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

[Ovinomancer]

I wonder what’s the bongcloud opening equivalent in the door protocol?

Woot! Obscure chess opening reference!

Um, probably one that starts with, "I lick the door handle," and goes from there.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Yeah. For something like the OSR approach to work, the GM really needs to play their role as a referee with integrity. If you start second-guessing how mechanics should work (e.g., for “realism” reasons), and the players start having to “play the GM”, then play stops being gamist and starts taking on other priorities.

Even with an honest-ref you still can run into the case of the GM having significantly different ideas of what is a good idea versus a bad one unless people are very much on the same page and/or the GM is willing to tolerate enough back and forth communication to address the problem (and if you think I'm cynical about that with a light rules game, which often goes in combination with people who have very limited tolerance for anything that slows the game down).

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I wonder what’s the bongcloud opening equivalent in the door protocol?

Uh, walk up to it and try the handle? lol. I'd expect that will get your 1st level PC killed at least half the time...

 

[Ovinomancer]

Uh, walk up to it and try the handle? lol. I'd expect that will get your 1st level PC killed at least half the time...

Naw, that's at least reasonable. It has to be completely stupid to work. Of course, if you lick the handle and manage to still win through with no harms all the time, you can take the title Grandmaster for your adventurer without meeting any normal requirements.

 

[Thomas Shey]

I guess the counterpoint to that is this is sort of true even of a game like chess, where after a while you kind of reach a balance of skill in terms of making chess moves, and a lot of the play devolves down to 'psychological warfare'. I mean, you can find many famous instances of this in high level play!

Yes, but that's kind of the point with chess or most other board games; I don't think it should be with an RPG.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Naw, that's at least reasonable. It has to be completely stupid to work. Of course, if you lick the handle and manage to still win through with no harms all the time, you can take the title Grandmaster for your adventurer without meeting any normal requirements.

What sort of wimpy DMs did you grow up with? Just walking down a hall without checking for traps is near suicide in my childhood. When we read ToH we were like "This is hard?"

Yes, but that's kind of the point with chess or most other board games; I don't think it should be with an RPG.

Its just inevitable. No GM can possibly determine ahead of time the outcomes of even the 10 most likely actions of the PCs at any given relevant point in play. So its all judgment, and the players are essentially bound to judge by what they know of the GM's traits as much as anything else. If I want to survive one of Mike's dungeons, I think "Oh, a low hallway, what would Mike do to kill the PCs in this low hallway. OK, I got it!" Factors might include considerations like "he probably won't do the same thing as in the LAST low hallway, except maybe he's trying to outsmart us, better check for signs of rising water..."

 

[Thomas Shey]

Its just inevitable. No GM can possibly determine ahead of time the outcomes of even the 10 most likely actions of the PCs at any given relevant point in play. So its all judgment, and the players are essentially bound to judge by what they know of the GM's traits as much as anything else. If I want to survive one of Mike's dungeons, I think "Oh, a low hallway, what would Mike do to kill the PCs in this low hallway. OK, I got it!" Factors might include considerations like "he probably won't do the same thing as in the LAST low hallway, except maybe he's trying to outsmart us, better check for signs of rising water..."

I'll just say what I do with a lot of other things like this: degree matters. Maximizing the degree to which that's what you're doing is not a virtue from where I sit.

 

[kenada]

Even with an honest-ref you still can run into the case of the GM having significantly different ideas of what is a good idea versus a bad one unless people are very much on the same page and/or the GM is willing to tolerate enough back and forth communication to address the problem (and if you think I'm cynical about that with a light rules game, which often goes in combination with people who have very limited tolerance for anything that slows the game down).

This is where I’ve diverged in my homebrew system from typical OSR approaches. I don’t want to risk undermining my agenda because of “rulings not rules”. I actually want, e.g., a functional skill system. (And thanks to @pemerton’s handy links and discussion of setting-centric Story Now, I have some ideas for how I can take things more in that direction.)

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I'll just say what I do with a lot of other things like this: degree matters. Maximizing the degree to which that's what you're doing is not a virtue from where I sit.

Frankly I'm not passing judgment either way on it. I'm not sure though, in the true classic D&D paradigm, that you can really AVOID that sort of play, except by essentially accepting the handicap that not doing it would represent. I expect this is a great deal of the reason behind vociferous demands that games not "take you out of character" because that acknowledges just how much OOC reasoning is behind this entire mode of play. I mean, it is generally thought of as 'pawn stance' for a reason. I think what happens is people hanker for something a bit deeper, and they then try to construct a principle of playing in character. That then conflicts with the skilled play agenda and various things happen. One of them is you get something like 2e, where the GM is tasked with becoming a story teller instead of/additionally to being a referee. Then that doesn't really exactly work either, but you can settle for a mix of setting/story tourism plus mild characterization, which lets you play in character and mostly defuses the more gamist conundrums. 5e is pretty much exactly that game, and its rather finely tuned for that, really.

Which I guess brings us all the way full circle to the original post, no, 5e is not gamist, has very little real gamist DNA in it, and won't do that super well, though it is certainly POSSIBLE to achieve some challenging scenarios, for sure. It isn't likely to be very feasible to put the PCs into a 'pressure cooker' though, as the resource management model and other things are more geared towards thematic/story kind of work vs really managing a tight resource challenge. So challenging scenario MOSTLY is going to be relegated to specific encounters themselves, though you can certainly extend that if you can basically outline how the 'day' will go beforehand (IE if the GM can basically telegraph that there will be three significant encounters, then everyone will plan for that).

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

This is where I’ve diverged in my homebrew system from typical OSR approaches. I don’t want to risk undermining my agenda because of “rulings not rules”. I actually want, e.g., a functional skill system. (And thanks to @pemerton’s handy links and discussion of setting-centric Story Now, I have some ideas for how I can take things more in that direction.)

So, surely the same sorts of 'judgment factors' come in when doing something like setting a DC, unless your 'skill' system is really modeling whether or not the character achieves their intent, and then PbtA-like you can kind of just say "well, its a coin toss" because you're really mostly just modeling the STORY and not the action itself (though PbtA doesn't quite put it in those terms and some moves are more 'task like' than others).