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

[Charlaquin]

What does this mean?

The OP is full of Forge jargon, which is often referred to by critics of GNS Theory and the Big Model as “waffle,” as in the British English slang term, meaning “lengthy but trivial or useless talk or writing.”

 

[clearstream]

The OP is full of Forge jargon, which is often referred to by critics of GNS Theory and the Big Model as “waffle,” as in the British English slang term, meaning “lengthy but trivial or useless talk or writing.”

That reads as unusually mean. Knowing you from other threads I am guessing not intentionally?

I am sincere in wondering if movements like OSR and SP might not reflect unease with PnP vs silicon? My interest is not in GNS. It is in that question, and how it will play out.

 

[Sithlord]

We don’t even know the rules for the real universe why should we know the rules for a fantasy universe ?

 

[clearstream]

Please note that JC is full of crap on this. Nothing in the rules actually says how to use Passive skills, except 1 example of using Stealth against Passive Perception. I use Mike Mearls system, where the DM rolls against the Passive score, rather than just comparing static numbers. This system works really well, while still rewarding players for having a high score.

Exactly. Passives can work well: the written design needs further testing and revision.

How so? I use group checks all the time as a replacement for skill challenges.

A minor issue is the "If at least half" wording, which can be taken to imply that only one character needs to succeed in a group of three. That's easily corrected (and should be). Another problem is that it serves as a form of minor advantage - take the best two out of four rolls - that can be stacked with advantage. It's another potentially good mechanic that needs to be tightened up.

This is the one I usually have an issue with, granting advantage excessively. Perhaps you have these two confused.

The way I see it, we are both right. On the one hand, as you say help can be exploited to give advantage excessively. On the other hand, that advantage will never matter if the players have already found a way to have advantage. It is this type of opportunity - to reward players for detailing specific and relevant actions - that can benefit from further testing and revision and collectively offer us a stronger out-of-combat system.

Complex skill checks are like complex traps; some people like them while others don't. I'm personally happy that skill challenges are dead.

I don't miss the 4e take on skill challenges. It is a missed opportunity, though, that D&D has undergone such extensive design work and still cannot manage an appealing and streamlined system to deal with common complex challenges. The system is embarrassed by such a commonplace exploration-pillar activity as characters roping themselves together for a long climb. Not to mention chases.

Contested checks are already a thing, and I don't feel they need to be made any more complicated.

Contests are another useful piece of a coherent out-of-combat system. I see it as part of a working whole.

Like wounds, this is something that hasn't been part of D&D, and probably won't be. It adds an extra level of complication for minimal payoff.

It already exists in 5e, in several forms. Alchemical supplies (XGE) and of course relevant to Artificers (TCE). Bardic inspiration. Ki. Flash of Genius. These resources are consumed or exerted to do, and to enhance, stuff. The designers have gotten quite adroit at fitting them in. Maybe as they are - within classes and tools - is the right place for them. It's an opportunity though, to survey competing systems and assay a design.

 

[Charlaquin]

That reads as unusually mean. Knowing you from other threads I am guessing not intentionally?

Apologies, I definitely wasn’t trying to be mean. Mostly I find it amusing to refer to Forge jargon as waffles, as opposed to “waffle.” I don’t actually have any issue with the jargon itself.

 

[Weiley31]

So, cyborg DMs are the best.

I mean the Teen Titans are pretty badass.

 

[Krachek]

I think the OP is missing a point, trying to connect with survival instinct of player is hardly impossible. A player will never die by a bad choice or a bad roll. Its character will!
At best player can be light up in challenge instinct, instinct for competition but survival is pretty odd.
Fear is also pretty hard to seriously be generated into players, do we really feel fear with a dice in a hand and chips in the other!

 

[Ovinomancer]

I don't think its really an interest in "Story Now" specifically, so much as a skirmish over understandings of it produced by that recent blog post, and emerging from other threads where people who like it argue with people who don't about whether or not it can do the thing the thread is discussing. You'll notice they always dissolve into arguments about terminology and whether detractors have an adequate understanding of the Story Now movement and whether their understanding arises from 'doing it wrong' and whether its proponents see any differences between their game play and the thing being discussed in the thread.

Like, it came up in the Skilled Play thread because someone brought up their opinion that they don't see a difference between juggling agendas in DW while the characters attempt to solve problems, and Skill-based play in RPGs that aren't a part of the Story Now tradition.

It came up in the bespoke genre RPG thread because DND players were expressing irritation with other people poo-pooing their use of the DND system for different things, and pushing them to adopt other games in a fairly narrow interpretation of the consequences of the truth that 'System Matters'

It came up in the players establishing facts about the world thread because Story Now games have a reputation for it and some posters wanted to police the discussion of the ramifications player establishment of facts could have on the game, according with the beliefs of that movement.

It came up in the GM's notes thread because the systems discourage the kind of GM prep found in other games (with extensive 'Story Before' lore write ups) so it was one of the strongly held positions on the idea of GM notes.

Generally speaking, its mostly come up lately in a context where its benefits are being evangelized and pushed as a new normative viewpoint in threads tangentially related to it, putting aside the thread about discussing it founded directly after the six cultures of play thread, and that thread itself, gradually taking it over by insisting the other posters simply don't understand them and that its actually an all-encompassing philosophy.

Honestly, I want more neo-trad threads, a lot of its 'problems' seem to result from underdevelopment so I think it would benefit more from the theory crafting than yet another lecture on how Story Now is actually a perfect fit for every gamer and game, and how anyone who thinks otherwise must be misguided.

I'm one of the posters you're lumping in here, and this is a terrible take. You have to literally ignore the clearly stated words of other posters and substitute your imaginings here, because there's not a single poster I know who discusses Story Now that would ever suggest it's a perfect fit for everything. We're all very keen on using the right tool for the right job, and Story Now is a great tool for some jobs and a terrible one for others. And we say this, all the time, because it's necessary to defend against claims like this, that try for an end-around ad hominin to dismiss the things we do say.

In a shorter sense, this post may be how you think of things, but it's utterly unconnected to the people you're blaming for your opinions. Maybe try listening, instead of starting with your assumptions and then clinging to them?

Full disclosure: I love Story Now games. And I'm currently running a 5e game and playing in one, and they aren't at all Story Now. Clearly, I'm a one-true-wayer like Sword says.

 

[Ovinomancer]

For the OP, I don't follow the expectation. Story Now games aren't a surging new thing. That it's be a recent topic of discussion here on ENW is coincidental and not indicative of a trend in the markets. If you look at the reported online games and the sales figures, it's doing okay, but it's not gaining much at all as a category. Perhaps games like Alien are helping, but, eh, not really a huge trend or shift in the market. 5e, which is not at all Story Now, is still a massive juggernaut and still increasing share. So, the fact that a few threads here in ENW have touched on Story Now play is really not a data point worth the context of the thread -- no one's running to Story Now out of fear that computer games do their play better.

As for skilled play, I'm still not sure what you think that is, but you seem to have decided it's something you can't do in a video game, which strikes me as odd -- skillfully leveraging the system is part and parcel of computer games. I don't see any conflict in scratching a skilled play itch with a computer game or at a table -- there are clearly differences based on system and table feel, but they aren't major enough to cause a differentiation in kind for skilled play. Heck, I picked up Solasta and am having fun pairing abilities across characters for nice combination play. Sure, between fights/dungeon explorations where I get to scratch skilled play there's the enforced story bits, so there's a clear switch, but it's still there. The "social" minigames are dreadful, though.

So, no, I don't at all agree with the hypothesis you've presented -- there's no flight to playstyles caused by computer games. I can absolutely say that I never once thought about computer games when deciding to run or play in a Story Now game. Just excitement to play the game.

 

[The-Magic-Sword]

I'm one of the posters you're lumping in here, and this is a terrible take. You have to literally ignore the clearly stated words of other posters and substitute your imaginings here, because there's not a single poster I know who discusses Story Now that would ever suggest it's a perfect fit for everything. We're all very keen on using the right tool for the right job, and Story Now is a great tool for some jobs and a terrible one for others. And we say this, all the time, because it's necessary to defend against claims like this, that try for an end-around ad hominin to dismiss the things we do say.

In a shorter sense, this post may be how you think of things, but it's utterly unconnected to the people you're blaming for your opinions. Maybe try listening, instead of starting with your assumptions and then clinging to them?

Full disclosure: I love Story Now games. And I'm currently running a 5e game and playing in one, and they aren't at all Story Now. Clearly, I'm a one-true-wayer like Sword says.

I'm not sure how much I trust your expertise given that you tried to convince us that KoB was best compared to Fiasco rather than an RPG in that conversation.