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

[AbdulAlhazred]

Can you cite the rules that make 1e better than 5e for running hexcrawls? What are the procedures and loops that aren't found in 5e and make it better? Or if they are found in both, can you give examples explaining how the 1e version is better?

I've grown curious to understand how D&D hexploration has been designed in the past, compared with now. What has been carried forward. What altered and abandoned (with the hope also of understanding why)?

OK, because the rules in 1e are pretty extensive and tie into a lot of stuff that is part of the game 'at large' I may not elaborate on every single bit, but I can certainly give you the nickle tour:

PHB contains the fundamental movement and light rules, these lay out what movement rates mean, what constitutes encumbrance (there are 4 levels of encumbrance, 5 I guess if you count 'cannot move at all'). It also contains the rules for Surprise, vision, etc. (though the DMG has its own, which aren't perfectly concordant with these). Equipment and some associated rules are also present in this book. The basic rules for mapping are also here (there's not much). Obviously the spell lists and descriptions, and some of the spell-casting rules are also found here.

DMG obviously contains the 'meat' of things! The biggest part of the system is found starting on P47 'Adventures in the Outdoors' (the first subtopic of THE ADVENTURE). First it touches on the basic conceptual framework. "It is necessary to have a reasonably well-detailed, large scale map for conducting adventures outdoors." So this makes it clear that Outdoor adventures are a distinct type, but that they follow the 'map and key' framework also used in dungeons. It then goes on to describe them as a follow on to "those in the small community and nearby underground maze." So in this first paragraph we have the basic schema of how this fits into the game and the world described.

Next it describes world maps, which we are told should be a first priority and will have a scale of 20 to 40 miles per hexagon. It then describes 'smaller scale maps' as having 5 hexagons per large scale map hexagon, and describes how the two sizes would be arranged. It is then explained that there are FOUR subcategories of outdoor adventure, land adventures, adventures in the air, waterborne adventures, and underwater adventures. Presumably each of these shares the above considerations about mapping, though it says underwater is more dungeonlike in practice. I guess you could hexcrawl across the ocean however as far as the DMG is concerned (either on and/or below the surface)! lol.

From here we get the LAND ADVENTURES section, which covers a whole slew of topics. First we learn that the map needs to note population density, or at least give a general idea of it. Then we dive into 'Chance of Encounter', which tells us, for each type of terrain (plain, scrub, forest, desert, hills, mountains, and marsh) how often to roll for encounters, and for each density (relatively dense, moderate to sparse/patrolled, and uninhabited/wilderness) what the base chance is. From here we go into detailed procedures for how an encounter happens, encounter distance, what a confrontation (distance under 1") means, etc. Next we get a section on movement that basically just adds a rule for very large groups to the PHB rules. Then we have the 'Becoming Lost' topic, which contains a fairly elaborate procedure for determining if, when, and the effects of, getting lost. We also get a note that if you follow a 'proper map' you won't get lost (I assume this means the heavily annotated type normally produced by adventuring groups, not a treasure map). Rest and Forced Movement round out this section.

I won't go into the other types of outdoor adventures except to note they include VERY extensive rules for flying, watercraft (including an entire wargame of small ship combat), etc. Suffice it to say you should be well equipped to handle most situations! There are even rules covering most of the common spells and their off-label uses in these various types of adventure.

FInally there is an entire subchapter titled 'OUTDOOR MOVEMENT', which elaborates on and to a degree rewrites the PHB movement rules. It includes the uses of mounts, effects of terrain on movement, use of watercraft, and some other details.

So, the one thing we are missing here is anything talking about encounter tables. We know how to discover IF an encounter happened, and what to do about it, but we have no rosters of bad guys, or even a rule on how to structure a table, what sort of things should go on it, etc. But first we have a slight diversion:

Appendix B: RANDOM WILDERNESS TERRAIN - this is exactly what the label says on the tin. It includes an Inhabitation Table, used to determine what sort, if any, civilization exists in a hexagon when it is entered, noting that 1 out of 100 hexes will have a city of up to 60,000 population!!!! So, maybe its not quite wilderness after all, lol. Presumably this is all assumed to fall under the rubric that the DM will filter the results!

And now we have APPENDIX C: RANDOM MONSTER ENCOUNTERS - this details encounters for all types of terrain, dungeons, underwater, etc. and is QUITE extensive, including rules for NPC parties, patrols, generation of fortifications, covering various climates and degrees of inhabitation, etc. It also includes a CITY/TOWN encounters section. Lets just say that the rules are QUITE extensive and cover 20 pages of dense text and tables!

Appendix O recapitulates and expands on the encumbrance of various items. Appendix P covers building NPC parties (well, it talks about PCs, but its main use seems more like building full up NPC groups to run into in... THE WILDERNESS!)

Obviously AD&D also contains an entire BOOK, the Wilderness Survival Guide, which greatly expands on all of the above information, and comes in at a hefty 150 pages or more. I know it contains the 2nd (or maybe 3rd) iteration of the NWP skill system, but I really didn't read it much.

So, if we follow the rules in this book, then parties of some level, presumably at least 3rd-5th, can venture out into the wilds, and either experience a randomly generated or a fully mapped, hexcrawl. The rules above will provide for how the party moves, navigates, what it eats and drinks, what it can carry, and the sorts of things it will encounter. There's not a LOT on how to draw maps, nothing much about symbols and whatnot, but presumably all of this should be fairly self-evident and follow from the necessity to depict all of the stuff detailed above. Obviously the DM is encouraged to include fantastical elements, their own 'keyed' encounters (which are stated to displace any random ones) etc. This seems to be a complete system!

I'd observe that when you actually USE it, its hard to carry enough food, water, weapons, armor, and other equipment, and you have to make hard trade-offs between movement speed and being maximally well-equipped. There is also the disease rule, which adds another almost TB2 grind-like factor. Spell casting is well considered too, as the PCs will lack a ready supply of ingredients for many spells, books are fairly heavy and easily damaged, etc. You can only memorize a specific number of spell levels per rest too! Bunkering down in a camp is possible, but will eat up rations and subject the party to random encounters (which happen even if you sit still).

I really don't have time to cover the 5e equivalent right now, and this post is quite long, so I will look at that and contrast them in detail later.

 

[Thomas Shey]

I will point out that while you think that a lack of momentum is impossible (from what I gather), there are some people - including the poster @Manbearcat quoted about worldbuilding - who value the absence of momentum or snowballing in their games. They explicitly value failure states that do not snowball into conflict or forward momentum and that can result in a complete loss of momentum. The party can't open the door. Nothing happens. The party leaves and maybe comes back later if they have the proper tools or are higher level. There is no actual snowballing or forward momentum in the action.

As (mostly) an aside, this was explicitly something the old GDS Simulationists would have demanded to be possible; if dead-ends were not a possible outcome, it wouldn't feel simulationist to them.

 

[pemerton]

That's a helpful distinction. To return to the question, I understand Carroll developed a concept of pragmatic a-priori.

Do you think that could that have been an inferential practice he had in mind (or would have used himself) to head off the regress in the fable?

Do you mean Lewis Carroll or CI Lewis?

My understanding of CI Lewis's "pragmatic a priori" is that it is a particular version of the general idea that a prior truth is a matter of truth by convention. This was a common view among logical positivists and other radical empiricists. In and of itself, it doesn't tell us anything about the nature of rules of inference. Frege was hostile to the idea of truth by convention but still recognised the difference between the premises of an argument and the rules of inference that govern it.

 

[clearstream]

These two statements (and statements like them) assume something like "all GMs make decisions while running games and therefore all games inform and constrain a GM's decision-space similarly." That is to say "not much at all...the GM can just do pretty much whatever the eff they want."

The statements of mine you quote imply the opposite of this. I imply that the GM decision-space can be always constrained, but not that it must be always constrained identically. The equality I suggest is the former, not the latter.

The last line - do whatever they want - is fortunately a strawman here.*

This is just self-evidently not only not true, but its not even nearing the truth.

Agreed. The argument you may want to rebut is that a GM can accept constraints in 5e.




[EDIT *The expected path of intuition is that one considers the conclusion - "GM can just do pretty much whatever the eff they want" - and rejects it. In that way seeing that constraints can apply everywhere - "In all cases, I aim to say what follows (from fiction, description, system.)" Constraints need not be identical for that to be true. The rebuttal I anticipated was to constraints applying in 5e.]

 

[clearstream]

Do you mean Lewis Carroll or CI Lewis?

My understanding of CI Lewis's "pragmatic a priori" is that it is a particular version of the general idea that a prior truth is a matter of truth by convention. This was a common view among logical positivists and other radical empiricists. In and of itself, it doesn't tell us anything about the nature of rules of inference. Frege was hostile to the idea of truth by convention but still recognised the difference between the premises of an argument and the rules of inference that govern it.

That was it. Yes, I was confusing my Lewises!

 

[clearstream]

OK, because the rules in 1e are pretty extensive and tie into a lot of stuff that is part of the game 'at large' I may not elaborate on every single bit, but I can certainly give you the nickle tour:

PHB contains the fundamental movement and light rules, these lay out what movement rates mean, what constitutes encumbrance (there are 4 levels of encumbrance, 5 I guess if you count 'cannot move at all'). It also contains the rules for Surprise, vision, etc. (though the DMG has its own, which aren't perfectly concordant with these). Equipment and some associated rules are also present in this book. The basic rules for mapping are also here (there's not much). Obviously the spell lists and descriptions, and some of the spell-casting rules are also found here.

DMG obviously contains the 'meat' of things! The biggest part of the system is found starting on P47 'Adventures in the Outdoors' (the first subtopic of THE ADVENTURE). First it touches on the basic conceptual framework. "It is necessary to have a reasonably well-detailed, large scale map for conducting adventures outdoors." So this makes it clear that Outdoor adventures are a distinct type, but that they follow the 'map and key' framework also used in dungeons. It then goes on to describe them as a follow on to "those in the small community and nearby underground maze." So in this first paragraph we have the basic schema of how this fits into the game and the world described.

Next it describes world maps, which we are told should be a first priority and will have a scale of 20 to 40 miles per hexagon. It then describes 'smaller scale maps' as having 5 hexagons per large scale map hexagon, and describes how the two sizes would be arranged. It is then explained that there are FOUR subcategories of outdoor adventure, land adventures, adventures in the air, waterborne adventures, and underwater adventures. Presumably each of these shares the above considerations about mapping, though it says underwater is more dungeonlike in practice. I guess you could hexcrawl across the ocean however as far as the DMG is concerned (either on and/or below the surface)! lol.

From here we get the LAND ADVENTURES section, which covers a whole slew of topics. First we learn that the map needs to note population density, or at least give a general idea of it. Then we dive into 'Chance of Encounter', which tells us, for each type of terrain (plain, scrub, forest, desert, hills, mountains, and marsh) how often to roll for encounters, and for each density (relatively dense, moderate to sparse/patrolled, and uninhabited/wilderness) what the base chance is. From here we go into detailed procedures for how an encounter happens, encounter distance, what a confrontation (distance under 1") means, etc. Next we get a section on movement that basically just adds a rule for very large groups to the PHB rules. Then we have the 'Becoming Lost' topic, which contains a fairly elaborate procedure for determining if, when, and the effects of, getting lost. We also get a note that if you follow a 'proper map' you won't get lost (I assume this means the heavily annotated type normally produced by adventuring groups, not a treasure map). Rest and Forced Movement round out this section.

I won't go into the other types of outdoor adventures except to note they include VERY extensive rules for flying, watercraft (including an entire wargame of small ship combat), etc. Suffice it to say you should be well equipped to handle most situations! There are even rules covering most of the common spells and their off-label uses in these various types of adventure.

FInally there is an entire subchapter titled 'OUTDOOR MOVEMENT', which elaborates on and to a degree rewrites the PHB movement rules. It includes the uses of mounts, effects of terrain on movement, use of watercraft, and some other details.

So, the one thing we are missing here is anything talking about encounter tables. We know how to discover IF an encounter happened, and what to do about it, but we have no rosters of bad guys, or even a rule on how to structure a table, what sort of things should go on it, etc. But first we have a slight diversion:

Appendix B: RANDOM WILDERNESS TERRAIN - this is exactly what the label says on the tin. It includes an Inhabitation Table, used to determine what sort, if any, civilization exists in a hexagon when it is entered, noting that 1 out of 100 hexes will have a city of up to 60,000 population!!!! So, maybe its not quite wilderness after all, lol. Presumably this is all assumed to fall under the rubric that the DM will filter the results!

And now we have APPENDIX C: RANDOM MONSTER ENCOUNTERS - this details encounters for all types of terrain, dungeons, underwater, etc. and is QUITE extensive, including rules for NPC parties, patrols, generation of fortifications, covering various climates and degrees of inhabitation, etc. It also includes a CITY/TOWN encounters section. Lets just say that the rules are QUITE extensive and cover 20 pages of dense text and tables!

Appendix O recapitulates and expands on the encumbrance of various items. Appendix P covers building NPC parties (well, it talks about PCs, but its main use seems more like building full up NPC groups to run into in... THE WILDERNESS!)

Obviously AD&D also contains an entire BOOK, the Wilderness Survival Guide, which greatly expands on all of the above information, and comes in at a hefty 150 pages or more. I know it contains the 2nd (or maybe 3rd) iteration of the NWP skill system, but I really didn't read it much.

So, if we follow the rules in this book, then parties of some level, presumably at least 3rd-5th, can venture out into the wilds, and either experience a randomly generated or a fully mapped, hexcrawl. The rules above will provide for how the party moves, navigates, what it eats and drinks, what it can carry, and the sorts of things it will encounter. There's not a LOT on how to draw maps, nothing much about symbols and whatnot, but presumably all of this should be fairly self-evident and follow from the necessity to depict all of the stuff detailed above. Obviously the DM is encouraged to include fantastical elements, their own 'keyed' encounters (which are stated to displace any random ones) etc. This seems to be a complete system!

I'd observe that when you actually USE it, its hard to carry enough food, water, weapons, armor, and other equipment, and you have to make hard trade-offs between movement speed and being maximally well-equipped. There is also the disease rule, which adds another almost TB2 grind-like factor. Spell casting is well considered too, as the PCs will lack a ready supply of ingredients for many spells, books are fairly heavy and easily damaged, etc. You can only memorize a specific number of spell levels per rest too! Bunkering down in a camp is possible, but will eat up rations and subject the party to random encounters (which happen even if you sit still).

I really don't have time to cover the 5e equivalent right now, and this post is quite long, so I will look at that and contrast them in detail later.

Thanks! In my books the Land Adventures and Outdoor Movement rules are contained on pages 47 and 49 (48 is a full page image.) Can you find a step-by-step procedure?

 

[Manbearcat]

The statements of mine you quote say the opposite of this. I say that the GM decision-space can be always constrained, not that it must be always constrained identically. The equality I suggest is the former, not the latter.

This is what you were responding to:

There is a lot of needs and space for DM fiat in DnD.

Just for plain combat encounters DM decide how monsters choose targets, flee, surrender, bargain, attack down PC, and so on.

In a Meeting with a Npc a DM will at best have a prepared paragraph of notes, that will rapidly become insufficient. DM will have to improvise using free choice or tables if available.
On future meeting the DM usually make the NPC evolve: precise motivations, add unknown secrets, unless we pretend to have define the entire life of this npc prior the first meeting!

Same things happens when PC interact with larger group. village, town, kingdom, faction, guild. a DM cant define an entire faction prior a meeting or encounter with the PCs. if the PCs continue to interact with the faction, DM will have to add things backward.

There is guidelines to build a dungeon, an encounter, and even a typical adventuring day, but nowhere there is a golden rules that force the DM to stick to his preparation. Some DM will stick to their notes, some won’t and some won’t even have notes and still manage to run a session. The DM guide don’t take side for any of those style.

And this is what you said:

That's very true. There are many decisions that must be made in play. My doubt is around a supposition that those countless decisions don't arise in RPGs generally. Choice of twist or condition in TB2, or rulings as to Good Ideas. It seems to be turtles all the way down.

Then later you said the below:

Here I might well have misunderstood you and other posters. I have read words like "GM-fiat" and "force", used in a way that seemed to imply a shortfall. Perhaps that is not what you intend, but I have something else in mind, too.

So far as I can make out from the arguments, GM-fiat and force are thought to apply to some RPGs and not others. Based on the way those concepts are described, it seems to me like the application of GM-fiat and force is "unappealing" and the alternative is "appealing".

When a colleague MCs Monster of the Week or I GM Torchbearer 2, there are many points where we make decisions and author fiction. A player fails an ability test. I decide whether to introduce a twist, or that they accomplish the task but receive a condition. If I introduce a twist, I author that twist. In all cases, I aim to say what follows (from fiction, description, system.)

So my takeaway from the above (among other things you've said) is that you believe the following to be true (and this is what I tried to convey and this is what I tried to demonstrate was not true in Torchbearer):

1) You believe that in GMing (any game it seems as you've compared 5e to AW to TB here...all extremely different games/systems) it is both true that "there is a lot of need for GM fiat" and "there is a lot of space for GM fiat."

2) I'm reading your use of "Turtles All the Way Down" here to be a claim that all GMing is a sequence of recursive justification (and related to (1) above, "for/within their deployment of GM fiat").

3) What makes a rule/system of rules binding cannot be fundamental to them (endogenous) because "opt-in" is fundamentally a choice by an outside participant. There cannot be things inherent to the ruleset/system itself that generates fidelity to them. You and @pemerton have gone round and round on this and I agree with him. There are plenty of reasons native/inherent to a system/rules from which a disposition toward fidelity to them would be derived directly from the system's/rules' nature.

4) You then cite Torchbearer 2 GMing (Twist or Condition in particular - something that is ubiquitous in play) as (what appears to me by inference) as a bog standard exemplar of (1) and (2) above.


If I've got you wrong on any of (1) - (4) above, I would love to be corrected. I have no problem if I've drawn an incorrect inference in the course of this thread, but that looks to me like your position.

So its not a strawman. Its my brain soup being poured through the sieve of this thread and these exchanges in particular and that is what comes out of brain soup through sieve.

So, again, I disagree strongly with all of (1) through (4). That was the point of my post was to show the following:

* There is neither the need for much in the way of GM fiat nor the space for it in all games. Yes, it is a fair bet that play of any system over a long enough interval is going to generate exception-based, minority-in-the-extreme moments where a GM will have to make a decision that goes outside of the encoded instruction and/or laid-down architecture of the ruleset. However, if the system is robust, on those rare occasions that this happens, the principles, instructive constraints, clear architecture, evinced best practices, and past precedence will generate a tight and tidy framework for those hyper-rare, exception-based decisions. As for the other 99+ % of play, the GM will just follow (assuming they're inherent to the system) the clear and transparent procedures and make principally informed and constrained moves when its their responsibility to introduce content (whatever that content might be) and resolve gamestate collisions.

Force is very separate from fiat. Force is the willful subordination of system's input and/or other participant input in favor of the GM's desired input. There are tons of games that neither feature nor require (and some that fundamentally forbid) Force. There are some games that feature Force or require Force to make the thing work.

Desirability when it comes to Fiat or Force doesn't weigh into their relationship to "feature", "require" or "forbid." Desirability is for the participants at the table to decide/resolve (when it comes to Force in particular, hopefully before play so that players are aware of their role, the system's role, and the GM's role in the play to come).

* Fidelity to a system/rules might be because some kind of intersection of (a) they've consistently proven themselves "to work" (they reliably achieve the agenda of play), (b) the agenda of play is inherently enjoyable to the participant(s), (c) the cognitive space inhabited by the participant(s), which the ruleset inherently delivers, is desirable (and, in this space, you can bin several discrete and intersecting features of a desirable cognitive space when running a game) and (d) the features and attendant play experience of an alternative system/ruleset that doesn't deliver some configuration of (a) - (c) is an ever-present incentive to appreciate what you're playing and generate that fidelity.

* GMing is not inherently just a sequence of recursive justification. It might be, but it isn't inherently (here is where system comes in). GMing might be a matrix of tightly defined and constrained set of procedures + tightly defined and highly functional principles/best practices which winnow a GM's decision-space from a small subset of "(this) game-functional moves" to a tiny suite (perhaps as small as a few) of those "(this) game-functional moves" toward making the most system-optimal, conscientious move possible in this moment of play.

* GMing Torchbearer is a perfect example of all of the above and the play-excerpt that I fleshed out above (including breaking down the navigation of the matrix of my decision-space which governed my move) illustrates that.

---

Agreed. The argument you may want to rebut is that a GM can accept constraints in 5e.

This arrangement of words tells me that we're talking at cross-purposes and we need to resolve that (because it feels disconnected to both what I wrote above that you responded to and any/all of my other posts in this thread).

This sentence entails a premise that I don't agree with (and I addressed that above); "can accept constraints." Again, this assumes that system constraints are fundamentally "opt-in"...that the nature of what makes rules binding is never inherent to the system. Its always "opt-in" and its only the "opt-in" that is relevant (and not the characteristics of the system/rules that interact with the human operating system).

So, again, I don't agree with that premise.

And I've never said (nor would I ever) that a 5e GM cannot accept constraints. So I don't need to rebut that. 5e has a particular orientation toward GM authority/role and intrinsic, quite zoomed-out guidance and principles for the GM:

• help the players have a good time
• have fun yourself
• be consistent in your rulings and convey consistency with your world, npcs, plots, adventures
• the rules aren't in charge of the fun, you are with your inventing, adventure/story writing, storytelling, improvising, acting, and refereeing
• invent compelling plots and make the world and adventure flow around the adventurers so they feel they're part of a fantastic story and world
• invest prep time outside of the game to exercise your creativity to invent compelling plots, create new NPCs, craft encounters, and think of clever ways to foreshadow story events yet to come.
• know the rules so you make good rulings
• know your players so you can choose a style of play and a flavor of fantasy that keeps them interested, immersed in the world you've created, tailoring adventures to their preferences as much as possible so they can do awesome things

Now, in terms of winnowing a GMs decision-space, that + the action resolution mechanics/procedures still leaves a relatively huge (again, contrast with Torchbearer) subset of possible decisions for a GM to choose from. This + the GM's role in action resolution is fundamentally why 5e is an enormously GM-directed game. And if you look at the constituent parts and the accretion of all of the above, it should be plain to see that 5e is fundamentally a GM-directed, High Concept Simulation game that features tailored Power Fantasy. It is intentfully designed with that in mind and it achieved that goal.

If a GM wants to smuggle in and try to synthesize extra-5e (constraining and informing) principles and widgets...have at it. They can absolutely research them, generate them...accept them.

---

That is a lot of words. Hopefully we're on the same page now and/or hopefully you'll correct me if I've got you wrong on anything in the (1) - (4) at the top (I don't believe that I do...and if I do then we have a more fundamental communication breakdown that we'll need to resolve because I'm not sure what other conclusions I could draw based on what you've said in this thread).

 

[clearstream]

So my takeaway from the above (among other things you've said) is that you believe the following to be true (and this is what I tried to convey and this is what I tried to demonstrate was not true in Torchbearer):

1) You believe that in GMing (any game it seems as you've compared 5e to AW to TB here...all extremely different games/systems) it is both true that "there is a lot of need for GM fiat" and "there is a lot of space for GM fiat."

I point out that we are making decisions - for example your creating a fiction about a shortage of oil - that operate in a decision-space that is strictly limitless. Another GM could have created a different fiction, and been equally right in doing so.

2) I'm reading your use of "Turtles All the Way Down" here to be a claim that all GMing is a sequence of recursive justification (and related to (1) above, "for/within their deployment of GM fiat").

By turtles all the way down I mean that if a GM is choosing fiat, then they can always choose fiat. Following game rules is voluntary. (Games are typically regarded as a voluntary activity. That is one reason why the appeal of a game rule matters to the following of it.) The intended implication here is that if a GM is not choosing fiat, then they can always not choose fiat.

3) What makes a rule/system of rules binding cannot be fundamentally to them (endogenous) because "opt-in" is fundamentally a choice by an outside participant. There cannot be things inherent to the ruleset/system itself that generates fidelity to them. You and @pemerton have gone round and round on this and I agree with him. There are plenty of reasons native/inherent to a system/rules from which a disposition toward fidelity to them would be derived directly from the system's/rules' nature.

If you are able to write down what those things are, you will see that agreement to a rule isn't located in the rule. It can be located in view of the consequences of the rule. And it can be located in view of the consequences of agreement to the system as a whole.

Game rules are not followed simply because they are rules. Games are voluntary. Their rules are followed in view of their consequences for us (their appeal) and in view of external considerations like friendship, trust, and so on. We can find ourself in a game where some participants don't follow rules that we have chosen to follow, or follow them in a different way (and thus in view of the consequences of following them that way.)

It's not all or nothing. Opt-in is not automatic: intrinsic to the rule. One might choose not to follow a rule, and then have another explain it to you in a way that makes it more appealing, and thus decide to follow it. That is explained by knowing that the following of the rule is in view of something other than the rule itself.

4) You then cite Torchbearer 2 GMing (Twist or Condition in particular - something that is ubiquitous in play) as (what appears to me by inference) as a bog standard exemplar of (1) and (2) above.

That is why I cite Torchbearer. Because I mean to illustrate that we are able to follow constraints even while working in decision-spaces that are strictly limitless.

If I've got you wrong on any of (1) - (4) above, I would love to be corrected. I have no problem if I've drawn an incorrect inference in the course of this thread, but that looks to me like your position.

It might turn out that our greatest disconnect is that as GM you (possibly?) do not see reasons in 5e as a system to accept constraints, while I do. If right, maybe the rest follows from there?

* Fidelity to a system/rules might be because some kind of intersection of (a) they've consistently proven themselves "to work" (they reliably achieve the agenda of play), (b) the agenda of play is inherently enjoyable to the participant(s), (c) the cognitive space inhabited by the participant(s), which the ruleset inherently delivers, is desirable (and, in this space, you can bin several discrete and intersecting features of a desirable cognitive space when running a game) and (d) the features and attendant play experience of an alternative system/ruleset that doesn't deliver some configuration of (a) - (c) is an ever-present incentive to appreciate what you're playing and generate that fidelity.

Those are excellent examples of choosing to follow rules in view of the consequences if you accept/enact them for yourself.

1. From experience, you have found that the rules reliably achieve an agenda of play that is one you find enjoyable (the appeal is the enjoyability of satisfying that agenda)
2. You find that the cognitive space is desirable (perhaps parsable, diverse, and complex enough to be stimulating)

That another could not find the achieved agenda enjoyable, or the cognitive space stimulating, is perfectly plausible. Half our play group love TB2, and the other half don't have any desire to play it again. When they don't, they choose not to accept/enact the rules concerned for themselves. It is in view of the benefits (the appeal) that we chose to follow the rules.

Another example, you chose to follow different Journey rules from those in the LMM. You explained your view that the consequences of following the different rules were appealing in some ways. The LMM rules had no power to force themselves upon you, other than that you granted them (and in this case, you did not grant them that power).

This arrangement of words tells me that we're talking at cross-purposes and we need to resolve that (because it feels disconnected to both what I wrote above that you responded to and any/all of my other posts in this thread).

This sentence entails a premise that I don't agree with (and I addressed that above); "can accept constraints." Again, this assumes that system constraints are fundamentally "opt-in"...that the nature of what makes rules binding is never inherent to the system. Its always "opt-in" and its only the "opt-in" that is relevant (and not the characteristics of the system/rules that interact with the human operating system).

Yes, constraints are fundamentally opt-in. The characteristics are relevant because it is in view of them that we may choose to opt-in. There can be other reasons, too. For example, a player with no understanding of the rules may opt-in to them because they want to enjoy their friends' company. And may continue to follow them in order to avoid being seen as a spoilsport.

And I've never said (nor would I ever) that a 5e GM cannot accept constraints. So I don't need to rebut that.

In that case, it's possibly not at all clear to me what we're arguing

5e has a particular orientation toward GM authority/role and intrinsic, quite zoomed-out guidance and principles for the GM:

• help the players have a good time
• have fun yourself
• be consistent in your rulings and convey consistency with your world, npcs, plots, adventures
• the rules aren't in charge of the fun, you are with your inventing, adventure/story writing, storytelling, improvising, acting, and refereeing
• invent compelling plots and make the world and adventure flow around the adventurers so they feel they're part of a fantastic story and world
• invest prep time outside of the game to exercise your creativity to invent compelling plots, create new NPCs, craft encounters, and think of clever ways to foreshadow story events yet to come.
• know the rules so you make good rulings
• know your players so you can choose a style of play and a flavor of fantasy that keeps them interested, immersed in the world you've created, tailoring adventures to their preferences as much as possible so they can do awesome things

Now, in terms of winnowing a GMs decision-space, that + the action resolution mechanics/procedures still leaves a relatively huge (again, contrast with Torchbearer) subset of possible decisions for a GM to choose from. This + the GM's role in action resolution is fundamentally why 5e is an enormously GM-directed game. And if you look at the constituent parts and the accretion of all of the above, it should be plain to see that 5e is fundamentally a GM-directed, High Concept Simulation game that features tailored Power Fantasy. It is intentfully designed with that in mind and it achieved that goal.

If a GM wants to smuggle in and try to synthesize extra-5e (constraining and informing) principles and widgets...have at it. They can absolutely research them, generate them...accept them.

So what GMing any RPG, from minimalist to Torchbearer2, is like from me is

system-directed, system-constrained, rule-and-principles-and-best-practice-observing, conscientious GMing. I reflect intensely on play afterward; particularly where I feel like I was lacking.

That includes 5e. There is no smuggling in. Rather I think sensitivity to what the system offers and adherence to principles. Looking for the best in a system - taking advantage of its strengths.

That is a lot of words. Hopefully we're on the same page now and/or hopefully you'll correct me if I've got you wrong on anything in the (1) - (4) at the top (I don't believe that I do...and if I do then we have a more fundamental communication breakdown that we'll need to resolve because I'm not sure what other conclusions I could draw based on what you've said in this thread).

What I thought we were debating is whether GM-fiat necessarily applies in 5e. You and others seemed to be saying that due to Rule 0 or for other reasons, it does necessarily apply. That's not my experience.

Frex, I use Rule 0 in play to make rulings in case of lacunae. I note such rulings and after play the group agrees whether (or not) that will be our houserule for the rest of the campaign. I use Rule 0 out of play to author or revise rules in ways that can better serve the group, and such rules become constraints from there. I never use Rule 0 to arbitrarily disapply constraints consistent with "system-directed, system-constrained, rule-and-principles-and-best-practice-observing, conscientious GMing".

 

[clearstream]

@Manbearcat Perhaps it goes like this

1. There can be a set of principles according to which GM-decisions are what I will call "constrained"
2. That set of principles can be written into an RPG system, so that a GM who accepts/enacts the whole system, accepts/enacts those principles
3. In case of 2., I will call the system "opinionated"
4. The rules of an opinionated system are formed in expectation they will be enacted in accord with its principles, notwithstanding that it is possible to enact them in discord with its principles

For an opinionated system, the matter of what principles apply to it - how it ought be played - is settled in the system. The constraints can be known by grasping the system, and upheld by upholding the system (when correctly grasped.)

A paradigmatically alternative system is like this

1. There can be sets of principles held by GMs, according to which the decisions of some are constrained and others not constrained
2. The system is vague on which principles are to be enacted/accepted in its regard
3. In case of 2., I will call the system "vague"
4. The rules of a vague system are formed in expectation that they may be enacted according to diverse sets of principles, so that one must suspend judgement as to what would count as acting in accord or discord

For a vague system, the matter of what principles apply to it - how it ought be played - is settled in the GM. The constraints can't be known by grasping the system, they are known only in the way that the system is upheld (as grasped by each GM.)

Lots of complicated thoughts, but perhaps this can help us see better where we are in agreement? In the case of a vague system, the presence or absence of constraints can't be settled by reference to that system. That prevents me simply agreeing with you when you point to 5e and say there are no constraints. It's the wrong target for that accusation: the question of constraints isn't settled in the system.

For vague systems, we must ask each GM how they will make their decisions, and can only then judge on the matter of constraints. Where this will jar is folk will want to make normative claims. So it's important to be clear that my claim isn't a normative one. I can say that many or even most GMs normally hold some set of principles rather than some other set, without affecting my claim here. A reflex to translate my claim into a normative one could well cause difficulty in following it.

 

[Manbearcat]

That's very true. There are many decisions that must be made in play. My doubt is around a supposition that those countless decisions don't arise in RPGs generally. Choice of twist or condition in TB2, or rulings as to Good Ideas. It seems to be turtles all the way down.

@Manbearcat Perhaps it goes like this

1. There can be a set of principles according to which GM-decisions are what I will call "constrained"
2. That set of principles can be written into an RPG system, so that a GM who accepts/enacts the whole system, accepts/enacts those principles
3. In case of 2., I will call the system "opinionated"
4. The rules of an opinionated system are formed in expectation they will be enacted in accord with its principles, notwithstanding that it is possible to enact them in discord with its principles

For an opinionated system, the matter of what principles apply to it - how it ought be played - is settled in the system. The constraints can be known by grasping the system, and upheld by upholding the system (when correctly grasped.)

A paradigmatically alternative system is like this

1. There can be sets of principles held by GMs, according to which the decisions of some are constrained and others not constrained
2. The system is vague on which principles are to be enacted/accepted in its regard
3. In case of 2., I will call the system "vague"
4. The rules of a vague system are formed in expectation that they may be enacted according to diverse sets of principles, so that one must suspend judgement as to what would count as acting in accord or discord

For a vague system, the matter of what principles apply to it - how it ought be played - is settled in the GM. The constraints can't be known by grasping the system, they are known only in the way that the system is upheld (as grasped by each GM.)

Lots of complicated thoughts, but perhaps this can help us see better where we are in agreement? In the case of a vague system, the presence or absence of constraints can't be settled by reference to that system. That prevents me simply agreeing with you when you point to 5e and say there are no constraints. It's the wrong target for that accusation: the question of constraints isn't settled in the system.

For vague systems, we must ask each GM how they will make their decisions, and can only then judge on the matter of constraints. Where this will jar is folk will want to make normative claims. So it's important to be clear that my claim isn't a normative one. I can say that many or even most GMs normally hold some set of principles rather than some other set, without affecting my claim here. A reflex to translate my claim into a normative one might (but also might not) cause difficulty in following it.

Ok so, by my 7:35 AM insomnia-ridden cognitive horsepower (which is low, granted), this post you've constructed is IMMINENTLY more clear and relatable than your prior response to me (where it seems the ball didn't get moved down the field at all and, perhaps, backwards).

So very good post first; /cheers.

Few quick thoughts that you can respond to at your descretion:

1) I'm sure you're trying to stay away from "principled" system with "opinionated" above. Fair enough, but I don't think opinionated does the work needed. But we can quibble over that. We could sub "potato" for "opinionated" and "taco" for "vague" and it wouldn't matter to me. I feel I have a general understanding of this post I've quoted so I'll leave it there.

2) I like your construct above ("like" here meaning "I think it carries within and transmits information that is mostly true"). What I'll say on the "opinionated" column is that I think there are a few missing features. I would say they are:

• deeply encoded
• procedurally strict
• transparent and table-facing
• authority distributed (by contrast)

Now you take the inverse for "vague":

• lightly encoded
• procedurally malleable
• hazy and GM-facing
• authority concentrated

3) So let me make clear that I am not of the opinion that the 5e GM is not constrained. Its just that the constraint is (a) located in very different places than other games (more intensively systemitized games or your "opinionated" group), (b) the constraint (by intention) does quite different work, and (c) all of the features (see my 4 above) create a very divergent cognitive workspace for both GMs running those games and players playing those games (eg when GMing 5e, the "initial constellation" of my decision-space is vastly larger than the same "initial constellation" when GMing Dogs in the Vineyard and it brings in a lot of different subsets of "moves" that are immediately winnowed in my Dogs in the Vineyard GMing decision-space before I even start the "winnowing process").

So, to that end, here are ways that a 5e GM is principally constrained (by best practices for the game) that are not in play when GMing Dogs in the Vineyard:

• be consistent in your rulings (Dogs has pretty much no rulings)
• the rules aren't in charge of the fun, you are with your inventing, adventure/story writing, storytelling, improvising, acting, and refereeing (in Dogs, the rules are in charge of the fun...and there is no adventure/story writing, no storytelling, and I'm in no way obliged toward performative theatrical rendering of NPCs)
• invent compelling plots and make the world and adventure flow around the adventurers so they feel they're part of a fantastic story and world (in Dogs there is no plot + sub "conflict" for world and adventure + it doesn't flow around the adventurers and they aren't "part of a fantastic story"...there is no story and the Dogs are the actual nexus of play...you create a Town based on them, not the inverse)
• invest prep time outside of the game to exercise your creativity to invent compelling plots, create new NPCs, craft encounters, and think of clever ways to foreshadow story events yet to come. (while Dogs will have some prep, its vastly more simplified, you're not foreshadowing story events to come because there are no "story events to come", you're not inventing compelling plots because there is no plot...however, like 5e, you are creating NPCs and conflicts - which is similar, though not the same, to "craft encounters")
• know your players so you can choose a style of play and a flavor of fantasy that keeps them interested, immersed in the world you've created, tailoring adventures to their preferences as much as possible so they can do awesome things (in Dogs you're running the game itself...its not tailored to preferences or personality archetypes or a menu of flavors of fantasy, and you're not creating "a world.")

So there are 5 ways that a 5e GM are principally constrained where a Dogs in the Vineyard GM is fundamentally not constrained. And there are multiple reasons for that, much of it is the reality that these games are DNA-deep different beasts (which goes back to the 4 diverging features above and several other things discussed in this thread).

So there are a lot of "do's" that the 5e GM is responsible for that aren't a part of Dogs GMing. If you don't do these things as a 5e GM, you're falling short of the apex expectations for GMing the game. Not so in Dogs because not only are they not "do's", those 5e "do's" are often "do NOT" or, like in the case of performative theatrics/acting, its completely offloaded from system (at your discretion or at the request of the other participants + if you feel so obliged).