D&D General Supposing D&D is gamist, what does that mean?

[pemerton]

The problem with relating Story Now play is that any example is done Story After -- and it seems like you could have gotten that same thing with another agenda. But, that's the thing, everything that happened happened in the moment of play, and then the next moment of play, with nothing expected or planned. That something occurred is the most trivial analysis. HOW it occurred is the big difference.

To an extent this is true; and I don't mean to dispute the overall force of your comments.

But we can also home in on particular features of the retelling and notice what/who is present or absent in the decision-making. I'll focus on the BW one:

* Who decided that Thurgon's family and heritage matters, in play?

* Who chose that the geographic locus of play would become Thurgon's ancestral estate?

* Who triggered the encounter with Rufus?

* How was Rufus's initial reaction determined?

* Who decided that it matters that Aramina did not meet Rufus's gaze?

* How was Rufus's reaction to the things said by Thurgon and Aramina determined?

* How was Xanthippe's desire that Thurgon stay with her on the estate resolved?

* How was it determined that the Lord of Battle would deem it a worthy thing for Xanthippe to join with Thurgon?​

Each of these things is a key pivot in the play. And none of them has the answer the GM.

The first three were decided by the player. Likewise that it mattered that Aramina didn't meet Rufus's gaze.

Rufus's initial reaction was determined via the Circles check. His subsequent reactions were determined by the mechanics for Ugly Truth, Steel and Command. Xanthippes desire was resolved via the Faith rules. (The GM wanted this to be a Duel of Wits, but in the meta-duel the player outwitted him by having Thurgon pray instead!) And the Lord of Battle's judgment was determined via the same Faith check.

The GM made two key decisions: to present Rufus as cowed and serving "the master". This built on player authored backstory but was certainly not dictated by it, and I think it was a very deft piece of work by the GM, especially as he has only GMed a single-digit number of sessions (maybe half-a-dozen or so?). The GM also made the decision about what Xanthippe initially wanted from Thurgon.

In spelling things out like this, we can see some of the key techniques and principles that support "story now" play, rather than high concept simulationism.

When I compare to what I think of as mainstream D&D play, which as I have said is predominantly high concept simulationist but with pockets of gamist play, I see many differences. Here are some:

* There is no systematic process for the player to make some dramatic need (be it "big", like Thurgon's family and heritage, or "small", like Aramina never meeting the gaze of a stranger) the focus of play;

* There is no systematic process for the player to establish a geographic location as the site of play (because the game defaults to map-and-key resolution of overland travel);

* There is no systematic process for the player to trigger an encounter with a particular NPC;

* NPC reactions are, by default, determined by the GM, and as I understand it the social resolution process tends to be about playing on the NPC's needs and concerns rather than trying to impose the PC's conception of the situation on them (which is what was attempted, albeit unsuccessfully, in this moment of play) - perhaps unfairly, it makes me think more of Vance than of JRRT;

* The decision to pray for a miracle is purely about expending a resource and does not express anything beyond that, in contrast to what is risked by praying for a miracle in BW; and relatedly, the default is that the GM decides what the gods do or don't want and this is independent of and prior to the player's action declaration.​

I'm not denying that 5e D&D can be drifted - as we've discussed before, I'm less sceptical in this respect than you, although you're judging from a sounder evidence-base than I am. But the drifting would have to happen! And I don't see much sign of it in what I read on these boards.

 

[pemerton]

So, I don't think Thousand Year Old Vampire actually presents that much of an issue.

<snip>

Nor do I see some major hole in the analysis, personally. At most perhaps it points at the division between High Concept Simulation and Story Now sometimes being a bit hard to parse, or even subjective. Perhaps they often form a sort of variation by degree, where at the extreme end you have some quite purist Story Now play, and at the other the focus has shifted almost entirely onto some premise that is not really character centered and less laser focus on character advocacy as a driving principle.

I think your last couple of sentences can be reworked to advantage if we remember that "high concept sim" and "story now" are agendas and not techniques like writing stuff in a journal in accordance with prompts and under an imperative of continuity.

If someone writes their journal with the goal of enjoying "being" a vampire, they are playing high concept sim. We can imagine they might be a bit jolted or put out in their play if a particular prompt forces some hard choice where just "being a vampire" won't allow them to intuit a response.

If someone writes their journal with the goal of telling a vampire story, with all that entails (ie actually expressing some thoughts around lust, deceit, fear, hunger, corruption), then they are probably playing "story now". We can imagine that they might be a bit jolted by a prompt that seems to presuppose a particular orientation towards, or response to, lust, deceit, fear, hunger or corruption.

@hawkeyefan is probably the right person to invite to consider if there's any merit in what I've just written!

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I do not really view it as apples to apples. At least not with 4e which pretty much has a phenomenally different set of play agenda than the rest. I do think 5e is significantly higher quality design than 2e or 3e by a country mile. It has a much more coherent design, is much quicker to get to the table, has math that while not as tight as I would like is much tighter than 2e or 3e and plays a hell of a lot smoother than 2e or 3e (esecially 3e which was a damn mess).

I do not think it can be overstated how terrible D&D 3e was from a functional design standpoint. From table handling time to building encounters to uneven class design to putting way too much emphasis on build and spell preparation over actual gameplay the game was a hot mess. Not to mention how absolutely painful prep was.

I fundamentally never really got what you were supposed to DO with 3e, it just played like a game that was BORKED, though honestly I have only played 3.5 and even then not a lot. It seems like a very confused 'design'. Like they focused on certain specific stuff, and removed a lot of crazy crufty nonsense that 2e had in it, but there's NO GLOBAL VISION at all. Like the designers really didn't have a clear idea what they were doing...

2e is just crufty and awkwardly bass akward because it was mandated that it must be 1e compatible to a high degree. So its a weird mishmash of gamist rules and high concept intent, and then mechanically its just bonkers with large amounts of basically unplaytested and unworkable supplementary material and whatnot. I can see how someone THOUGHT 3e was just a deep cleanup of that, wow did they miss the mark!

Clearly though in the 10 years between the design of 3e and 4e WotC did up its game in terms of mastering actual purposeful RPG design. SAGA and 4e both stand head and shoulders above anything they did previously. 4e does have a number of design flaws, but they're pretty tolerable overall, and I think really its problem as a product is purely in terms of people not knowing what to expect, and not really being told what they were getting vs any actual issue with the product at all.

5e DOES learn a lot from 4e in terms of intent, but I just don't like the 2e-ish incoherent design and, frankly it feels strategically like a cul-de-sac of design. There's no direction for it to go in, its what it is and I have this horrible suspicion that as tastes change and evolve 5e and D&D generally really will finally reach obsolescence. Maybe a 5e that was a true successor to 4e would sell less, OTOH there's a heck of a lot of places you can go with that design, it could be explored for 5 more decades.

 

[Ovinomancer]

To an extent this is true; and I don't mean to dispute the overall force of your comments.

But we can also home in on particular features of the retelling and notice what/who is present or absent in the decision-making. I'll focus on the BW one:

* Who decided that Thurgon's family and heritage matters, in play?​

​

* Who chose that the geographic locus of play would become Thurgon's ancestral estate?​

​

* Who triggered the encounter with Rufus?​

​

* How was Rufus's initial reaction determined?​

​

* Who decided that it matters that Aramina did not meet Rufus's gaze?​

​

* How was Rufus's reaction to the things said by Thurgon and Aramina determined?​

​

* How was Xanthippe's desire that Thurgon stay with her on the estate resolved?​

​

* How was it determined that the Lord of Battle would deem it a worthy thing for Xanthippe to join with Thurgon?​

Each of these things is a key pivot in the play. And none of them has the answer the GM.

The first three were decided by the player. Likewise that it mattered that Aramina didn't meet Rufus's gaze.

Rufus's initial reaction was determined via the Circles check. His subsequent reactions were determined by the mechanics for Ugly Truth, Steel and Command. Xanthippes desire was resolved via the Faith rules. (The GM wanted this to be a Duel of Wits, but in the meta-duel the player outwitted him by having Thurgon pray instead!) And the Lord of Battle's judgment was determined via the same Faith check.

The GM made two key decisions: to present Rufus as cowed and serving "the master". This built on player authored backstory but was certainly not dictated by it, and I think it was a very deft piece of work by the GM, especially as he has only GMed a single-digit number of sessions (maybe half-a-dozen or so?). The GM also made the decision about what Xanthippe initially wanted from Thurgon.

In spelling things out like this, we can see some of the key techniques and principles that support "story now" play, rather than high concept simulationism.

When I compare to what I think of as mainstream D&D play, which as I have said is predominantly high concept simulationist but with pockets of gamist play, I see many differences. Here are some:

* There is no systematic process for the player to make some dramatic need (be it "big", like Thurgon's family and heritage, or "small", like Aramina never meeting the gaze of a stranger) the focus of play;​

​

* There is no systematic process for the player to establish a geographic location as the site of play (because the game defaults to map-and-key resolution of overland travel);​

​

* There is no systematic process for the player to trigger an encounter with a particular NPC;​

​

* NPC reactions are, by default, determined by the GM, and as I understand it the social resolution process tends to be about playing on the NPC's needs and concerns rather than trying to impose the PC's conception of the situation on them (which is what was attempted, albeit unsuccessfully, in this moment of play) - perhaps unfairly, it makes me think more of Vance than of JRRT;​

​

* The decision to pray for a miracle is purely about expending a resource and does not express anything beyond that, in contrast to what is risked by praying for a miracle in BW; and relatedly, the default is that the GM decides what the gods do or don't want and this is independent of and prior to the player's action declaration.​

I'm not denying that 5e D&D can be drifted - as we've discussed before, I'm less sceptical in this respect than you, although you're judging from a sounder evidence-base than I am. But the drifting would have to happen! And I don't see much sign of it in what I read on these boards.

Yup, and I get all that because I'm looking for it. But, if you aren't because you, say, have no experience with this, you take the play example and look at it though your lens of play and add what needs to be there for it to make sense. And that addition is a bunch of the GM doing stuff offstage to make the play work, because that's how it happens in D&D, usually. So these reports get read as after actions of how the story worked rather than examples of play moment to moment.

At least, that was my prior experience. It why I bounced off of Burning Wheel -- I could not comprehend how the GM could prep all the alternate lines that play seemed to demand.

 

[pemerton]

I think what makes it feel like a difference of kind to me personally is that when I experience those moments in games that lean into High Concept play they are often used as hooks or a springboard into some sort of experience where I am being told a story which to me detracts a bit from the tension and focus on character. This isn't like a bad thing. I can enjoy that weaving of stories when I am expecting it - it just feels like a different sort of experience to me. Still personal at times, but less fundamentally visceral.

Mostly in the sense of plot weaving / adventure hooks. The GM using it as a means to bring in other preplanned story elements that are not directly related or deciding where they want things to go ahead of time. I fully expect that in certain games. It's just part of the fundamental difference in forms of play in my experience. So, I have learned to invest a little less emotionally in the tension of those moments.

This reminded me of my first session playing Thurgon.

The GM had an idea for some sort of "arc" involving Orcs and Elves. (He loves Elves.) When Thurgon and Aramina arrived at an abandoned homestead (the first scene framed in the campaign), Orcs attacked (I think as prompted by a failed Scavenging check). There was a Fight!, and then (after Thurgon handily bested some Orcs) the Elves showed up and (via GM narration) drove off the rest of the Orc raiding party.

The GM clearly had some idea about what would happen next, even dropping "hooks" - like an Orc with a shield bearing the insignia of Thurgon's order. But I wasn't interested in "against the Orcs" and so, as per the instructions to players in the rulebook, I used my system resources - a Wises check, initially - to find things more interesting to me. And - to his great credit - the GM did what a BW GM should do, and followed my lead.

This is how techniques and principles combined to ensure the play was, and has remained, "story now" rather than "high concept sim".

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I can't say I understand this criticism of the tasks resolution system at all.

What does making a check in 5e MEAN? I'm playing a character, and I have an intent, something I want to achieve. I think up some sort of action that might take me closer to accomplishing that intent. How much closer will I get if I succeed? How much further will I be from it if I fail? We don't know! My character decides to swim across the lake. How many checks, and of what kind can I expect to have to make in order to get across? There's literally no way of knowing! The GM can ask for all sorts of things, or heck, he can just say "Oh, its easy, your on the other side." Checks thus have no 'valence'. At least in combat its an orc, it has N hit points, and I do X damage if I hit, its pretty clear, but 5e abandoned even the pretext of OOC checks meaning anything at all. They're color, literally. "Oh, OK, you're crossing the lake, you make a swim check, good, you haven't drowned yet!" Clearly if the GM is operating in good faith then success is advantageous in some degree, but good faith is not really enough. I mean, what are my chances of making it across? If I'm asked to pass 1 check at 85% success, that's easy enough, but how about 3, of varying difficulties? And what happens if I fail the swim check, or the survival check, or whatever? Do I just die? Who knows?

Again, this is why I call check 'color', they HINT at something, they kind of bump the GM a bit towards "something nice" or "something nasty" but the 'mechanics' are toothless. This is poison to something like Story Now. In fact its aimed squarely at support of a kind of Illusionism or Participationist play where the GM smiles and tells you what happened every time you do something! If failure doesn't suite him, then he says "oh oh, you're in trouble, make a CON check! Oh, lucky you, you've passed that, you manage to drag out on the other shore, close one!" If success doesn't suite him "Oh, well, its a long swim, roll another swim check. Gosh, you start drowning and sink to the bottom of the lake..." Sigh.

I mean, it does work in a fair number of cases where things are reasonably clear-cut, did you set off the trap or not, that sort of thing, assuming the GM is really disciplined and/or the players really grill the DM every time they make a check and make him describe the full outcome before any dice are thrown at all, ever. Elegant it ain't.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Nah, I'd rather not draw the modhammer. You and I will never see eye-to-eye on this question, I guarantee you that.

In fact, let's turn that around. 3rd edition and its descendants (like PF1e) were wildly popular. One of the most popular editions ever, in fact. Popular enough to become part of the cultural zeitgeist well beyond just D&D, e.g. the use of "Took a Level in Badass," a trope name that drew on the 3rd edition concept of à la carte multiclassing.

It's also a completely broken, deeply, deeply flawed system. One that two different companies had to straight-up admit to their players that it was too broken to keep iterating on, the second of which had literally made their fortune by trying to keep iterating on it.

How does your theory explain that?

Well, how would it explain why 4e, which everyone professed to hate, sold just as well as 3.x? I mean, despite all the grief it got in this and that forum, people still bought a lot of books and DDI subs.

 

[pemerton]

I have a funny story regarding an unusual course such a scenario took from years ago. Perhaps it was accidentally very Story Now in a sense? It was an Exalted campaign I was running and a Deathlord was trying to blow up the world. The motive of the Deathlords is basically to end suffering by euthanising the entire world. The PCs somewhat unsurprisingly were not going to let this happen. So one of the player characters had dragged her wife (who was originally just a random NPC but the player decided their character madly falls in love with her) into the 'final battle' with the Deathlord. In the ensuing battle the wife gets killed (I don't remember how, probably due random. The wife was a competent warrior, but not nearly as tough as the PCs.) So at the crucial moment where the characters are just about to stop the bad guy from activating his doomsday thing, he makes some sort of classic villain speech, addressing the character whose wife was killed. "Now you know my pain, join me and we can end all the suffering forever!" (Or to that effect.) So the character, who is utterly heartbroken, actually agrees, joins the bad guy, the world gets blown up, the end. On the one hand it was pretty cool, but the other players weren't terribly pleased

That's awesome, and I'd say the moment very much reflects Story Now play.

But you can see the tension in the reaction of the other players. They had signed on to a story with a particular end and weren't happy when that was thwarted. You might say you dove into Story Now and emerged back into High-Concept Simulation or more traditional Story/Drama play, where the outcome of the Story Now moment clashed.

I agree with niklinna, that this seems to be an example of "story now" play at that moment by that player, who expresses their own judgement of/response to the situation by declaring their PC's action to join the Deathlord.

In terms of my 3 points from above: (i) the player changed the setting; (ii) the player established their PCs' dramatic need; (iii) the player's choice/judgement/response was not shaped or constrained by social- or system-generated expectations or demands about the "right answer".

I also agree with niklinna that, as you present it, there seems to have been an agenda clash. The other players seem not to have wanted (i), (ii) or (iii).

 

[Ovinomancer]

I can't say I understand this criticism of the tasks resolution system at all.

There are three main things that a check could do in 5e, it can disclaim decision making, it can be a prompt, or it can be a prop.

If you're disclaiming decision making, you're doing exactly that -- the mechanic tells you what happens and you go with this. Attack rolls are a good example of this in 5e -- the mechanic determines what happens.

If the mechanic is a prompt, then it's job is to provide some prompt to the GM for narration. Most skill checks are like this -- they don't tell you really what happens, but instead provide a prompt to the GM to provide narration according to the GM's interests.

If the mechanic is a prop, then it doesn't matter -- it's being used to obfuscate a GM Says moment with one that appears to be disclaiming decision making. This can be asking for a pointless check to "build tension," or exactly what fudging is.

There's a reasonable subset of rolls where the GM intends to disclaim decision making, but really just hopes the die comes up agreeing with them, and if it doesn't, the check turns into a prop.

 

[pemerton]

I agree that Torchbearer is transparent, but I can't say that the whole thing works for me. I am constantly aware of the tension of the Grind conflicting with my understanding of how time passes, to give just one example, and at certain moments in our sessions I have felt them actively clash. What I do find interesting and engaging is how, for example, belief/creed/traits/etc. feed into the more Gamist mechanics.

It sounds like you might enjoy BW. Keep the crunchy mechanics, have even crunchier PC build, but drop the grind while introducing more intricacy of Beliefs and Instincts.

It's a pretty good system. (I say by way of understatement.)