D&D General Story Now, Skilled Play, and Elephants

[Umbran]

Maybe it is...

"Sometimes referred to as "Script Immunity" or a "Character Shield", Plot Armor is when a main character's life and health are safeguarded by the fact that he's the one person who can't be removed from the story. Therefore, whenever Bob is in a situation where he could be killed (or at the least very seriously injured), he comes out unharmed with no logical, In-Universe explanation."

Plot Armor - TV Tropes

Lucky Bob! He's The Protagonist of a story, The Hero whose predestined role is to oppose — maybe even defeat — the villain. He's essential to the plot, which means it is assumed he will progress through the story until at least the …

tvtropes.org

 

[Imaro]

"Sometimes referred to as "Script Immunity" or a "Character Shield", Plot Armor is when a main character's life and health are safeguarded by the fact that he's the one person who can't be removed from the story. Therefore, whenever Bob is in a situation where he could be killed (or at the least very seriously injured), he comes out unharmed with no logical, In-Universe explanation."

Plot Armor - TV Tropes

Lucky Bob! He's The Protagonist of a story, The Hero whose predestined role is to oppose — maybe even defeat — the villain. He's essential to the plot, which means it is assumed he will progress through the story until at least the …

tvtropes.org

With this being the case not sure whether a game emulates a genre or not can really be based on the exploits or feats of a single character with plot armor.

 

[Umbran]

With this being the case not sure whether a game emulates a genre or not can really be based on the exploits or feats of a single character with plot armor.

Sentinel Comics RPG emulates Silver Age comics... and characters cannot die unless the player wishes it. Whatever it is that takes the PC down, they will, ultimately, survive. Every PC has very strong Plot Armor.

 

[Ovinomancer]

Even DM Force could foster skilled play. For example, there would be skill in DM as player applying Force to enhance achievement of the goals of their table. And they might use it to elevate the skill requirement. It may even serve as training-wheels, to help develop skill in new players. I don't believe Force is black and white. It can be used to obviate skill, and perhaps it often is, but that is not a given.

No. Skilled play is not fiat enforcing outcomes, nor matter which side of the screen. This is because it doesn't really matter what the input is, the output is the same.

The argument isn't that OSR enables or disables skilled play (no quotes), it is that it is the original context giving meaning to the label "skilled play".

I get that you want the quote marks to mean something, but I don't see it. And, on this topic, I believe I was the first to point at B/X play as enabling skilled play. I do not see any distinction or specialness to OSR skilled play that warrants the quotation marks. It's just skilled play in that game.

It is surprising to me that you have read that from my posts. To be clear then, I am not reading "skilled" as having something to do with PC skills. Although I believe those stochastic mechanics can be used more or less skillfully.

Well, you keep bringing up the use of skill checks (or checks in general) as a differentiating point for skilled play. It occurred to me there might be confusing, as checks are a common touchstone in your arguments.

The arguments I have heard relate to using a skill (and this time meaning in the 5e skills sense) to elide action in the fiction. For example, "I roll 20 Charisma (Persuasion) does the Queen do what I want?!" (Without further detail from player.) What others have said is that the player should describe what they do in the fiction.

This is just engaging a different mechanic -- asking the GM to decide in your favor. The issue with this as skilled play in 5e is that this kind of adjudication is susceptible to GM Force, and it's difficult to detect. It's absolutely possible that the GM is adhering to strong principles for adjudication and deems that this action clearly would work with what's established (both in play and in notes). On the other hand, I don't think this is a common way to play 5e, meaning that each ask will be up to the GM who will likely be considering the betterment of the story as an input. And, to be 100% clear, there is absolutely nothing wrong with this approach -- it's one I very much use when I'm running 5e. Its just not conducive to skilled play.

If the GM is doing a clear job of principled adjudication, then, yes, this is a route for skilled play. Iserith champions this approach, and he very much has a principled approach. (I didn't @ him because he's currently blocking me so it doesn't really matter.) However, Iserith also receives quite a lot of pushback on these forums when he champions this approach. It isn't necessary, though. Even if every interaction is a check, then the players can still leverage the system to improve chances because they understand how adjudication will work.

Ultimately, this is a key necessity -- the players must be aware of how things will be adjudicated and that adjudication must be consistent in order to deploy skilled play. There is no specific method of adjudication that is required.

 

[Imaro]

Sentinel Comics RPG emulates Silver Age comics... and characters cannot die unless the player wishes it. Whatever it is that takes the PC down, they will, ultimately, survive. Every PC has very strong Plot Armor.

Yes but nearly all main characters have strong plot armor... so I don't think its necessarily indicative of a particular genre.

 

[Umbran]

Yes but nearly all main characters have strong plot armor... so I don't think its necessarily indicative of a particular genre.

Well, most genres are not defined by the presence of a single trope, so of course not.

However, the real issue is whether the genre actually uses the trope. For example, in the typical murder mystery, you almost never have to give your main character plot armor, because the threats are pretty mundane.

 

[Imaro]

Well, most genres are not defined by the presence of a single trope, so of course not.

However, the real issue is whether the genre actually uses the trope. For example, in the typical murder mystery, you almost never have to give your main character plot armor, because the threats are pretty mundane.

Cool...I think we're pretty much agreeing with each other.

 

[pemerton]

The totality of rules, elements and parameters form the system.

In the context of RPGing, where the processes of play involve establishing and developing a shared fiction, principles and techniques whereby the participants do that work with the fiction are quite important. As I've already posted, I don't think that you can explain classic D&D play without reference to those principles and techniques - eg principles that govern what counts as a permissible action declaration by a player; techniques (such as calling for a check; and extrapolating from established fiction) that the GM deploys in order to say what happens next.

It's not clear to me whether or not you count them as part of system. I think @Ovinomancer does.

 

[Ovinomancer]

In the context of RPGing, where the processes of play involve establishing and developing a shared fiction, principles and techniques whereby the participants do that work with the fiction are quite important. As I've already posted, I don't think that you can explain classic D&D play without reference to those principles and techniques - eg principles that govern what counts as a permissible action declaration by a player; techniques (such as calling for a check; and extrapolating from established fiction) that the GM deploys in order to say what happens next.

It's not clear to me whether or not you count them as part of system. I think @Ovinomancer does.

Yes, you are correct. I feel that D&D, in particular, delivers these through received wisdom rather than actually putting it out there, though, so if you're exposure is primarily through D&D or games that share it's received wisdom approach on how to play it, this probably doesn't occur to you (it didn't to me, I took a few tries before I saw it). Playing a few games that make this explicitly part of the game, that provide clear direction, principle, and techniques on how to run it, can be illuminating.

 

[pemerton]

Yes, you are correct. I feel that D&D, in particular, delivers these through received wisdom rather than actually putting it out there, though, so if you're exposure is primarily through D&D or games that share it's received wisdom approach on how to play it, this probably doesn't occur to you (it didn't to me, I took a few tries before I saw it). Playing a few games that make this explicitly part of the game, that provide clear direction, principle, and techniques on how to run it, can be illuminating.

There are also games that are contradictory in the principles that they imply. Here's an example from Classic Traveller (1977). The first, third and fourth quoted paragraphs are from Book 3, pp 44, 19 and 8; the second is from Book 2, p 36 (I've presented the paragraphs in this sequence for expository purposes):

Above all, the referee and players work together. Care must be taken that the referee does not simply lay fortune in the path of the players, but the situation is not primarily an adversary relationship. The referee simply administers rules in situations where the players themselves have an incomplete understanding of the universe. The results should reflect a consistent reality.

When a ship enters a star system, there is a chance that any one of a variety of ships will be encountered. The ship encounter table is used to determine the specific type of vessel which is met. This result may, and should, be superseded by the referee in specific situations, especially if a newly entered system is in military or civil turmoil, or involves other circumstances.

Some random encounters are mandated by the referee. For example, a band may encounter a guard patrol at a building while in the course of visiting (or burglarizing) it. There referee is always free to impose encounters to further the cause of the adventure being played; in many cases, he actually has a responsibility to do so.

[T]he referee should always feel free to impose worlds which have been deliberately (rather than randomly) generated. Often such planets will be devised specifically to reward or torment players.​

The first paragraph suggests a hard purist-for-system simulationist agenda with neutral refereeing as the goal; and for many years this is how I read Traveller. It is reinforced by the design of the early published scenarios like Annic Nova and Shadows and Mission to Mithril and Across the Bright Face.

The second paragraph, and the second sentence of the third paragraph, can be read consistently with this, as suggesting logical extrapolation, by the referee, of the consistent reality. But the third sentence of the third paragraph, and particularly the clause after the semi-colon, runs in a completely different direction. It suggests something closer to PbtA or scene-framed play. And the fourth paragraph doesn't seem at all consistent with neutral refereeing of a consistent reality! (And if the GM is deliberately "tormenting" the players, how is the relationship not adversarial to some significant degree?)

I don't think there's any way of reconciling all the rules text that I've quoted. The second paragraph, and the second sentence of the third paragraph, can be read differently from what I suggested just above, and consistently with the rest of the third paragraph and the fourth paragraph: instead of logical extrapolation, the GM is stipulating these encounters because they're interesting! But that requires hanging the first paragraph out to dry. The referee is no longer simply administering rules; s/he is making stuff up to "reward or torment" - or more generally, to engage - the players.

(I put to one side a third possible way of making sense of Traveller - as like classic dungeon-crawling only space-crawling instead. The game itself recognises, implicitly in some places and explicitly in others, that the scope of the fiction is to expansive to permit generation all in advance. The referee is going to have to make stuff up in the course of play. I don't know Stars Without Number well enough to know how it squares this circle; but Classic Traveller just doesn't.)

Since I've discovered this second way of approaching Traveller - through a combination of rereading the text and bringing some other RPG skills and knowledge to bear - I've found it a much more compelling RPG! It's almost a proto-PbtA system. But to do that I had to just set aside some of the contradictory statements of principle.