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

[AbdulAlhazred]

Given that established facts are respected the same way, one can ask

• Are dramatic and ludic states separable? And ought they to be, even if so?
• Is more gained from forethought than player participation in establishing game state?
• Is hidden knowledge valuable enough to prefer sometimes say "no"?
• Same question, regarding ludic constraints or limits?

I don't find either more honest, although where they are each more honest certainly differs.

Well, I think that what is DRIVING my 'dramatic' game is drama, not 'state'. That is, the focus is on characterization and motivation, stakes of a dramatic nature, etc. A classic D&D game has all of the 'dramatic' part established by the GM in prep. He invents a dungeon and its contents and the challenges, which create the dramatic landscape, and then the players are engaged. They are simply expected to 'enter the dungeon', it isn't really done according to any motivation except maybe some fig leaf of 'we want gold'. The drama was preordained, the PCs find themselves in a life-and-death quest for the gold, will they outwit the DM or not? Who will die? All that happens within is purely 'ludic', the fiction poses material challenges and the players address them through the capabilities of their characters, and suffer potential mechanical consequences for wrong moves. Now, the two things are not totally separable, sure, because reaching 0 hit points ultimately has to have a dramatic result, character death, etc.

It is just a contrast with a dramatic focus game where the reason the dungeon existed is because a player established his character's need to acquire some treasure so he could save his family home. What are the stakes here? They were established in a dramatic manner, and at least it is very likely in these sorts of games that the player helped to establish this (IE in DW he might have supplied the background of having a family home, and the players may have been instrumental in establishing other fictional elements that lead the GM to make a move threatening the home vs doing something else). I'd also note that in DW the existence of dramatic pressure on the characters is mandated, it will always exist, 'ludic' pressure may or may not, its a tool, not an end.

 

[Ovinomancer]

Ludic state is pawn-state + world-state + available-dynamics.

I don't understand what you're trying to say here, it seems loaded with jargon that's notoriously misunderstood and/or used in arbitrary ways.

That mistakes my meaning. I ask: how is fictional separated from narrative? Is fictional the game state? Is narrative free of (external to) some or all features of game as game (e.g. external to game state)? If it is, then what are the ways in which it is not enacting non-dynamic linear fiction... in the form of improv?

I'm not making the separation: I am asking if SYOR makes that separation? You seem to say it does not, and that it is just a matter of the means and timing of when game state is established. If that is so, then turning back on our path shouldn't we encounter play isomorphic with the play we would have found if the facts had been established in advance?

That question in turn asks: are you sure of really getting at what separates SYOR from D&D norm? Because some said SYOR drives stakes solely from narrative, forestalling the isomorphism suggested above.


Hmm... I think you think I am saying they are dichotomous. I am not. I am questioning a possibility that to say that stakes can be exclusive to narrative might be to go too far. The thought I wanted to put in mind is nearer what you have articulated.

Again, I'm confused by this. Fictional means fictional. Everything in play is fictional, or represents fictional things. There's no ambiguity to what fictional means here. The cliff example is fictional in all regards. The game is not managing real world social interactions here. You claim to not be creating a dichotomous argument, but your confusion over what dramatic means as used by @pemerton seems to have slipped into assuming it's something exclusive to other things. Further that @pemerton said "dramatic" but somehow that's morphed into "narrative" seems to be confusing things.

Dramatic needs are those that go to what a character cares about, wants, fears, or needs. As I say above, if going from point A to point B is just a scenery change, then there's no dramatic need and no need to look for or create obstacles to said travel. If there is, then there is. This has little to do with your arguments about ludic vs dramatic framework (dramatic doing different work here). In a more traditional game, though, the GM may have placed an obstacle and so it must now be dealt with even though there are no real stakes involved in moving from point A to point B. Both of these are dealing with the same "causality" in the fiction -- ie, none except that which is imagined. Since imagination is capable of quite a bit, the end result of whether or not the cliff feels believable is only a matter of instantiation, not really approach.

 

[Ovinomancer]

Fiskeds and Ludics and Fiats and Valiants... oh my!

Do I need to grok any of this? Or can my players just tell me what their PC thinks, says, and does so I can get on with the adjudications?

Well, I'd say that this is a question only you should be answering and nothing here is ever really any kind of bind on your play at your table. But since you seem to want validation, I absolutely give you my permission to not grok any of this and do whatever you'd like at your table!

 

[pemerton]

another huge point about why SYORTD doesn't really work in most D&D, not just 5e, and that's how the characters are actually challenged. D&D is built on an attrition model that's extended over multiple consecutive challenges (exception 4e, which was balanced to the encounter). If I want to put pressure on a D&D PC, I have to do this consistently over a period of time, and that time period is pretty uniform within each edition of play. This means that the GM must be able to control pacing in the game if this pressure is meant to come to bear, and if you're controlling pacing you're already outside of SYORTD. The games that do best with SYORTD are ones that allow for short-scale high pressure play that isn't contingent on pacing. BW, for instance, can go from zero to 60 very quickly, and PbtA is entirely structured on the snowballing effect of success at cost and failures being the majority of rolls. These systems, through their very structure, create pressure during play without having to do anything outside of play to introduce it. D&D lacks any real ability to do this.

This is a big thing for me.

To add to your remarks about other systems: what's key, in my view, is not that there are resources that get run down over time; this is a feature of Burning Wheel (eg sorcerous tax that reduces Forte; financial Resources that get taxed; supplies that run out) and Apocalypse World (eg each PC has a "wound clock" where damage accumulates). It's that pressure can be applied independently of the state of these resources. Eg in BW, casting a spell requires a check independent of tax; likewise acquiring gear: any action can be made to turn on a check, and it is the possibility of failure and the resulting consequences that generates pressure.

In a game where authorship is shared, mysteries are equally unknown to the group and as you say, why prefer the DM? Even so, the group must have something in mind that answers the question: "say 'yes', or roll?" It may be they cannot see that a declaration is valid, so as a group they might say "no" or as you put it require expansion to get to "yes" or "roll".

I find the phrase "shared authorship" a bit of misdescription for the sorts of RPGs that I'm referring to as using narratively/dramatically-based "say 'yes' or roll the dice".

The RPGs I'm thinking of, from my own play, are Burning Wheel, Prince Valiant (at least as I approach it), MHRP/Cortex+ Heroic, Cthulhu Dark (again, as I approach it), and 4e D&D. These all involve a pretty traditional allocation of participant functions - players who declare actions from the perspective and fictional position of their PCs, and a GM who manages the setting and framing stuff. The players don't "author" anything any differently from how an AD&D player "authors" that an Orc is dead by succeeding on an attack that reduces the Orc to zero hit points, or "authors" that the door is opened by succeeding on an Open Doors roll. or "authors" that the local shop has iron spikes for sale by telling the GM that their PC is buying some iron spikes and then, receiving no objection or a grunt or nod of affirmation, proceeds to adjust their money lists and their gear lists appropriately.

It is the GM who is empowered to "say 'yes'" - if the GM says "yes" when the player expected a check to be required then their is the risk of a bit of a dramatic fizzle or anti-climax, but the game won't break in any basic way. If the GM doesn't say "yes" then a check has to be framed. In these systems, the resolution of the check requires, among other things, knowing what the PC is doing/attempting in the fiction. If there is uncertainty about exactly what this is - ie, about exactly what the player believes that their PC is doing in the fiction - then that can be resolved via discussion: the Adventure Burner for BW has worked examples of this, and the 4e DMG has an example too, although less-elaborately set out. In both rulebooks, the focus is on being clear about what exactly the PC is doing, and how that feeds into the appropriate skill to be used to resolve the declared action (from memory, in the BWAB it involves stuff around Stealth and Acting and infiltrating an enemy camp; in the DMG it involves using Diplomacy in the context of traversing a desert).

This is quite different from the notion of adjudicating possibility of success, including auto-success or auto-failure, based on fictional positioning that has regard to known-only-to-the-GM elements of that positioning. I did that sort of adjudication the other day when I ran some friends through a couple of hours of White Plume Mountain, using my variant AD&D rules. I think that sort of adjudication does not interface terribly well with a structured and systematic action resolution framework like a skill system; even in my AD&D system there were places where I had to make ad hoc judgements (mostly about when to call for "STR checks" based on a PC's open door chances) that were fine in a friendly romp, but that I wouldn't enjoy having to make in serious play!

As to whether D&D precludes the second mode. As written it does mechanically. An example being ability checks where players in most cases aren't empowered to call for one or set its terms. And as written it does narratively, casting DM firmly as storyteller. What is gained is much as @Oofta describes. Characters live in the world, without knowing everything about that world.

In Prince Valiant and Cthulhu Dark, players can't "call for" an ability check. They describe their PCs' actions and the GM frames checks. BW is a bit different because its system gives the players reasons to want to make checks, rather than just have the GM say "yes", and so the player is expected to push for them - though there is also both player- and GM-directed rules commentary about the need to avoid "test-mongering" that violates narrative-stakes-based "say 'yes' or roll the dice". In 4e D&D a player can call for a check in the context of a skill challenge - players need to succeed at checks in order to succeed at the challenge - but the check still has to be framed within the fictional context.

I make these points because I think it is helpful to be clear on where the difference lies between "say 'yes' or roll the dice", understood in dramatic/narrative terms, and the sort of 5e D&D approach being advocated by a number of posters in this thread. The deep difference is not in who calls for checks, nor in the relationship between fictional position and the framing of a check. It is in the relationship between narrative/dramatic stakes and the resolution of the check.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Ludic state is pawn-state + world-state + available-dynamics.


That mistakes my meaning. I ask: how is fictional separated from narrative? Is fictional the game state? Is narrative free of (external to) some or all features of game as game (e.g. external to game state)? If it is, then what are the ways in which it is not enacting non-dynamic linear fiction... in the form of improv?

I'm not making the separation: I am asking if SYOR makes that separation? You seem to say it does not, and that it is just a matter of the means and timing of when game state is established. If that is so, then turning back on our path shouldn't we encounter play isomorphic with the play we would have found if the facts had been established in advance?

That question in turn asks: are you sure of really getting at what separates SYOR from D&D norm? Because some said SYOR drives stakes solely from narrative, forestalling the isomorphism suggested above.


Hmm... I think you think I am saying they are dichotomous. I am not. I am questioning a possibility that to say that stakes can be exclusive to narrative might be to go too far. The thought I wanted to put in mind is nearer what you have articulated.

I would say that you cannot have drama without fiction! Once you have fiction, and if it has any 'teeth' at all, then it has what you call 'ludic' concerns, the troll monster might eat you when you encounter it, and were that not the case, and were said situation not adjudicated by some rules structure, then you would be storytelling and not game playing.

However, there are material differences. The consequences of a failed action in classic D&D can ONLY be purely causal in character. If you fail your climb check, something goes wrong, climbing doesn't happen successfully. This is contrasted with, say, a Defy Danger check made in Dungeon World to see if you avoided mishap during that climb. The result of failure could be reaching the top of the cliff too late, or losing some equipment on the way up. I'd note that either of those is only a legitimate result in that it has some effect in a dramatic sense, the time is vital, or the loss of equipment puts pressure on the character in some way.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

It seems like when and how facts are established is a secondary question. Whether hidden knowledge justifies SNADR is a byline.

Even if an SYOR-mode group were playing in a pre-established world, containing hidden information, the principle that solely narrative drives stakes could still apply.

So what is narrative, if it is nowhere in game state? Is it a property only of players?

It seems to me to be a property of a story. When you read a story in which a protagonist is strongly motivated to accomplish something based on some element of their personality, or one of the 'mythic patterns' (IE the journey of the hero) then drama is created as the fulfillment of this dramatic needs is put in doubt. Dilemma may come into play, one cannot achieve all of ones needs, some must be sacrificed for others, drama arises. It isn't unique to RP, but it seems to be vital at some level to any sort of story. I mean, there's a sort of fiction where an ordinary period of a life is recounted, but I don't think it has a lot of relevance to RPGs, and is generally the least purely entertaining sort of fiction.

 

[Krachek]

I would say that you cannot have drama without fiction! Once you have fiction, and if it has any 'teeth' at all, then it has what you call 'ludic' concerns, the troll monster might eat you when you encounter it, and were that not the case, and were said situation not adjudicated by some rules structure, then you would be storytelling and not game playing.

However, there are material differences. The consequences of a failed action in classic D&D can ONLY be purely causal in character. If you fail your climb check, something goes wrong, climbing doesn't happen successfully. This is contrasted with, say, a Defy Danger check made in Dungeon World to see if you avoided mishap during that climb. The result of failure could be reaching the top of the cliff too late, or losing some equipment on the way up. I'd note that either of those is only a legitimate result in that it has some effect in a dramatic sense, the time is vital, or the loss of equipment puts pressure on the character in some way.

My DM used colorful explanation to explain failed check, including lost or break of tools, damage, lost of time, I don’t think it’s exclusive to Dungeon world.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

@AbdulAlhazred quoting myself so that you can see thoughts have moved on. I believe the issue of establishing facts is a bagatelle. Is this narrative or drama by any means ludic? If so, in what way (that carefully avoids game state?) Etc...

Well, I think fiction DOES establish constraints, it must, they are the 'teeth' which execute the story. However, any such constraint could be seen as simply representing a challenge. "At some cost or other you can break through the wall and escape." Now, in a DW game that method will have almost identical chances of success to looking for a secret door, canonically. I think there's a sense in which the 'more believable' alternatives tend to be favored in play, but I don't actually think that's a constraint of the technique. Obstacles (your ludic elements) exist to signal what fiction needs to be authored to trigger resolution mechanics. In DW this is one part of the 'play to see what happens'. One job of the GM is give those obstacles dramatic teeth. You don't just need to break down the wall, you need to choose which PC will hold off the enemy and risk death while you do this! Do you choose your friend the halfling, or your rival the half-orc? How will the death of either one of them impact your character given his ethos (alignment)? This is how DW is set up to play. Drama is front and center, the fictional obstacles just help drive play.

 

[pemerton]

My thought is that players know everything there is to know about the world at all times, but the world can come to contain new things.

It seems then that the facts must be considered modally. It is currently true that in some (not all) possible worlds there is a secret door. The roll establishes which possible world we turn out to inhabit.

I don't think this is an appropriate description of "no myth" or "lite myth" approaches to setting and situation.

Consider a different medium - film. In the original Star War film, we meet Luke Skywalker. It's clear that he is a relatively young adult. Is he in his late teens? Early 20s? What day was he born on? It's obvious that, within the fiction, there are answers to all these questions. But we, the audience, are not provided with them. And for all we know, the author hasn't made any decisions about them either. Nothing in the film references Luke's precise age or birthday.

I think it would introduce needless metaphysical complication to say that Luke "exists" across a set of possible worlds in which his age and birthday vary over such-and-such possible ranges (particularly because it is hard to keep Luke's identity constant across possible worlds while varying the date and circumstances of his birth, at least on some theories of personal identity). To me it seems easier just to say that there are elements of the fictional world that haven't been authored yet, and to not worry overly much about the metaphysics of that. I mean, all fictions - no matter how detailed - contain such elements. (What is the precise square footage of Howards End? What colour are Doctor Watson's socks the day that he meets Sherlock Holmes? How many times did Frodo stir in his first night of sleep having left Lorien?)

In those other media, new fiction is authored as need and whim dictate. The same can be the case in RPGing. So suppose that a player declares that their PC searches for a secret door - do we need to author, as a precursor to the resolution of the declaration, whether or not a secret door is present? In AD&D the answer is yes; in Cortex+ Heroic the answer is no; Prince Valiant can handle either possibility. Is the GM permitted to author, on a whim, the presence or absence of a secret door and feed that into the resolution? In AD&D played Gygax-style the answer is no; in Prince Valiant or 4e D&D the GM can author the door present on a whim, but ought not to author it absent.

Again, I think the analysis of different approaches to RPGing is most profitable when undertaken not in terms of abstract metaphysics, nor in terms of desires/preferences - I don't think there are many serious RPGers who don't enjoy a rich fiction with well-established settings and situations - but in terms of methods actually used at the table.

 

[Krachek]

When I look at the rules and advice in the rules, I see no evidence on how to solve the Secret Door case. Yes, No, roll open, roll hidden, obviously how the DM manage this impact the game experience and feeling. To me it’s all depends on timing, there is time for a Yes, a No, an open roll, that is the art of DMing.