D&D 5E Roleplaying in D&D 5E: It’s How You Play the Game

[clearstream]

I think all the 'chess talk' is not really relevant to RPGs and what is going on there. So, you say that the story itself is not that compelling an aspect of an RPG. Aside from my reluctance to decree what compels others, I can understand what you mean; the stories we end up with in our games are at best only modestly compelling, and would hardly bear retelling. Certainly the playing was more compelling than the mere narrative that resulted. Thus I don't really disagree with this, but I think it gives more weight to what I've said before. That is, any standard board game is not like an RPG, where the engagement comes from something that involves making a fiction, the drama of playing through the story. This is why I find the PbtA kind of directive, to 'play to see what happens' to be compelling. It is why the associated process of creating that story must be highly collaborative, etc. This all leads me to the belief that the most effective RPGs generally speaking will provide process and mechanics, and principles/agenda which build this in.

So, I SUSPECT the difference between how you and @Ovinomancer would run Dungeon World, or Brindlewood Bay I suspect (I really know nothing more about it than 'cthulhuoid murder mysteries using PbtA') is WHY any given fiction is introduced.

Let me go back to my little pet example here. The GM introduces "The Spider King steals the gold." This is a 'move', it is dynamic, it does potentially introduce novel fiction, but it is directly facing to PC concerns. The 'gold' is something vital to the PC, she cannot save her sister without this gold (or maybe there's another way, things are always possible). No fact introduced here is merely 'some stuff'. There's no "We found an ominous stone... I'm not sure what it's connected with..." I don't see how this ominous stone relates to a dramatic need of a character (I am just guessing it doesn't particularly based on how you phrased things, I could be wrong of course). It seems like just 'generation of fiction' and then what? How does this fiction 'snowball'? How does it move things forward in a way that confronts the PCs and creates or furthers dramatic conflict? I mean, yes, you can have a 'doom' in Dungeon World, which is a portent. It will relate to a front and probably a danger within that front. This 'ominous stone' doesn't really seem to be a doom either.

I mean, OK, its not like finding an ominous stone is somehow contrary to anything in DW, specifically. Characters look around, they experience, trees, rocks, roads, buildings, etc. and those aren't particularly anything beyond 'color', so maybe an 'ominous stone' is just color, but it seems like an odd kind, and you clearly don't consider it as such. I would just say it lacks much 'punch' as a either a move or a doom (and I assume that unveiling a doom IS a move)!

So, maybe the PCs find an ominous stone in the ruins of an outlying village that has been destroyed by some sort of magical force. This village might not be super important to the PCs in and of itself, but it is telling us, this doom is coming, the front is on the move! Its mild pressure, perhaps, but it would due as a basic starting point. You want your fiction to begin with things only STARTING to get tense after all.

I will not be responding to any more nitpicking over one move in our ongoing DW game. The motives for that in this thread are suspect, and I complement my understanding with the designers' streamed sessions. I take them to have more authority than anyone here.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

This is back to the impossibility of a consequentual correlation between fiction and mechanics. If I can decide to move to a hill and that invokes a mechanic (advantage) then I can equally say that "I wrassle 'em" and that invokes a mechanic. I'm not going to draw the wrassling or mush the miniatures together!


I was responding to an example of Baker's that @pemerton cited. Moving to higher ground.

Well, 'wrassling' presumably means invoking some established grappling mechanics, so the fictional part here is really color, it isn't NECESSARY. In 4e terms you could simply say "I invoke the Grapple action" and saying "I wrassle him" seems more just an informal way of doing so. Actually here we have an objection to 4e that was common, I could wrassle a blob of jello (a slime) and 4e seems to expect that to pass muster, certainly many 4e players expected it to pass muster, fiction be damned! Other people rejected the WHOLE GAME claiming this was beyond the pale. In this case AD&D could be said to engage the fiction here, as it would be expected that the GM would reject an attempt to wrestle with, say, a Grey Ooze (in fact in that game I'd expect the outcome to be fairly catastrophic for my character!).

I would interpret 'go to high ground' the same way, certainly in a game where the battlefield is mapped out and described, its a mechanical move action that results in a bonus on certain checks later on. It has a fictional color to it, but it is perfectly feasible for a player to simply describe the move as "I go from square X to square Y, accepting the 1 square movement penalty inherent in moving in a direction the map designates as uphill." Later the player can claim a bonus, called the 'higher ground bonus' due to his PC occupying a square that is labeled as higher. This all seems to reference only mechanics, though I agree it is highly suggestive of fiction.

Now, presumably in any of these games, 4e, 5e, or even AD&D, if a wizard cast Icy Terrain (or something like that) on the square designated as 'slope' that might cause the GM to adjudicate, based on logic derived from the fiction, that such a move has become more difficult/hazardous/expensive/whatever. This is where the fiction starts to bear on the mechanics. In RPGs this is likely to always be a fuzzy line, because RPGs are pretty much meant to cover open-ended situations and thus cannot codify all these kinds of interactions. 4e is cool in that it has keywords, which if used well can help guide these sorts of decisions and make them more interesting and consistent (and suggest them to start with). At a bare minimum you can see this as a simplification. The AD&D flame tongue lists a specific set of creatures that are 'avian' which it gets +4 against, the 4e version simply adds a capability to do fire damage, which can thus trigger other rules, but could also allow the GM to extrapolate (Oh, this feathery creature is especially vulnerable).

 

[clearstream]

Fiction is on the left. Mechanics on the right. What in the fiction affects the grapple? Yes, there's a right arrow from "I try to grab the orc" to the mechanics to resolve the attempt, but there's nothing else from the fiction that goes in here. You resolve the mechanics. On a failure, there's no left arrow back to the fiction -- nothing changes. You were not grabbing the orc before, and you are not now. On a success, there's a leftward arrow -- the fiction changes from not grabbing to grabbing. However, there are almost no left arrows in the fiction that adjust/impact the resolution of the grapple.

Looking at 5e, fiction to system arrows (rightward) can include

• Any time a player uses stealth to set up an action
• Ability checks generally, where approach typically comprises describing acts in fiction, so most skill and tool use
• Advantage/disadvantage
• Use of cover to hide or as a defense
• Starting a fight
• Most of the fighting actions and some spells (if "my character attacks yours" is upheld as a valid case, then these are)
• Starving, dehydrating, drowning, freezing, overheating
• Movement in many cases
• Overland movement
• Gaining non-monster XP
• Raging
• Bardic Inspiration
• Downtime activities

System to fiction (leftwards arrows)

• Many spell effects (teleport, charm, suggestion, fear, summons, polymorph, etc.)
• Movement improvement and impairment
• Dropping to zero
• Healing from zero
• Special senses like darkvision
• Turning Undead
• Wild Shape
• Curses
• Bonded and Pact weapons
• Found familiars? And steeds?
• Backgrounds and TIBFs
• Expenses
• Some Downtime activities
• Languages

Additionally there are a tonne of system to system, and an unlimited number of fiction to fiction (in both cases, loops)

In 5e, if I attack the orc, my declaration as a player is in the fiction -- Bob the fighter is swinging their longsword at the orc. This creates a rightward arrow to the mechanics. The attack is then resolved here, without further input from the fiction. The result, unless it zeros the orc's hitpoint total, doesn't generate any required leftwards arrows back into the fiction. A miss or hit is pretty much interchangeable in the fiction -- it might get an arbitrary narration, but, as I've shown, a hit and a miss can be described identically*. This would appear to stop the process, but 5e has the imitative mechanic, so once completed, the turn then goes to the next person in order (perhaps the orc) who then does the same general process. This works because the end result of this process tends to generate a left arrow -- the orc or Bob is out of hitpoints. For the intermediate moments, the initiative mechanic clicks along keeping thing moving.

In DW, however, there's no initiative mechanic. In fact, there's no turns at all. Foes do not have a fixed turn. So, here, there's more need for arrows back and forth. The fiction of the action is a right arrow, and resolved, but it creates immediate left arrows back into the fiction. An attack in DW always changes the fiction in some way. Always. And this gets even more pronounced in other game, like Blades in the Dark, where the initial right arrow of the action declaration immediately calls other right arrows from the fiction into the resolution mechanic, and then some left arrows are proposed for results prior to resolution, negotiation takes place and is agreed to, and then resolution occurs and a hard left arrow results according to the negotiated agreement. This is iterative tech based off of PbtA.

Those are good insights into the contrasting structures.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

@clearstream's example of the druid and the stone reminds me of what @Hriston and I were discussing upthread, about players declaring "open ended" actions like what do I see? or what do I know that's relevant?

The canonical trigger for Discern Realities (DW p 68) is when you closely study a situation or person, and the explanatory gloss reinforces this by beginning "To discern realities you must closely observe your target." And the canonical result of a success is asking either 1 or 3 of the listed questions - this is reinforced by the existence of further moves that expand the list of permitted questions. Finally, acting on an answer grants +1 forward, which means that answers have to be the sorts of things that might be bases for acting upon.

I think these features of Discern Realities as a move are intended to push against the sort of thing that Hriston and I discussed, and to push towards "focused"/"particularised" knoweldge-acquisition action declarations.

In clearstream's example as posted, it's not clear to me exactly what situation was being studied (it seems clear that it was not a person being studied), nor exactly what question was asked and answered given the 8 result, nor what would constitute the druid acting on that answer so as to enjoy a +1 forward. Without that sort of clarity I can't really form a view as to how this little episode illustrates Dungeon World play, and the way "story" - in the form of fronts, dooms, etc - was or wasn't an input into that play.

That said, my tentative feeling is that, were I involved in that game and especially were I GMing it, I would not have called for a roll because I don't think the Druid trying to intuit what is not in its right place in itself triggers a player-side move (it dos not trigger Discern Realities, nor on its own does it seem to trigger Communion of Whispers). Nor is it a golden opportunity. So the appropriate GM response would seem to be a soft move - finding an ominous stone might serve that purpose, as a sign of an approaching threat and/or as a revelation of an unwelcome truth, although my own inclination would be to a bit more precise about the threat or unwelcome truth.

I can see why @Ovinomancer describes the ominous stone as "untethered". To me, and again just going on what has been described, it seems a bit unparticularised either as an answer to a Discern Realities question or as a soft move made in response to a player action declaration that does not trigger a player-side move.

@clearstream, I hope the above does not seem too much of an attack. It is always tricky commenting on someone else's play on the basis of a fairly brief description. I am trying to give a sincere response that ties back to some of the other lines of discussion in this thread.

I think we see it pretty much the same way. The druid is just sort of 'looking around', and the GM might well respond (assuming this is a story arc that is in a very preliminary stage) with 'you see an ominous stone', explained as a 'doom' being foreshadowed by a very soft move. I would expect the reaction of the player at that point might well be 'Spout Lore' (that is asking what does she know about this type of stone/symbols). Canonically the GM is supposed to "Fill the character's lives with adventure" (DW P161). So, any response to that which honors the agenda should do that, and be fantastic. It could very well be an answer which relates to a front/danger, but it certainly needs to 'up the pressure' in some way. Something like "In ancient times these sorts of stones were used by demonic cults to mark places where gateways to hell could be opened, but these cults were wiped out in the time of Charles the Great, 500 years ago. The markings on this one however are FRESH!"

 

[clearstream]

Well, 'wrassling' presumably means invoking some established grappling mechanics, so the fictional part here is really color, it isn't NECESSARY. In 4e terms you could simply say "I invoke the Grapple action" and saying "I wrassle him" seems more just an informal way of doing so. Actually here we have an objection to 4e that was common, I could wrassle a blob of jello (a slime) and 4e seems to expect that to pass muster, certainly many 4e players expected it to pass muster, fiction be damned! Other people rejected the WHOLE GAME claiming this was beyond the pale. In this case AD&D could be said to engage the fiction here, as it would be expected that the GM would reject an attempt to wrestle with, say, a Grey Ooze (in fact in that game I'd expect the outcome to be fairly catastrophic for my character!).

Baker thought my character attacks yours counted, so I don't see how wrestling or shoving gets excluded?

I would interpret 'go to high ground' the same way, certainly in a game where the battlefield is mapped out and described, its a mechanical move action that results in a bonus on certain checks later on. It has a fictional color to it, but it is perfectly feasible for a player to simply describe the move as "I go from square X to square Y, accepting the 1 square movement penalty inherent in moving in a direction the map designates as uphill." Later the player can claim a bonus, called the 'higher ground bonus' due to his PC occupying a square that is labeled as higher. This all seems to reference only mechanics, though I agree it is highly suggestive of fiction.

I agree. Baker felt it counted but couldn't figures on a grid get to the same place?

Now, presumably in any of these games, 4e, 5e, or even AD&D, if a wizard cast Icy Terrain (or something like that) on the square designated as 'slope' that might cause the GM to adjudicate, based on logic derived from the fiction, that such a move has become more difficult/hazardous/expensive/whatever. This is where the fiction starts to bear on the mechanics. In RPGs this is likely to always be a fuzzy line, because RPGs are pretty much meant to cover open-ended situations and thus cannot codify all these kinds of interactions. 4e is cool in that it has keywords, which if used well can help guide these sorts of decisions and make them more interesting and consistent (and suggest them to start with). At a bare minimum you can see this as a simplification. The AD&D flame tongue lists a specific set of creatures that are 'avian' which it gets +4 against, the 4e version simply adds a capability to do fire damage, which can thus trigger other rules, but could also allow the GM to extrapolate (Oh, this feathery creature is especially vulnerable).

Yup. I find the line fuzzy. I don't think anyone is saying it isn't fuzzy, although obviously one might like to find some consistent test

 

[Manbearcat]

I don’t have the time right now (nor the will frankly), to dive deeply into this conversation, but on a 7-9 for any move where Hold is a currency, the complication is “reduced effect” (less Hold).

DR, Defend, Shapeshift, you go from 3 Hold to 1 Hold. That is your complication. Like several other moves (eg Spout Lore goes from both Interesting and Useful to just Interesting; it is on you to make it Useful), the complication is encoded into the 7-9 result of the move. You don’t make a soft move on top of that.

So, to recap:

Discern Realities, Defend, Shapeshift

10 + = 3 Hold
7-9 = 1 Hold
6- = Make a move as hard as makes sense (sometimes, often actually, a soft move is best practices on DR for example)

Spout Lore

10 + = Interesting and Useful
7-9 = Interesting
6- = Make a move as hard as makes sense (sometimes, often actually, a soft move is best practices on SL)

Navigating the intricacies of soft/hard move on a 6- for portents/perception/understanding/wisdom/knowledge/memory/connections is likely the trickiest part (therefore requiring the most skill snd deftness of handling) of GMing PBtA games.


EDIT - Another way to think about it is to consider the move Volley:

On a 7-9, you have options. Reduced Effect (-1d6 damage), lost currency (Ammo to power subsequent Volleys), or danger. If Volley only had Reduced Effect and no other encoded options, you wouldn't subject the player to the -1d6 damage AND another danger complication.

 

[clearstream]

I don’t have the time right now (nor the will frankly), to dive deeply into this conversation, but on a 7-9 for any move where Hold is a currency, the complication is “reduced effect” (less Hold).

DR, Defend, Shapeshift, you go from 3 Hold to 1 Hold. That is your complication. Like several other moves (eg Spout Lore goes from both Interesting and Useful to just Interesting; it is on you to make it Useful), the complication is encoded into the 7-9 result of the move. You don’t make a soft move on top of that.

So, to recap:

Discern Realities, Defend, Shapeshift

10 + = 3 Hold
7-9 = 1 Hold
6- = Make a move as hard as makes sense (sometimes, often actually, a soft move is best practices on DR for example)

Spout Lore

10 + = Interesting and Useful
7-9 = Interesting
6- = Make a move as hard as makes sense (sometimes, often actually, a soft move is best practices on SL)

Navigating the intricacies of soft/hard move on a 6- for portents/perception/understanding/wisdom/knowledge/memory/connections is likely the trickiest part (therefore requiring the most skill snd deftness of handling) of GMing PBtA games.


EDIT - Another way to think about it is to consider the move Volley:

On a 7-9, you have options. Reduced Effect (-1d6 damage), lost currency (Ammo to power subsequent Volleys), or danger. If Volley only had Reduced Effect and no other encoded options, you wouldn't subject the player to the -1d6 damage AND another danger complication.

The DR RAW gives you "+1 forward when acting on the answers." Could it be that versions differ? My copy is a 2012 "first" edition.

 

[Manbearcat]

The RAW gives you "+1 forward when acting on the answers." Could it be that versions differ? My copy is a 2012 "first" edition.

For DR?

No that’s all the same. 10+ you get 3 Hold to spend 1 : 1 for questions and +1 forward when acting on the answers. 7-9 and you get 1 Hold.

The +1 forward doesn’t change, the breadth of information changes (and therefore your subsequent movespace amplified by +1 forward) from 3 to 1 (questions and answers), ergo reduced effect as the complication encoded into the 7-9 move result.

See my Volley illustration above. If you introduce a danger/unwelcome truth on a 7-9 DR, you’re effectively imposing two costs/complications upon the DR player just as if you imposed -1d6 damage and also danger upon a Volleying PC.

AW and DW are already overfilled with consequences, costs, and danger (and attendant decision-points)! They don’t need more!

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Yes. This isn't a soft move, it's just introduction of fiction. A soft move says "this is a problem" and requires a "what do you do about it?" It's a mistake to think that the complication here is just a vague possibility of badness somewhere down the line.

At best it fits into 1), but the abandonment of the other facets (it provides no adventure and it's not playing to find out what happens) is obvious. You don't "suit the agenda" by doing only a part of it and ignoring the other parts.

Look, if the fiction demands a move, then it's your job, under the agenda and principles of play, to follow the rules and do that. And this means that if you call for a DR move, then you need to be ready to have the game go off at this exact point. That you have a requirement to make a move on a 7-9 (usually a soft move) means that you need to make a move. Introducing a stone that might reference a favored bit of out-of-game fiction and may be a bad thing some distant time down the road is NOT showing signs of a future threat. That move is like finding wyvern tracks on the ground -- if you don't do something PDQ about that, then wyverns are going to swoop down on you! The point of play here isn't that some plot point for the future is introduced (the Fronts are about as close as you should be getting to this, and those should be pretty open) but rather that it creates play RIGHT NOW. Finding a mysterious stone should have immediately required the Druid do something else to deal with whatever threat this stone represents. And that's because you called for a move from the player, and that game demands that you follow the agenda and principles and rules for that move (and your moves). What you've described here is pretty typical Trad play. You've taken what DW says, filtered it through what you wanted to do rather than what it's telling you to do, and assumed that you've got the measure of the system. I don't doubt your game is great fun for you and your players, but it's not how DW is intended or described as running.

I don't really care if you play DW this way, mind. It's your table and you should be prioritizing that. Drifting or wholesale hacking games to do what your table wants is just fine, and I 100% support it. However, drifting a game like this and then trying to claim you're playing it straight is a place that I'll challenge you. Play it how you want, but don't claim it's the straight game. I say this to 5e players as well, when they have houserules that have altered the game in significant ways.

I have, very much. They're intended not to run counter to the agenda and principles of play, but work with them. Fronts should be created with the PCs and their goals/needs/beliefs/etc in mind to provide honest antagonism to the PCs, not as the GM's idea of a cool story. Fronts should be open and obvious to the players, with it being obvious they're in play as consequences to play. Fronts should only advance according to what happens in play -- both with what portents and dooms are inserted and when they're used. You can prep Fronts, absolutely, but like all prep this should be at most an aid to play, not a truth that exists but is yet to be revealed. Nothing in a Front's prep is true until it enters play, and it should only be entering play when the play demands it.

This is a bit off of the DW topic, but in my HoML game the Nairni character is an example of working with a Player's agenda. She wanted to be a dwarf warrior, and the HoML calling that existed at the time and fit best was 'knight', so we just riffed on that slightly. She decided she wanted to ride a bear, so part of her 'equipment' is an actual bear (as opposed to presumably a warhorse of some kind) and her riding skill pertains to bears. Now, from that she decided that Nairni wanted to establish an order of knights riding bears. We are playing to that agenda, as she's met up with a druid that gave her some information, that there was once such an order, and that they were 'lost in the north' and her aim might be achieved by finding out what happened to them.

Now, one challenge with any game of this type is integration, the other PC, Alec, is a Spell Blade (sort of a 4e swordmagey type of guy), who got kicked out of a fairy wizard school, or at least tricked into being dumped into the normal world (he's human, so his story definitely has some as yet unrevealed twists to it). What is he going to get out of this bear hunt? Since there are 2 PCs, currently, I think we can definitely work out a story that speaks to both characters. If it was a full complement of 4 or 5 PCs that can get more involved.

Anyway, while HoML doesn't necessarily mirror DW exactly, the idea is pretty similar, story elements are introduced by framing scenes that engage something trait a character possesses and signifies a dramatic focus, and whatever happens is fantastic, there is danger, and adventure. Already the 'find the bear knights fate' quest has lead to one dangerous encounter. We took a hiatus on play for the holidays but this weekend I'm sure our doughty adventurers will get in deeper!

And note, the druid, and the subsequent ghoul encounter that the PCs had, along with an SC, was all invented by me, along with probably 50% of the surrounding milieu (a royal woods, some boar knights, Nairni's cousin, tricky goblins, etc. etc. etc.). Some arose directly from a need to move forward logically and dramatically in the SC, some was added by the players, its a mixed bag. The 'go north to find the bear knights' thing I admit was my idea. It might be a bit soft for DW, perhaps, though that really depends on your pacing. Certainly if I play out the journey it will likely be more of a single SC or something along those lines, vs some long scenic stroll through dwarfland.

 

[clearstream]

For DR?

No that’s all the same. 10+ you get 3 Hold to spend 1 : 1 for questions and +1 forward when acting on the answers. 7-9 and you get 1 Hold.

The rules don't mention Hold at all for DR. They say ask 3 questions or ask 1. And forward +1. Nothing in the text or examples suggests a less useful answer to each question, just fewer questions.

If my DM calls are going to be singled out and nitpicked in a way that undermines my input to an ongoing discussion, and you are jumping in on that, you're going to need to cite chapter and verse.

I'm going to scan a streamed session to see how the designers do it.