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

[Thomas Shey]

That's helpful.

If I might risk elaborating. What is being implied is that Character 'skills' are always defined in relation to something and that the something need not be the fictional world. That's a very interesting claim.

So in D&D a characters 'skills' are defined in relation to in the fictional world. Because of this relationship, skill checks carry fictional meaning - they represent a characters ability tested against an obstacle within that fictional world.

In PbtA a characters 'skills' are defined in relation to the 'Story'. Because of this relationship these skill checks carry a 'Story' meaning - they represent the player's direction for a successful dramatic moment tested against the difficulty of the conflict.

Does this sound correct to you. If so I think a solid groundwork for me to continue discussion from.

It sounds basically correct to me, but do keep in mind that while I'm somewhat dramatist in my lean (at least to the point that having some tools that can put your thumb on the scale in terms of directing a game in the direction of a more satisfying story) its not my primary focus, and I'm very much not a Story Now person in the sense GNS Nar types are, so I could be unintentionally misrepresenting them.

 

[soviet]

It sounds basically correct to me, but do keep in mind that while I'm somewhat dramatist in my lean (at least to the point that having some tools that can put your thumb on the scale in terms of directing a game in the direction of a more satisfying story) its not my primary focus, and I'm very much not a Story Now person in the sense GNS Nar types are, so I could be unintentionally misrepresenting them.

Seems right to me.

I would say, think about where a character's stats and abilities are. What are they written down on?

In a simulationist game we might imagine they are written on a bio card that could exist in the gameworld. The character is this tall, that strong, trained in X.

In a gamist game we might imagine they are written on a stat card inside the game box or inside the game's code. The character has a +5 stealth bonus, an AC of 3, and the Expertise feat.

In a narrativist game we might imagine they are written on a board in the writers' room. This season the character Seeks Revenge, Has a Secret, and is Learning How to Be a Better Husband.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

In the Traveller scenario as you envision it, who decided there was a safe? Why does the dirt matter?


One superficial answer is that in 5e an Investigation check will confirm that.


But a less superficial answer is perhaps the following.

It might be these concerns come out of the way we talk about these game moments. We zoom in on one event, which pushes toward an all or nothing interpretation of that event. It leads to questions like the one you asked where the whole thing could be felt to turn on one decision. So it's important to clear up that it doesn't turn on one decision, because each is constrained and formed in light of what comes before it.

Going back to the concept of fictional positioning, we're in a negotiation where at some point everyone at the table nods and agrees that the accountant knows the location of the dirt. If someone says otherwise at this point, either they're about to introduce something everyone will nod and agree to (something everyone else forgot until now, or a breath-taking revelation of a new gestalt), or they're reaching (errant play or a spoilsport).

It's akin to a chain of open-ended skill challenges. At various nexuses the group has "agreed" resolution of a conflict hinges on the consequences of the course of resolutions up to there (a chain of moves in the fiction, checks and other game events.) Depending on the group's interest in pretend violence, every so many conflicts will step into combat for their resolution. The way we have spoken about the safe makes it sound like the last resolution in one such chain (likely we will play out the actual revelation of the dirt, and commence new chains - there can be multiple chains at any one time.)

The accountant knowing the location of the dirt emerges out multiple moves and events, and participants at the table have fluctuating levels of authority over each one. In that way, the accountant knowing the location of the dirt is a group determination. It wasn't reached in one jump - we're only here, running social interaction with this accountant, with this attitude in play, because of what multiple participants said up to now. It might have been that in this case the accountant entered the world as something a player imagined.

Frex, two sessions back, before the location of the dirt was at issue. Bob - "The kingpin has an accountant right?" and everyone nodded and so now we know there is an accountant. What Bob said was not just plausible, it was the right question to ask just then and followed from our situation and descriptions to that point. Everything we knew about the kingpin made it right to say "yes" they have an accountant.

What might the accountant know? Seems like one decision. It's not one decision.


Perhaps let's leave this here for now? It may be nothing turns on it. If it does, I'd need to see more of the text before I could agree (what you have quoted does not lead me to your interpretation.) And then even if we settled that, we'd still have a debate about what Social Interaction + Insight + Investigation permits players to do in 5e.

Possibly it's more fruiful to think about the chains of events that together can lead to group decisions (decisions that can't be attributed to one member of the group alone.)

I think that my general response to the 'chain of decisions' argument is that there's still one proximate decision which established that fact. I don't think it does us much good to talk about a whole series of decisions (establishments of facts within the fiction) as being determinative, because that is subject to infinite expansion to the point where everything we have ever determined about the fiction since session 0 has some significance. It is like the the Buddhist view of causality, it may be very true in some sense, but it is not valuable to us in terms of explicating the play at any one moment at the table, and is in another sense false. I mean, our legal system clearly operates on a similar basis, mothers are not held to be culpable because they gave birth to murderers, for example.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I have doubts about what you go on to say past this point, but I wanted to highlight your thought here. And that can be reoriented to form a parallel statement about how players pick which outcomes we will be resolving.

Yeah, well, it isn't one of the major points of discussion in this thread really, but my point comes close to saying 'setting doesn't matter'. That is, any sort of story can manufactured out of appeals to 'setting logic', hidden backstory, etc. at any given point in the play of an RPG. The idea that only certain things follow, that fiction itself is in any way binding to those with authority over it, doesn't fly. I think the fiction SIGNALS things from those in authority over it, and the "adhere to criteria which espouse..." in my previous comment is meant to convey that there are, presumably, criteria which are important to other participants which a GM in such a position would likely factor into their description of what happens next. Fiction by itself is just a very weak kind of constraint.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I like this distinction. What for me is missing is that the checks can (and perhaps always must) carry an intentional meaning: why are we here, making this check?

Right, intent is independent of the name of the move. 'Go Aggro' could happen for an infinity of different reasons, and with an equally vast array of character motives. Honestly, is there a game where things actually work differently at this level? Even in BW the player picks an action that is tied to SOMETHING representational within the game. Thurgon wants to see if the tower contains any spellbooks which his ally Aramina can use (maybe because he wants to improve his relationship with her, I don't know but it involved one of his beliefs I'm sure). Pemerton says "Thurgon searches the tower." Obviously searching a tower engages some sort of perception ability or something (Scavenging skill perhaps).

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

One could see the former as a lightly-held point of departure. Perhaps the PCs will do as asked, maybe not. The latter seems like a place play could reach over time.


I don't think it advances our conversation to restate these arguments. I'll respond that the referee can alter or ignore all that; and that the referee can decide that the DM for the dirt is one the players can't achieve (for example, referee decides that the dirt is so highly confidentialy that it is known only to the kingpin.)


If streetwise can do the job, why bother with the safe?


That reinforces my point. I can find interpretations of a game text that suit (or arise from) my prior determination that nothing in 5e can be read in a way that supports principled, constrained DMing. That shows how interpretations generally come after principles, not before.

Counter example: Player - "The dirt is a hidden object. I want to deduce it's location."

Possibly in an SN game system, focusing on one game event is enough, because that roll alone can be enough to resolve a conflict (i.e. conflict-resolution.) That isn't the approach I am discussing. What I am discussing is more like a skill challenge. That said, I don't think SN game systems are intended to hinge the conflict-resolution on the one roll alone, either. Play is expected in both cases to reach the point that the conflict possibly could be resolved by what happens next.

It would be a crap GM who in any SN game who would simply hand the PC the object of their ultimate aim on a silver platter for the cost of risking one move. Also, remember, the whole point is really to confront what the character IS, or some other premise potentially, not to just run around giving out good and bad outcomes for checks. This is why the GM frames scenes instead of the players! They can't generate tension, and IT IS THE PLAY WE ARE AFTER, not the results of the play. This is identical to its Gygaxian parallel, the GM doesn't make one room dungeons with a pile of treasure and one tough monster and call it a day.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

What I find is that the names of such ‘skills’ evoke a rather task/sim oriented approach. My character is ‘hot’ in the fictional world, therefore He is good at seduction. But the skill checks aren’t resolving whether the PC was seductive enough, they are resolving whether the PC achieved some goal (resolved some conflict) that most likely doesn’t fictionally depend on how ‘hot’ they are - or at best their ‘hotness’ is a very minor dependency.

I think my analysis is spot on as it brings to light details I find important. It’s possible it’s only over analysis to you because you don’t value the differentiations it brings out.

But clearly if the character seduces an NPC in order to find out some kind of information, it is said character's 'hotness' which enables the seduction and thus leads to the information, right? I mean, how else would it work? So, yes, a check is made, was I a good enough seducer to get what I wanted. There may have been some secondary plot point in there, I had to get the pillow talk to go a certain way, or I had to get the mark comfortable enough to leave me alone in the room for a moment, etc. If all that is really interesting enough it CAN be played out, potentially with additional checks required against the appropriate attributes. I'd just say that one of the arts of playing SN is knowing when to zoom in or out. If the whole 'seduce and get information' is a minor part of a much larger story, then lets just toss the dice once and go on. If it is the hing moment of the whole plot, then sure, zoom on in, savor it, build up the tension. Neither is wrong, the game is going to go on, presumably, and more stuff is going to come up either way. I'm pretty sure most of the people in this thread now were around back a few years when you and I (IIRC) had exactly this discussion WRT some dwarves and a cave, and how traversing the cave to get to the interesting part could be a single toss of the dice.

 

[FrogReaver]

But clearly if the character seduces an NPC in order to find out some kind of information, it is said character's 'hotness' which enables the seduction and thus leads to the information, right? I mean, how else would it work? So, yes, a check is made, was I a good enough seducer to get what I wanted. There may have been some secondary plot point in there, I had to get the pillow talk to go a certain way, or I had to get the mark comfortable enough to leave me alone in the room for a moment, etc. If all that is really interesting enough it CAN be played out, potentially with additional checks required against the appropriate attributes. I'd just say that one of the arts of playing SN is knowing when to zoom in or out. If the whole 'seduce and get information' is a minor part of a much larger story, then lets just toss the dice once and go on. If it is the hing moment of the whole plot, then sure, zoom on in, savor it, build up the tension. Neither is wrong, the game is going to go on, presumably, and more stuff is going to come up either way. I'm pretty sure most of the people in this thread now were around back a few years when you and I (IIRC) had exactly this discussion WRT some dwarves and a cave, and how traversing the cave to get to the interesting part could be a single toss of the dice.

I think it’s just because you’ve not peeled back the assumptions in your example.

What’s determined the NPC has the information in the first place? Isn’t your ‘hot’ skill what’s doing the work there? And if so isn’t whether the NPC has the information unrelated to your hot skill and the most important aspect and Yet the hot skill check resolves that as well.

Or take a slightly different example. Say it was established the NPC had the info. At that point it becomes process/sim because your characters fictional ability to seduce is fictionally and substantially related to why you were able to get the info.

This seems to be why I stay so confused in these discussions, because I’ve always easily picked up on sim elements but while conflict resolution play can sometimes momentarily become task/sim play it doesn’t have to be.

 

[clearstream]

What I find is that the names of such ‘skills’ evoke a rather task/sim oriented approach. My character is ‘hot’ in the fictional world, therefore He is good at seduction. But the skill checks aren’t resolving whether the PC was seductive enough, they are resolving whether the PC achieved some goal (resolved some conflict) that most likely doesn’t fictionally depend on how ‘hot’ they are - or at best their ‘hotness’ is a very minor dependency.

As I believe @Manbearcat alluded to up-thread, there's a mapping from character to situation that technically skillful play and/or sensitive-to-fiction play would be managing. My character with +3 weird is more likely to get their choice of outcome in situations where weird matters. As a player, I'm therefore likely to be nudging the fiction toward weird mattering. Of course, one might also be choosing to bedevil oneself and get into situation where a weakness matters.

Anyway, the situation they're in probably relates to how Weird they are, and what comes next will be informed by how Weird they are. So there is fictional dependence there. Most of all, the resolution of the situation depends on player choices rather than facts about an imagined scene. Which is a dichotomy I think you described further above.

 

[Manbearcat]

As I believe @Manbearcat alluded to up-thread, there's a mapping from character to situation that technically skillful play and/or sensitive-to-fiction play would be managing. My character with +3 weird is more likely to get their choice of outcome in situations where weird matters. As a player, I'm therefore likely to be nudging the fiction toward weird mattering. Of course, one might also be choosing to bedevil oneself and get into situation where a weakness matters.

Anyway, the situation they're in probably relates to how Weird they are, and what comes next will be informed by how Weird they are. So there is fictional dependence there. Most of all, the resolution of the situation depends on player choices rather than facts about an imagined scene. Which is a dichotomy I think you described further above.

That’s a pretty good encapsulation. The “hotness signal of any given moment and the through line of overall play will be significant (with you having a toggle to amp it up or turn it down).”

It might look like this if you mapped it out:

* Player build = Hotness

* Scene-framing = Hotness dependence

* Player decision-space = Hotness lens

* Player move = Acting on Hotness or not

* Move result = If Acting on Hotness, apt to achieve “Hotness-related gamestate and fiction change with or without strings attached (which you would then resolve via Hotness or not).”

---

It’s about the play, the action, the inputs and outputs. Looking at your sheet may or may not “bring the Hotness alive” to you (particularly if your orientation to the way the game encodes “Hotness” when written on a sheet is askew for one reason or another…kind of like how some people couldn’t grasp the thematic and tactical potency of a 4e Fighter utterly dominating the melee based on their integrated Defender suite sitting on a character sheet…but the play sure as hell bore it out!). But the play sure as hell will bear it out!