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

[clearstream]

I'd note that I don't really feel good about your 'canonical' goblin fight example either. It seems to me that a situation where the PC is surrounded by hostile knife-wielding enemies (some are presumably behind him, etc.) is quite nasty.

It's quoted verbatim from the DW book.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

It's an example provided in the DW SRD. My first read of it was "you're surrounded by goblins, why aren't you having to defy danger to do anything?" But that's more a style question, I think. Regardless, it is an "official" example.

Right, I was just never very satisfied with it. I mean, OK, technically it is all gospel DW, the GM made a hard move and inflicted damage on the PC as a response to the PCs H&S move. I guess it has the virtue of simplicity and maybe the author's intent was to give the player an opening to deal with being surrounded even though he already failed to address it once. From the standpoint of the current discussion I think one of the really salient features though is to note how DW doesn't HAVE a combat system, because everything flows from the fiction, even "who goes next?" is not a mechanically addressed thing (there is the sense that the players certainly get to respond to each GM move, but nothing specifies what the granularity of time resolution is, or which player goes next, etc.). And all of that relies on going back to the fiction. You ask "what is happening now?" fictionally, and that determines who gets to move. At most you might say "well, Fred hasn't gone in a while, we should find out what he's up to now", but even that isn't really MECHANICAL, it is more kind of going back to basic norms of game play more than anything.

 

[clearstream]

Right, and we can quite profitably contrast that with systems that DO close that loop, like DW where a 6- result on a DR check still has to result in SOME SORT of fiction, because the player will need that fiction to base their next move on. It is quite likely the GM will frame another scene, or at least introduce some change in the fiction immediately at that point "You don't see anything useful here, and the guards just turned the corner! They will spot you any second, what do you do?"

The DW example suffers the same criticism you offered up-thread. All the player knows is that the goblins has a chance to counterattack. The normal turn structure of 5e provides the same information (given it's just player and goblin in the scene, if not then player1 - "Hey player2 attack this one it's nearly down.")

 

[clearstream]

Right, I was just never very satisfied with it. I mean, OK, technically it is all gospel DW, the GM made a hard move and inflicted damage on the PC as a response to the PCs H&S move. I guess it has the virtue of simplicity and maybe the author's intent was to give the player an opening to deal with being surrounded even though he already failed to address it once. From the standpoint of the current discussion I think one of the really salient features though is to note how DW doesn't HAVE a combat system, because everything flows from the fiction, even "who goes next?" is not a mechanically addressed thing (there is the sense that the players certainly get to respond to each GM move, but nothing specifies what the granularity of time resolution is, or which player goes next, etc.). And all of that relies on going back to the fiction. You ask "what is happening now?" fictionally, and that determines who gets to move. At most you might say "well, Fred hasn't gone in a while, we should find out what he's up to now", but even that isn't really MECHANICAL, it is more kind of going back to basic norms of game play more than anything.

Honestly? I cited a canonical example where DW feeds no more back into the fiction than 5e, and the spotlight slips away to focus on something else?

Let's move away from combat for awhile. Would you agree that most 5e ability checks follow F-G-F? Per RAW that is.

 

[Ovinomancer]

The DW example suffers the same criticism you offered up-thread. All the player knows is that the goblins has a chance to counterattack. The normal turn structure of 5e provides the same information (given it's just player and goblin in the scene, if not then player1 - "Hey player2 attack this one it's nearly down.")

Again, you're using your arbitrarily chosen fiction insert to provide color. I mean, a 5e goblin has 7 hitpoints on average. As low as 2, as high as 12. A goblin is average hitpoints is in the same danger as a max hitpoint goblin that's taken 5 damage (a reasonable blow for a 1st level character). Both are within single hit kill range from a range of weapons with a +1 stat bonus to damage. If I use fiction to describe the 12 hp goblin that's taken a hit, what possible description can a give that establishes that this goblin is in the same position, cubes-wise, at the other? The specific example your giving is coloring your argument -- you're trying to establish it as a general case to make the point, but everything we can deduce about that example is dependent on that example!

The DW example has a different in that it's mechanics are clearly from cloud to cubes to cloud. The character attacks a goblin, crushes bones (and does actually crush bones as one goblin dies), and is counterattacked. The is all from a single cubes resolution process, the loop is inherent. Meanwhile, in 5e, this isn't true. We have cloud in the attack leading to cubes with the rolls and hp deduction, but this doesn't require any input back into the cloud -- the fiction there is effectively unchanged. We can make arbitrary insertions, but that's not at the direction or requirement of the cubes resolution. This interaction is complete, and we have to go up a level in the loops to another cubes to cubes interaction of the initiative, where we might find that your ally goes next. That waits for (but doesn't generate) a cloud arrow to cubes, and then resolves. This interaction, if your ally attacks the same goblin and closes out it's hp total, finally generates the arrow from the cubes back to the clouds. Overall, when considering multiple loops, similar structures DO appears, but 5e may need multiple loops to generate a required arrow back to the cloud. DW has almost all (I've already provided an example where it might not be so) individual loops generating arrows from cubes to clouds.

This doesn't make DW better, just different. I'm confused as to why you're making an argument that different systems should have the same structures to play. This is the point of different systems -- different structures!

 

[Ovinomancer]

Honestly? I cited a canonical example where DW feeds no more back into the fiction than 5e, and the spotlight slips away to focus on something else?

Let's move away from combat for awhile. Would you agree that most 5e ability checks follow F-G-F? Per RAW that is.

No, I don't. Please look at the perception check example I provided in response to you above.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I played that way a few time, back in the dim days. Never really worked out as "in the fiction" because mechanics didn't have strong arrows from cubes to cloud so it was mostly arbitrary stuff like what's been proposed here. The system didn't support the intent, so execution was ad hoc and eventually folded on itself.

Right, it required a very disciplined GM to carry it off. The technical problem, as you say, is that D&D style resolution systems don't work well this way, especially combat. You cannot, with any consistency at all, call hit points 'meat', so there's no definite narration to go with damage, which breaks the informational value of the GM describing the fiction. At best the GM must describe things in only a very specific set of fairly stylized ways. It totally breaks down at higher levels where you have PCs and monsters with 100's of hit points. Either 10 points of damage against a 15th level fighter is literally nothing but a scratch, or PCs at that level literally withstand lethal wounds and keep fighting (how do you describe that, and how does that jibe with earlier descriptions of lower level combat).

I'd note there was a fairly cool online episodic novel, Age of Adepts, where 'high level' meant EXACTLY that, the main character and other "higher grade creatures" were literally depicted as utterly supernatural beings who had transformed their very flesh into magical forms by various means (the exact means determining their powers) so that, for instance, Greem would literally become a being of pure Fire Elementium, with a demon's heart and covered in 'lava shields' that would absorb vast amounts of damage in combat. The depictions of characters in that story though are a lot more 'gonzo' than anything in even super high level D&D. I guess some interpretations of 4e might come close. In a system like that, you might use pure fiction to describe everything, but D&D just doesn't generally give you those hooks.

 

[clearstream]

or again:
Player: I attack the goblin
DM: OK, you take the attack action, you need a 14 to hit
Player: I rolled a 19! OK, it takes 9 damage
DM: The goblin is still up
Player: I use my bonus action to make an off-hand attack

This elides player thought process. In my example I am thinking of a rogue or monk. Either has defensive options available with their bonus action. Due to DM's more detailed narration (which fits local norms, another group might say it differently) player-character knows the goblin is almost-done and makes a consequential choice in the fiction. They take a chance.

In your version, the player still makes a choice, but you have given them less to go on. In that case there's a good probability the following F was, "I use cunning action to disengage and move over there, where I can't be surrounded."

 

[Ovinomancer]

This elides player thought process. In my example I am thinking of a rogue or monk. Either has defensive options available with their bonus action. Due to DM's more detailed narration (which fits local norms, another group might say it differently) player-character knows the goblin is almost-done and makes a consequential choice in the fiction. They take a chance.

In your version, the player still makes a choice, but you have given them less to go on. In that case there's a good probability the following F was, "I use cunning action to disengage and move over there, where I can't be surrounded."

This, again, is assuming your arbitrary fictional choice is controlling of more than your example. I could tell the players, "cool, that goblin has 2 hp left." This is cubes talk. It's 100% not in the fiction, and the same choices can be made. Alternatively, there's zero requirement for me to represent the relative hp value of the goblin as you did. I could provide, "okay, goblin's still there, who'd next," and this is 100% kosher by the game -- it's not even an example of poor play!

 

[Ovinomancer]

@clearstream -- I'm wondering if you're misunderstanding what the arrows mean. These are things that require the other to do something. They aren't representative of moments where you can provide something, if you want. This is easier to see going from cloud to cube. The arrows from the cloud to the cubes are those moments when cubes have been required to resolve things in the could. In other words, moments in the fiction where you have to use game mechanics to resolve them because there's dispute or uncertainty in outcomes that has to be resolved to move forward. They aren't unmoored. Similarly, the arrows from cubes to cloud are similar -- moments when the cubes require new fiction to complete an uncertainty in outcome or a dispute. Losing fewer hitpoints that your current total is NOT such a moment in 5e. This cubes resolution doesn't require any new fiction. And we can see this because there's no constraint, requirement, or suggestion as to what that new fiction has to be. In fact, 5e clearly punts this because it has an explicit discussion that hitpoints don't represent anything concrete in the fiction at all and can be explained in any number of ways.