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

[AbdulAlhazred]

I think that's one of Story Now's biggest appeals.

That said, actual stories don't just go straight from one high tension moment to the next. If a film or book did that I think it would cheapen the experience. It would cheapen those high-tension moments.

I do find D&D play can tend to meander and never really reach those high-tension moments very often. But I wonder if Story Now perhaps races to them too quickly. At least for me.

A personal goal of mine would be to find ways to hasten D&D play toward those high-tension moments, which probably requires some better scene transition techniques. It's also going to require the creation of some scenes that really test character/player goals (which is hard because many players only play D&D to be a badass, a hero that saves people or a hero that ends villains with little more that they care about). But even those types of players can be tested. You can stop the bad guy or save the innocent. You can stop the bad guy but only after going through the innocent. Do you charge into battle against a creature you don't expect you can defeat. Etc.

I think I may have found some ways to improve my D&D game!

Yeah, you can also test some OTHER premise than something that is within the PC's character. So, for instance you could have a premise like "the life of a hero really sucks" or whatever. Does it? Is this guy going to be exception that proves the rule? What sort of play arises out of this? Its like the premise in Pendragon has a pretty significant center on the whole ideal of knightly virtue and whatnot.

 

[pemerton]

Hot isn't measuring your characters seductiveness in the fictional world because being seductive in the fictional world requires consideration for the particular NPC's resistance to seduction and that's no where accounted for in the resolution mechanics. You have the same chance of seducing a priest as you do a guy in the strip club.

What is the priest going to want you to promise? It mightn't be so easy.

Does it matter if I've played or read it?

I think it is relevant to conjecturing about how the game works, yes. As I already posted, I think that you are looking for differences in the wrong place - PC build and authority - rather than where it is actually located, which is in the rules and principles that govern what the GM says.

Am I correct that the resolution of the Hot roll determines that said NPC all along had the information you wanted? If so then in Frogreaver jargon that means 'the seduce skill established the NPC had the information.

You are not correct. The player has no authority over what a NPC believes or knows. The GM is at liberty to ask the player - a type of delegation of their authority to the player - but is not obliged to do that.

I posted the move - on a hit (ie 7+), the NPC does what you ask them to do - and I posted the relevant rule about authority distribution - "Your job as MC is to say everything else: everything about the world, and what everyone in the whole damned world says and does".

If the player has their PC read a NPC, then as I posted upthread, the player can ask questions that the GM must answer truthfully. It is the GM who is answering the questions, though. (Unless they delegate to the player.)

If a player move can result in the GM being obligated to use their content authority in a particular way then that's exactly the kind of detail I care about. It may not seem important to you, but it's immensely important to me.

All RPGs have this. If I ask the D&D GM "What's in the room", they have to answer, and they have to answer with room-ish things.

Upthread @clearstream posted 5e social resolution rules, which permit players, via their PCs, to successfully influence, ask questions, etc of a NPC. That requires the GM to exercise their authority over content in particular ways.

This is why I am saying that you are looking for the difference in the wrong place. If you read on, you'll come to the punchline soon.

Here you describe the DM being obligated to have the dirt be there based on a successful player move. That's exactly one kind of content authority that is important to me to know about.

But I'm not. The player didn't make a move. They just looked in the safe. That's not a move.

What does the work that you are objecting to is the rules that govern whether the GM makes a soft move or a hard move. Unless the player misses a roll (6-) or offers an opportunity on a plate (see my example upthread of jumping the gorge on a bike after the GM's already described it as a wide gorge), the GM can only make a soft move. So the safe is empty, which would be a hard move, is off the table.

Conversely, in D&D the GM is at liberty to make hard moves whenever the pre-established fiction permits them too (eg their notes say that there is no dirt in the safe). This is why I say you are looking in the wrong place. We could add in the custom moves I flagged upthread, that are presented as an option by Vincent Baker in the rulebook and that permit adjusting the target numbers based on difficulty, and that would not make the game any more simulationist. And would not go one iota towards changing what it is that is important to you.

What is making the game different from what you want is not the PC build and not the authority structure and not even the player moves, but the rules about what moves the GM is allowed to make.

 

[Manbearcat]

Yea, I think I could get my group to try blades in the dark, but i don't think any of us could DM it having never played a game of it.

I’m running a lot of games, but I’d be interested in helping you out here.

Do you guys have a Discord server?

Pick 2 other gaming pals (only in the rarest of occasions will I GM for even 4 people anymore…3 is typically the sweet spot) > invite me to Discord (or set one up of you don’t have one) > and I’ll gladly run a short game of Blades for you guys.

At the least I think you’ll have more “fun”/a better reference point for some of these conversations. Worst case scenario is you get a better understanding on why you feel you don’t like these games. Best case scenario is that you realize you like these games (and can discuss that)!

 

[Thomas Shey]

Not really, it could be some undead that happens to have a lair nearby, who knows?

A level 10 undead--given all those are predatory and most are recruiting--would have a pretty malign and visible effect on a town. So I don't think that gets a pass.

There's a 100 reasons why something doesn't attack a town.

And virtually every one I can think of wouldn't be a problem for a group of random adventurers, either, unless they chose to attack it for some reason even though it was clearly no danger.

I'm just saying, that never happens.

I'd say that's because it virtually never should happen. Frankly you seem to really, really be reaching here to make your point. While this may end up serving a game agenda too, even anyone ignoring the game agenda would do the same thing.

 

[FrogReaver]

I’m running a lot of games, but I’d be interested in helping you out here.

Do you guys have a Discord server?

Pick 2 other gaming pals (only in the rarest of occasions will I GM for even 4 people anymore…3 is typically the sweet spot) > invite me to Discord (or set one up of you don’t have one) > and I’ll gladly run a short game of Blades for you guys.

At the least I think you’ll have more “fun”/a better reference point for some of these conversations. Worst case scenario is you get a better understanding on why you feel you don’t like these games. Best case scenario is that you realize you like these games (and can discuss that)!

I appreciate that. I’m interested but I leave for vacation Monday so it may be a little while. I’ll see what I can get arranged after I’m back.

 

[FrogReaver]

What is the priest going to want you to promise? It mightn't be so easy.

Sure. But even though the move with the priest may be more costly due to what you are required to promise, your chance for success is still the same. The % chance of success being the same for all NPC's shows that your success for this move doesn't depend on the fictional world. That's a very strong critique of 1 thing lacking in your theory - it doesn't differentiate between skills/moves whose success rate depends on the particular NPC in the game your PC interacts with vs those that it does not.

I think it is relevant to conjecturing about how the game works, yes. As I already posted, I think that you are looking for differences in the wrong place - PC build and authority - rather than where it is actually located, which is in the rules and principles that govern what the GM says.

IMO it only matters if you desire to either gatekeep or use that to privilege your opinions. I maintain that your and other people more familiar with AW are my window into it. I can only respond to what I'm told about it. If my understanding off it's because those explaining the game to me left out important details, contradicted one another, etc.

You are not correct. The player has no authority over what a NPC believes or knows. The GM is at liberty to ask the player - a type of delegation of their authority to the player - but is not obliged to do that.

Okay. I could have swore the other poster said/implied they did when they first brought up the 'Hot' example

I posted the move - on a hit (ie 7+), the NPC does what you ask them to do - and I posted the relevant rule about authority distribution - "Your job as MC is to say everything else: everything about the world, and what everyone in the whole damned world says and does".

If the player has their PC read a NPC, then as I posted upthread, the player can ask questions that the GM must answer truthfully. It is the GM who is answering the questions, though. (Unless they delegate to the player.)

If I recall the original scenario presented was using hot to get the location of the info.

All RPGs have this. If I ask the D&D GM "What's in the room", they have to answer, and they have to answer with room-ish things.

Upthread @clearstream posted 5e social resolution rules, which permit players, via their PCs, to successfully influence, ask questions, etc of a NPC. That requires the GM to exercise their authority over content in particular ways.

Kind of, but not really in the sense I'm trying to talk about. I realize my words aren't the best as I'm just now putting this into words the first time.

This is why I am saying that you are looking for the difference in the wrong place. If you read on, you'll come to the punchline soon.

But I'm not. The player didn't make a move. They just looked in the safe. That's not a move.

What does the work that you are objecting to is the rules that govern whether the GM makes a soft move or a hard move. Unless the player misses a roll (6-) or offers an opportunity on a plate (see my example upthread of jumping the gorge on a bike after the GM's already described it as a wide gorge), the GM can only make a soft move. So the safe is empty, which would be a hard move, is off the table.

My understanding is that the player rolls and depending on the roll the DM is able to make a soft move or a hard move. If the result of the roll only allows for a soft move and that doesn't allow the GM to pick 'the safe is empty' or some variation of that then that's a part of content authority I really care about.

I'm not just interested in who generates new fiction and any mechanics behind that process but also in who can place restrictions on that fiction and any mechanics behind that process. Your theory doesn't seem to care about the distribution of content authority restrictions (if any).

Conversely, in D&D the GM is at liberty to make hard moves whenever the pre-established fiction permits them too (eg their notes say that there is no dirt in the safe). This is why I say you are looking in the wrong place. We could add in the custom moves I flagged upthread, that are presented as an option by Vincent Baker in the rulebook and that permit adjusting the target numbers based on difficulty, and that would not make the game any more simulationist. And would not go one iota towards changing what it is that is important to you.

What is making the game different from what you want is not the PC build and not the authority structure and not even the player moves, but the rules about what moves the GM is allowed to make.

I view it more holistically. The player moves, the authority structure, and the rules about what moves the GM is allowed to make and how they tie together to make a game different.

I think the restrictions and how they come about are just as important as the individual who has authority.

 

[Yora]

Apocalypse World is not a game in which the world exists in a defined state and the players have to discover it. Neither do player use fixed character traits on fixed world objects to produce a statistically likely outcome.
It really is more an activity in which players and GM go back and forth between them to create a story. The world of the story is being defined through the things that happen in the story. Facts are established while they are happening, not before.

All the rules of the game mechanics are not to allow the characters to do certain things, but to restrain the players and GM in what kind of new facts they can make up. Players declare intention for what they want to happen next in the story, but dice rolls will affect the outcome and consequences of that follow.

If, as a player, my character's sheet says Cool +2, that doesn't actually define anything about my character. What it does is that it increases my chances to control what consequences happen when my character does something that shows off how cool he is. If the sheet says Hard -1, I have a decreased chance that moves that show off my character's hardness will have the consequences that I intended.

Apocalypse World is where the phrase "the game is a conversation" comes from, or at least become prominent. And that's not just a banal way of saying that the game is being played by talking. It really is an activity of all the involved people telling a story in which they take turns saying "and then..." followed by "but then..."
As I said above, the rules and the moves exist to give some structure so that people don't talk wildly over each other all the time and no single person gets to be in charge for too long. One of the players says that something happens, then the GM says that one thing happens. Then again a player gets to say one thing that happens. All the moves are tools to help the GM with guidance on what might be appropriate to happeb next, and to practice restraint in not negating too much of what the players want to eatablish.

 

[pemerton]

IMO it only matters if you desire to either gatekeep or use that to privilege your opinions. I maintain that your and other people more familiar with AW are my window into it. I can only respond to what I'm told about it. If my understanding off it's because those explaining the game to me left out important details, contradicted one another, etc.

<snip>

My understanding is that the player rolls and depending on the roll the DM is able to make a soft move or a hard move. If the result of the roll only allows for a soft move and that doesn't allow the GM to pick 'the safe is empty' or some variation of that then that's a part of content authority I really care about.

Well, with respect, I do privilege my opinions of how AW works over yours, because I've read the rules very closely and read much of the design discussion by Vincent Baker that underpins them. I quoted the rules upthread. I don't know if you read my post, but your repeated insistence that - for instance - a Seduce/Manipulate roll permits a player to specify what a NPC knows suggests that you didn't.

Here they are again:

if the player has their PC do something that triggers a move then they're making that move.

From p 12:

The particular things that make these rules kick in are called moves.

All of the character playbooks list the same set of basic moves, plus each playbook lists special moves for just that character. Your fronts might list special moves too. When a player says that her character does something listed as a move, that’s when she rolls, and that’s the only time she does.

The rule for moves is to do it, do it. In order for it to be a move and for the player to roll dice, the character has to do something that counts as that move; and whenever the character does something that counts as a move, it’s the move and the player rolls dice.

Usually it’s unambiguous: “dammit, I guess I crawl out there. I try to keep my head down. I’m doing it under fire?” “Yep.” But there are two ways they sometimes don’t line up, and it’s your job as MC to deal with them.

First is when a player says only that her character makes a move, without having her character actually take any such action. For instance: “I go aggro on him.” Your answer then should be “cool, what do you do?” “I seize the radio by force.” “Cool, what do you do?” “I try to seduce him.” “Cool, what do you do?”

Second is when a player has her character take action that counts as a move, but doesn’t realize it, or doesn’t intend it to be a move. For instance: “I shove him out of my way.” Your answer then should be “cool, you’re going aggro?” “I pout. ‘Well if you really don’t like me…’” “Cool, you’re trying to manipulate him?” “I squeeze way back between the tractor and the wall so they don’t see me.” “Cool, you’re acting under fire?”

You don’t ask in order to give the player a chance to decline to roll, you ask in order to give the player a chance to revise her character’s action if she really didn’t mean to make the move. “Cool, you’re going aggro?” Legit: “oh! No, no, if he’s really blocking the door, whatever, I’ll go the other way.” Not legit: “well no, I’m just shoving him out of my way, I don’t want to roll for it.” The rule for moves is if you do it, you do it, so make with the dice.​

So the player's intent isn't really a factor (again, subject to the go aggro vs seduce/manipulate distinction). It's what their PC does.

This is why the design of moves is so fundamental in a PbtA game: by choosing to make things moves, you're making those the fulcrum on which stakes turn. Because otherwise, if no move is triggered by an action declaration, here's how it works (from pp 116-7):

Whenever there’s a pause in the conversation and everyone looks to you to say something, choose one of these things [ie a MC move] and say it. . . . Then, “what do you do?” . . .

Remember the principles. Remember to address yourself to the characters, remember to misdirect, and remember to never speak your move’s name. Say what happens to the characters as though it were their world that’s the real one.

Here are guidelines for choosing your moves:

Always choose a move that can follow logically from what’s going on in the game’s fiction. It doesn’t have to be the only one, or the most likely, but it does have to make at least some kind of sense.

Generally, limit yourself to a move that’ll (a) set you up for a future harder move, and (b) give the players’ characters some opportunity to act and react. A start to the action, not its conclusion.

However, when a player’s character hands you the perfect opportunity on a golden plate, make as hard and direct a move as you like. It’s not the meaner the better, although mean is often good. Best is: make it irrevocable.

When a player’s character makes a move and the player misses the roll, that’s the cleanest and clearest example there is of an opportunity on a plate. When you’ve been setting something up and it comes together without interference, that counts as an opportunity on a plate too.

But again, unless a player’s character has handed you the opportunity, limit yourself to a move that sets up future moves, your own and the players’ characters’.​

At least as I read it, there's no "say 'yes' or roll the dice" in AW. (And given that Baker wrote that into DitV, which is where BW takes it from, with acknowledgements, I think he would have written it into AW if he intended it to be part of the game.) So if I'm looking for my friend who I think is in trouble on the other side of the ravine, and I declare as my action that I jump my bike over the ravine, then - assuming I'm not under fire - the GM can't call for a roll. They just make a move - if they'd already made a soft move ("It's a wide ravine") then they can make a hard move, cause I've handed it to them on a plate ("You almost make it, but . . ."); otherwise a soft move ("You make it across, but when you land on the other side a sound comes from the rear axle that doesn't sound good . . . what do you do?").

Whereas in BW, jumping the ravine (probably on a horse rather than a bike) would be exactly the time to call for a check rather than saying "yes", because it feeds directly into the stakes of will I get to my friend on time.

This is also why custom moves - for particular threats be they NPCs, or places, or whatever - are so important in AW, because this is how the game reflects the emergence of particular stakes in the particular play of the game. In that way, custom moves are completely different in function from D&D-ish or RM-ish "house rules" intended to make the game work more smoothly or to improve the quality of a simulation.

From the AW rulebook, p 109:

Apocalypse World divvies the conversation up in a strict and pretty traditional way. The players’ job is to say what their characters say and undertake to do, first and exclusively; to say what their characters think, feel and remember, also exclusively; and to answer your questions about their characters’ lives and surroundings. Your job as MC is to say everything else: everything about the world, and what everyone in the whole damned world says and does except the players’ characters.​

What ensures conflict resolution in AW is not the distribution of authority, but the principles that tell the GM ("MC") what to say. These include being obliged, via the mechanics, to provide answers. For instance, Read a Person

And here are the rules for Read a Person and Seduce/Manipulate:

Here is the move description for Seduce/Manipuate:

When you try to seduce or manipulate someone, tell them what you want and roll+hot.

For NPCs: on a hit, they ask you to promise something first, and do it if you promise. On a 10+, whether you keep your promise is up to you, later. On a 7–9, they need some concrete assurance right now.

For PCs: on a 10+, both. On a 7–9, choose 1:
• if they do it, they mark experience
• if they refuse, it’s acting under fire
What they do then is up to them.​

<snip>

Read a Person:

When you read a person in a charged interaction, roll+sharp.

On a 10+, hold 3. On a 7–9, hold 1. While you’re interacting with them, spend your hold to ask their player questions, 1 for 1:

• is your character telling the truth?
• what’s your character really feeling?
• what does your character intend to do?
• what does your character wish I’d do?
• how could I get your character to . . .?​

Here are the rules for acting under fire:

When you do something under fire, or dig in to endure fire, roll+cool. On a 10+, you do it. On a 7–9, you flinch, hesitate, or
stall: the MC can offer you a worse outcome, a hard bargain, or an ugly choice.​

As the book explains (pp 190-92),

You can read “under fire” to mean any kind of serious pressure at all. Call for this move whenever someone does something requiring unusual discipline, resolve, endurance or care. . . . Examples: . . . Keeler the gunlugger’s taken off her shoes and she’s sneaking into Dremmer’s camp, armed as they say to the upper teeth. If they hear her, she’s [in trouble]​

And here was one possible sequence of play that I suggested:

Suppose I'm interacting with one of Dremmer's underlings, and I read them - How could I get you to spill the beans on Dremmer? - and so I learn their price, and then that's what I offer when I manipulate them, and so they do what I ask: they tell me where I can find the dirt on Dremmer. It's in a safe in such-and-such a place in the hardhold. So I sneak in, acting under fire, and I hit my roll and open the safe. And I look to the GM, and the GM has to make a move, in accordance with the principles. I haven't failed my roll to act under fire, and I haven't handed the GM an opportunity on a silver platter, so they're not allowed to make a hard move and tell me the dirt's not there!

But I'm looking at them, so they have to make a soft move. There are a lot of options there, from the sound of voices approach, to a dog barking, to there being something else with the dirt I didn't expect (say, a photo - Where did Dremmer - or whoever took it - get a polaroid from?! - of Dremmer in bed with my partner). The GM will be acting on the principles and making a move that they think follows honesty from the established fiction.

But to reiterate: they can't make a hard move if I make my check and don't hand them an opportunity on a silver platter, so they can't say the dirt's not there.

That's how Apocalypse World does conflict resolution: not via funky PC building, and not via funky allocations of authority, but via very careful rules about what the GM is allowed, or required, to say and when.

Notice that at no point is the player exercising authority over the content of the safe. But the GM is not allowed to make a hard move if there is not either a missed move, or an opportunity handed on a plate. And saying "What you're looking for isn't there" is irrevocable, a hard move.

 

[pemerton]

Sure. But even though the move with the priest may be more costly due to what you are required to promise, your chance for success is still the same. The % chance of success being the same for all NPC's shows that your success for this move doesn't depend on the fictional world. That's a very strong critique of 1 thing lacking in your theory - it doesn't differentiate between skills/moves whose success rate depends on the particular NPC in the game your PC interacts with vs those that it does not.

I assume that you read this post of mine upthread:

Where BW differs from AW and Cthulhu Dark is in also modulating the difficulty of tasks by reference to elements of the fiction beyond the character's aptitudes.

Vincent Baker discusses this possibility in relation to AW (p 268):

Here’s a custom threat move. People new to the game occasionally ask me for this one. It’s general, it modifies nearly every other move:

Things are tough. Whenever a players’ character makes a move, the MC judges it normal, difficult, or crazy difficult. If it’s difficult, the player takes -1 to the roll. If it’s crazy difficult, the player takes -2 to the roll.

Several groups in playtest wanted this move or one like it. All of them abandoned it after only one session. It didn’t add anything fun to the game, but did add a little hassle to every single move. So it’s a legal custom move, of course, and you can try it if you like, but I wouldn’t expect you to stick with it.​

In Burning Wheel, the modulated difficulties are part of the fun of the game. It is intended to be a gritty game (as declared by the author on p 19 of the Revised rulebook. BW also has many ways to add to dice pools - advantage dice from circumstances or gear, Help, FoRKs, artha - that AW does not.

Adding this custom move into AW is utterly trivial - I've quoted the whole of it from the rulebook - and makes your comment about the different NPCs irrelevant. But it would change nothing fundamental in the play of the game. As Baker says, all it does is add a little hassle to every single move.

This is another example of why I suggest that you are looking in the wrong place when you are trying to work out why you don't like AW.

 

[FrogReaver]

I assume that you read this post of mine upthread:Adding this custom move into AW is utterly trivial - I've quoted the whole of it from the rulebook - and makes your comment about the different NPCs irrelevant. But it would change nothing fundamental in the play of the game. As Baker says, all it does is add a little hassle to every single move.

This is another example of why I suggest that you are looking in the wrong place when you are trying to work out why you don't like AW.

Yes, I read your posts.

The thing is there are multiple reasons I can point to something not being a move in relation to the fictional world:
1. There's no differentiation based on the fictional NPC/object's fictional resistance to being interacted with.
2. The move resolves things in the fictional world beyond what would be resolvable if the fictional world were real and a person in the fictional world performed the actions.

1 is much easier to show than 2. So, I started at 1 to make the point which would hopefully be easier to understand and less controversial. That it's trivial to remove the issues from 1 doesn't remove the objection as 2 is still present. Also, even though 1 can be trivially removed, unless it actually is then it still stands as well. We are talking about AW gameplay without the optional difficulty modifier rule, right?

Will whether 1 is present change the game significantly enough to care? For many people I imagine the answer is no (you are one of them). For other people it may very well amount to a profound change in the game. IMO, The question really isn't do you care or does the RPG theory you are using care, but is it a differentiation that others are going to care about? And if so then IMO your RPG theory be taking note of that distinction!