person playing D&D decided their character had narrative goals that did not cleanly map to simple combat success or failure.

RPGs do not have to have simple win conditions, because NARRATIVES, the ultimate result of the games, do not all end tied up in a neat bow, happily ever after. There can be pyrrhic victories, or compromise results in which nobody gets what they really want, conflicts that stop but do not really resolve, and so on.

Like, sure, the Evil Duke is dead, and won't be marrying the heir to the throne, but cutting down innocent servants in a rage means the heir won't be marrying you, either. And, the Duke's child is now fixated on revenge. You didn't totally win, or totally lose. The result is... mixed.

 

[Ovinomancer]

Because you know how everyone in the world approaches the game?

That's a tad hostile, don't you think? No, because the game doesn't do anything without a conflict to resolve. The rules just sit there, the play loop has no purpose... there's nothing. Once you introduce a conflict, you've introduced goals, and that's the same thing as win conditions.

I'm perfectly open to you explaining how you play an RPG without any conflicts whatsoever, so please enlighten me if you think I've missed something obvious.

I find this lacks nuance, and feel it hasn't been really true since the first person playing D&D decided their character had narrative goals that did not cleanly map to simple combat success or failure.

I didn't say combat, I said conflict.

RPGs do not have to have simple win conditions, because NARRATIVES, the ultimate result of the games, do not all end tied up in a neat bow, happily ever after. There can be pyrrhic victories, or compromise results in which nobody gets what they really want, conflicts that stop but do not really resolve, and so on.

I didn't say they had simple win conditions. They can, and often do, have multiple such simple win conditions -- succeed at this task, win this combat, survive this effect, etc. They can also have complex win conditions, save the world, redeem my family honor, secure the throne for the exiled prince, etc. RPGs are usually about layered win conditions, that cycle and repeat and iterate. What doesn't happen, ever, is an absence of them.

Like, sure, the Evil Duke is dead, and won't be marrying the heir to the throne, but cutting down innocent servants in a rage means the heir won't be marrying you, either. And, the Duke's child is now fixated on revenge. You didn't totally win, or totally lose. The result is... mixed.

I did finish a win condition in your example. The issue of the Evil Duke is completed A new one has arisen. Now this one will succeed, fail, or be abandoned. At some point, the game will finish, and we can look back and take score. It won't be a number, but it's still taking score -- "man, that was a great game, remember when.....!"

 

[Malmuria]

For new players (and probably for people who don't play RPGs), the concept of a fictional character achieving goals in a fictional world is very different from the experience of winning and losing in most other kinds of games (sports, card games, board games). One because those games are mostly zero-sum--I win because you lose--and two because they don't have the metonym of the fictional character. If I am playing basketball and score a basket, it is because that is my goal and I defeated someone whose goal it was to stop me. To my mind, whether a campaign is practically finite or theoretically infinite is less important than the qualitative difference in the types of "win conditions," to the point where many introductions to rpgs feel the need to clarify to new players that the concept of "winning" in games that they might be familiar with does not apply.

 

[Maxperson]

A football club can and does have individual or short-term wins and losses - a game, a championship, relegation, etc. - but in the long run the only real win condition is a steady state: the club keeps going; in contrast to the loss condition where it goes bankrupt and folds.

Football has win conditions. Each campaign(season) has a win condition which only one team can win. Then the next campaign(season) starts after around 7 months.

 

[Lanefan]

Football has win conditions. Each campaign(season) has a win condition which only one team can win. Then the next campaign(season) starts after around 7 months.

Temporary win conditions only. Winning a single season doesn't mean you "win football" beyond that season; nor does a successful campaign mean you "win D&D" beyond that campaign.

That said, if you're looking only at the type of short-ish D&D campaign (usually an AP) where there's a single main story goal and the campaign ends on achievement of that goal, and you-as-players play a bunch of these campaigns over the years with different PCs starting from scratch each time, then I can see how the by-season analogy maps.

But that's not the type of campaign I'm thinking of; instead I'm thinking of a longer type of campaign that either a) contains a number of discrete main story goals and perhaps has within it a series of APs or AP-equivalents strung together using the same PCs and setting, or b) maybe doesn't have a definable overarching story goal at all a lot of the time, much like one might expect of a hard-core sandbox or a west-marches campaign. In both these cases it's difficult if not impossible to "win" overall, though lesser wins (and losses!) along the way are almost certain.

 

[Maxperson]

Temporary win conditions only. Winning a single season doesn't mean you "win football" beyond that season; nor does a successful campaign mean you "win D&D" beyond that campaign.

Seasons are discrete in and of themselves. The win-loss records don't carry over. They are winning football for the Superbowl Champion. D&D can't be won in even in a single campaign. Goals can be achieved, but there is no win-loss. Or put another way, virtually nothing can ever be won if your logic holds true, because you can always play another game of Monopoly or whatever at some point.

That said, if you're looking only at the type of short-ish D&D campaign (usually an AP) where there's a single main story goal and the campaign ends on achievement of that goal, and you-as-players play a bunch of these campaigns over the years with different PCs starting from scratch each time, then I can see how the by-season analogy maps.

This isn't the same, because unlike Football, there is no loser, so there can be no winner. Everyone, including the DM just had fun.

 

[pemerton]

For new players (and probably for people who don't play RPGs), the concept of a fictional character achieving goals in a fictional world is very different from the experience of winning and losing in most other kinds of games (sports, card games, board games). One because those games are mostly zero-sum--I win because you lose--and two because they don't have the metonym of the fictional character. If I am playing basketball and score a basket, it is because that is my goal and I defeated someone whose goal it was to stop me. To my mind, whether a campaign is practically finite or theoretically infinite is less important than the qualitative difference in the types of "win conditions," to the point where many introductions to rpgs feel the need to clarify to new players that the concept of "winning" in games that they might be familiar with does not apply.

I also think many of those introductions are lacking in coherence. To elaborate:

so many games say "it's not about winning" and then immediately provide extremely clear win/loss parameters for play. Sometimes I think it's because people believe that players are inherently Gamist and have to be appeased in some way. This uneasy waffling or endless qualifying shows up most often in fantasy games whose authors would like play to be about something else, but just can't quite believe that players would agree.
From the introduction to RuneQuest, second edition (The Chaosium, 1978, 1979, 1980; specific author for this text unknown; game authors are Steve Perrin, Ray Turney, Steve Henderson, and Warren James):

The title of the game, RuneQuest, describes its goal. The player creates one or more characters, known as adventurers, and playes them in various scenarios, designed by a Referee. The Adventurer has the use of combat, magic, and other skills, and treasure. The Referee has the use of assorted monsters, traps, and his own wicked imagination to keep the Adventurer from his goal within the rules of the game. A surviving Adventurer gains experience in fighting, magic, and other skills, as well as money to purchase further training.

Now all that's pretty Gamist stuff of a late 1970s vintage, right? Get this, which follows immediately:

The adventurer progresses in this way until he is so proficient that he comes to the attention of the High Priests, sages, and gods. At this point he has the option to join a Rune Cult. Joining such a cult gives him many advantages, not the least of which is aid from the god of the cult.

Acquiring a Rune by joining such a cult is the goal of the game, for only in gathering a Rune may a character take the next step, up into the ranks of Hero, and perhaps Superhero.

All right, that bit about joining cults still seems kind of Gamist, right? About getting more effective and so on? Great ... except that the GM controls the High Priests and sages. Why would he, whose job was just stated to be to "keep the Adventurer from his goal," have them recognize the Adventurer in the first place? Either they do, and the GM must abandon the stated goal, or they don't, and that whole paragraph becomes gibberish.

Bear in mind as well that "Hero" and "Superhero" are never defined, and indeed never again mentioned anywhere in the rulebook. See what I mean about waffly and uncertain text? Such text is the default explanation for role-playing, with very few exceptions, until the publication of Vampire in 1991. Even since, though, it's still the standard for fantasy games.​

In a game in which the players' have a "job" or task or quest to complete, via the play of their PCs, then it seems that achieving that goal is a win. Not all RPGs are like this, but many are. And it's certainly not unheard of in D&D play!