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Respect Mah Authoritah: Thoughts on DM and Player Authority in 5e
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<blockquote data-quote="Lanefan" data-source="post: 8434571" data-attributes="member: 29398"><p>It just occured to me why "win condition" grates on me as a term for an in-fiction success where "goal achievement" and other terms don't: maybe it's just me but "win condition" carries a strong air of finality to it due to the unspoken but very persistent idea that says when someone wins, <em>the game is over</em>. Finished. Completed. Everything is reset.</p><p></p><p>In an RPG this reset would be represented by rolling up an entirely new party for each discrete adventure; which I'm sure a few groups do but IME it ain't common practice.</p><p></p><p>Instead, most of the time in RPGs achieving a goal (e.g. finding the Soul Gem, or getting the three weapons out of White Plume) doesn't end the game. The characters go back to town, train up, divide their treasure, and head back into the field: the same game continues.</p><p></p><p>This makes achieving an in-fiction goal more akin to scoring a goal in hockey. The puck goes in the net, the players celebrate, the ref takes the puck to centre ice for a faceoff, and the same game continues.</p><p></p><p>The difference, of course, is that hockey has a clock that counts down (or up, in Europe) to the end of the period, and then the game; at which point a winner is declared. RPGs generally have no such clock, no such end point, and thus no opportunity to declare a winner.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Lanefan, post: 8434571, member: 29398"] It just occured to me why "win condition" grates on me as a term for an in-fiction success where "goal achievement" and other terms don't: maybe it's just me but "win condition" carries a strong air of finality to it due to the unspoken but very persistent idea that says when someone wins, [I]the game is over[/I]. Finished. Completed. Everything is reset. In an RPG this reset would be represented by rolling up an entirely new party for each discrete adventure; which I'm sure a few groups do but IME it ain't common practice. Instead, most of the time in RPGs achieving a goal (e.g. finding the Soul Gem, or getting the three weapons out of White Plume) doesn't end the game. The characters go back to town, train up, divide their treasure, and head back into the field: the same game continues. This makes achieving an in-fiction goal more akin to scoring a goal in hockey. The puck goes in the net, the players celebrate, the ref takes the puck to centre ice for a faceoff, and the same game continues. The difference, of course, is that hockey has a clock that counts down (or up, in Europe) to the end of the period, and then the game; at which point a winner is declared. RPGs generally have no such clock, no such end point, and thus no opportunity to declare a winner. [/QUOTE]
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