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

[Ovinomancer]

My assumptions are solely based on how you and others in this thread have described SN games. So that must mean you didn't describe it accurately enough, I suppose.

"Well, it's your fault I have to say it's unpleasant." That's certainly a take.

 

[RhaezDaevan]

Well, surprises still happen all the time. The GM can, say in Dungeon World, spring something on players, and in fact that is normally how things work. It is more a question of the type of things that will come up. A DW GM is unlikely to simply bring in something completely from left field that doesn't address something that follows from the current play, etc. Now, it may be that this would be GM-generated content, like a Danger of a Front, but the Front in the first place would be developed according to the principles of DW, and chances are some sort of foreshadowing would have occurred. It is untrue that the GM cannot introduce stuff, it just has to be relevant, not just "I want to tell this story, so here it is."

OK, good. I was getting the impression that GM could only react to player input, and could never start anything new. The GM shouldn't have to wait for a player to ask for an ambush for one to occur.

Skilled GMing and thus good scene framing should present a 'world' that is just as authentic feeling as any other technique does. Some things are nearly impossible in classic play that can be done in Story Now. Certainly people have tastes though, nobody can claim you shouldn't have your own. I would say you might want to try playing in an SN type of game of some sort and see what you REALLY think.

Are there any that mix the simulation stuff with the story now stuff? A hybrid might be easier to digest as a start.

Well, 'yes, and...' is not necessarily employed by all such games. Beyond that I would say that there are ALWAYS sources of constraints on what people can do. Also the focus may not always be on problem solving, it could be on conflict resolution, for example. So, the problem I see with this objection is simply that it assumes a classic GM/Player relationship understanding of RPGs and then projects that onto a different type of game.

I thought the GM was constrained to always go along with player ideas if they roll well enough. I'd also be cheesed as another player too depending on what was being injected in the game. So there are times the GM can flat out say no to what a player attempts? Weren't people in this thread saying 4e leaned into SN, and that did include the advice for the DM to "just say yes".

Not all 'action' needs to be razor edge do or die. Some could well be, and normally is, some sort of social interaction for example. Something is usually at stake, but there is still pacing.

Right, but I like there to be some time spent on play without stakes. Probably not every sessions as that would be boring, but between adventures/missions. Maybe check in on what some NPCs were doing while the PCs were gone.

I mean, none of the above is intended to call people out for their tastes, maybe you wouldn't like something like Dungeon World, but you would probably be best advised to try it with an open mind under a GM experienced in that type of gaming, and THEN decide if it is fun or not. Its like people who have never tried snowboarding who insist that it is 'bad' and only skis should be allowed on the mountain. Give it a go first, then decide!

Considering the fantasy trappings, I think Dungeon World would be a bad game to start. I'd be comparing it to other fantasy games in the back of my head the whole time. Perhaps as I've never played a horror TTRPG, a Story Now version of that, maybe as a one shot, would be preferred as toe dip in.

 

[RhaezDaevan]

"Well, it's your fault I have to say it's unpleasant." That's certainly a take.

OK, I'm listening. Give it a fresh go. Pick your fav Story Now game, and without getting into too much detail on mechanics, explain the overall structure and flow of the gameplay that might make it appealing to me. We can break down to more granular details if I have further questions. If you're busy or just don't feel like it that's fine, but I'll be open-minded and give you the chance to win me over.

While you're at it, please explain this whole "dramatic needs" concept that has been repeated throughout this thread. Do I need a university level course to understand how to play these types of games? I hope not, that sounds expensive.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

OK, good. I was getting the impression that GM could only react to player input, and could never start anything new. The GM shouldn't have to wait for a player to ask for an ambush for one to occur.

Well, certainly not in Dungeon World. I mean, frankly, there's potentially a great deal of leeway in terms of how much of the action in DW focuses specifically on elements that come from the player side of the table and the DM side of the table. So, GMs DO perform prep, and nothing really says that the elements of that prep must be overtly suggested by players. The GM is just told to 'ask questions, use the answers', and that maps 'have holes in them'. You are supposed to generate 'fronts', which are basically a lot like a 'meta-plot', and they can have varying levels of significance and screen time. Once things are set in motion however, the GM should not be trying to steer the game in some direction. The Great Orc Invasion might be a front, if the PCs don't deal with this orc threat, well the town will eventually be overrun! Now, this could be sort of a background thing that slowly takes shape, or it could be an immediate sort of threat that will rapidly develop but doesn't shape the wider campaign for long, unless the players ignore it.

Are there any that mix the simulation stuff with the story now stuff? A hybrid might be easier to digest as a start.

There are tons of games out there. I would say that games like D&D 4e can be played in a pretty Story Now mode, and that game certainly approaches mechanics in a fairly standard D&D type of way, up to a point.

I thought the GM was constrained to always go along with player ideas if they roll well enough. I'd also be cheesed as another player too depending on what was being injected in the game. So there are times the GM can flat out say no to what a player attempts? Weren't people in this thread saying 4e leaned into SN, and that did include the advice for the DM to "just say yes".

OK, so if a player, for example, states they are going to make a combat move, the GM first could say "well, your sword has no chance of hacking through the dragon's iron hard scales..." and the player is going to have to come up with a better plan. Maybe the player says "I try for the creature's mouth" and now the GM is going to present the situation as something like "As the dragon opens its mouth you hear the sound of it drawing air into its lungs and smell brimstone..." Now you're in the middle of it! That sword stroke better produce some kick-ass results! Its not like I said 'no' when the player basically offered to hack-n-slash with the dragon, but now the fiction is clear, either the sword blow is true or its grillin' time! The player will just have to roll the dice and take her chances at this point, a 6- is unlikely to be pretty...

Right, but I like there to be some time spent on play without stakes. Probably not every sessions as that would be boring, but between adventures/missions. Maybe check in on what some NPCs were doing while the PCs were gone.

I mean, its all up to the players and GM of course. Set your pacing. DW has some GM 'stuff' that happens, there are Grim Portents and even Dooms. If the players say "well, we're just going shopping..." The GM could simply say "well, OK, lets do that, but while you're in the market place you hear the news, the Orcs sacked the priory outside of town." Its not ACTION, at this point, maybe there's a bunch of RP here too, the players see some injured priests, they ask what happens, whatever.

Considering the fantasy trappings, I think Dungeon World would be a bad game to start. I'd be comparing it to other fantasy games in the back of my head the whole time. Perhaps as I've never played a horror TTRPG, a Story Now version of that, maybe as a one shot, would be preferred as toe dip in.

Yeah, the thing with Dungeon World is there's the danger that everyone involved might just sort of try to play D&D. It won't work well, but its not always obvious to people why it isn't so great. Apocalypse World, or Blades in the Dark, etc. might be easier to use due to simply being less familiar genre. I guess Masks is a pretty decent Supers PbtA, though I know little about it. There are various sci-fi ones, and lots of other types as well.

 

[Ovinomancer]

OK, I'm listening. Give it a fresh go. Pick your fav Story Now game, and without getting into too much detail on mechanics, explain the overall structure and flow of the gameplay that might make it appealing to me. We can break down to more granular details if I have further questions. If you're busy or just don't feel like it that's fine, but I'll be open-minded and give you the chance to win me over.

While you're at it, please explain this whole "dramatic needs" concept that has been repeated throughout this thread. Do I need a university level course to understand how to play these types of games? I hope not, that sounds expensive.

No, thank you. If you're curious, you can pick up a copy of Ironsworn at Ironswornrpg.com. It's a free game, does a good job of explaining the play, and has a solo mode so you can investigate actual play. If you have questions after that, I'd be more inclined to trust the sudden shift to curiosity.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

OK, I'm listening. Give it a fresh go. Pick your fav Story Now game, and without getting into too much detail on mechanics, explain the overall structure and flow of the gameplay that might make it appealing to me. We can break down to more granular details if I have further questions. If you're busy or just don't feel like it that's fine, but I'll be open-minded and give you the chance to win me over.

While you're at it, please explain this whole "dramatic needs" concept that has been repeated throughout this thread. Do I need a university level course to understand how to play these types of games? I hope not, that sounds expensive.

Again, lets use Dungeon World as an example. Every PC starts with a couple of 'bonds', which are just statements about the character and her relationship to other characters (often PCs, but they could be NPCs as well). Characters also have an alignment, and their class (playbook) and build choices also provide various 'hooks'.

So, if the Fighter player creates a bond "The halfling looks weak and in need of protection, I will keep him from harm." that's a fairly succinct and clear statement of the character's goal and implies a certain attitude, etc. Now, maybe the fighter is evil, so his motive is to show how powerful he is and keep the party in line, and he 'protects' by killing anything threatening. We have a workable entre into various situations, with the obvious starting point being "something threatens the halfling." The character NEEDS to respond to that, if he doesn't he might look weak, lose access to this potential ally, etc. The GM is DEFINITELY going to challenge this bond at some point! Probably pretty quickly.

 

[Malmuria]

OK, I'm listening. Give it a fresh go. Pick your fav Story Now game, and without getting into too much detail on mechanics, explain the overall structure and flow of the gameplay that might make it appealing to me. We can break down to more granular details if I have further questions. If you're busy or just don't feel like it that's fine, but I'll be open-minded and give you the chance to win me over.

While you're at it, please explain this whole "dramatic needs" concept that has been repeated throughout this thread. Do I need a university level course to understand how to play these types of games? I hope not, that sounds expensive.

With regards as to how combat can go, I remember one time playing a game of Blades in the Dark and a player wanted her character to do something crazy. I think she was backed into a corner by some people and she wanted to pull two pistols out and fire shots while falling backwards out of a window and then fall to safety or something crazy like that. Dnd sort of falls down in managing complex yet dramatic actions like that...you'll get bogged down in rules for attacks of opportunity, how it plays out with the action economy, whether a character has some special ability that excepts them from any of the normal rules, whether the character has the right equipment in their inventory, etc. The result is that you rely on the "rule of cool." But even here there are a lot of fail points, and if the PC fails it's not clear what that means (other than, "you attack and miss"). Whereas Blades has various mechanics to set the stakes for the roll, allow the player to compile a dice pool, come up with items that she had been carrying, and have various narrative consequences depending on the roll. For example, you don't determine what items you have ahead of time, instead you have a "load" of X items. When it comes into play narratively, you can select the item you want and mark off the appropriate load. It's definitely different than characters who have to go shopping ahead of the adventure and make choices about what they might need, or else improvise with what they have, but for this kind of game it allows for more cinematic scenes.

 

[Blue]

Yeah, I'd be frustrated by that type of combat, personally. No thanks.

You'd be frustrated by combat that could be at the same level of "zoom" as D&D, but also could be abstracted up to fewer rolls if it's not important or deadly?

I literally (in the literal sense of the word) can't see how that would be frustrating to have control over the zoom instead of one preset level.

Please, why would it be frustrating to be everything you do now, but also do less to make it quicker if the combat isn't important / is a forgone conclusion?

 

[RhaezDaevan]

Obviously there are many different SN games, but I haven't really seen one where players would "just decide if they win or lose." Now, lets say we are playing Dungeon World, the GM is likely to provide some clues that 'stuff is going to happen' and maybe the sort of stuff, generally. Like the players know they're exploring what is ostensibly an orc lair, well orcs probably jump out of the shadows! That may well be several moves downstream from the opening scene, so we could play for quite a while with just the sense of increasingly risky player moves (IE tracking orcs to their lair, entering, etc.). DW doesn't actually have a COMBAT system, but it has a system for determining if you take an action whether or not you pulled it off or not, and if there were any complications. The players are certainly not deciding what happens. If the dwarf leaps into the way of the onrushing orc and the player rolls a 5 (a bad roll), guess what? The GM is going to figure out what the 'bad thing' is which happened, based on what move the player made, and the situation, maybe the dwarf stumbles and the orc shoves him away and hacks into the halfling thief! No player decided that, but the combat is certainly not over, DW would have that continue until things are resolved, either the orc is dead or maybe it runs off, or I suppose it might TPK the party! Honestly, while combat is a bit less structured than in, say Basic D&D, its not THAT different. The players make decisions based on the situation, dice are rolled, stuff happens, characters/monsters die, flee, etc.

And, as noted, there's plenty of logic in "surprise an orc charges the party!" when the action is IN AN ORC LAIR, which is typically the sort of thing that happens in DW (since it is basically a D&D-like setting and genre).

Once the orc is dispatched, the PCs will probably move around some more in the dark, expending torches, worrying about if the halfling's wounds should be fully healed before pressing on or not. Rhythmic chanting is heard up ahead, should they investigate or avoid danger? Its really pretty stock stuff in many respects.

Does the GM always have to give hints as to what's about to happen? And do consequences always have to be immediate?

Could the PCs killing a character in one session, result in an ambush a few sessions later by yet unseen characters that want revenge for that death? Does the GM need to tell the players that an evil wizard is magically watching them?

These aren't must-haves, I'm just curious where the boundaries are.

As for the combat, if one orc is tougher than another, does that just affect the player's roll then? As it sounds like there is no health stat equivalent in that game.

 

[RhaezDaevan]

Well, certainly not in Dungeon World. I mean, frankly, there's potentially a great deal of leeway in terms of how much of the action in DW focuses specifically on elements that come from the player side of the table and the DM side of the table. So, GMs DO perform prep, and nothing really says that the elements of that prep must be overtly suggested by players. The GM is just told to 'ask questions, use the answers', and that maps 'have holes in them'. You are supposed to generate 'fronts', which are basically a lot like a 'meta-plot', and they can have varying levels of significance and screen time. Once things are set in motion however, the GM should not be trying to steer the game in some direction. The Great Orc Invasion might be a front, if the PCs don't deal with this orc threat, well the town will eventually be overrun! Now, this could be sort of a background thing that slowly takes shape, or it could be an immediate sort of threat that will rapidly develop but doesn't shape the wider campaign for long, unless the players ignore it.

I'm against railroading as well. My preference would be some threats presented to the players that if not dealt with would have consequences to the setting, but I wouldn't want all of them that way. If we're talking fantasy, I'd want a mix of "save the village/kingdom/world" with "let's explore that abandoned Dwarven mine to see if there's treasure".

There are tons of games out there. I would say that games like D&D 4e can be played in a pretty Story Now mode, and that game certainly approaches mechanics in a fairly standard D&D type of way, up to a point.

There's too much in 4e that I don't like, so that one is a definite no go. I'm curious what games are "like D&D 4e" however, as perhaps they would more to my tastes.

OK, so if a player, for example, states they are going to make a combat move, the GM first could say "well, your sword has no chance of hacking through the dragon's iron hard scales..." and the player is going to have to come up with a better plan. Maybe the player says "I try for the creature's mouth" and now the GM is going to present the situation as something like "As the dragon opens its mouth you hear the sound of it drawing air into its lungs and smell brimstone..." Now you're in the middle of it! That sword stroke better produce some kick-ass results! Its not like I said 'no' when the player basically offered to hack-n-slash with the dragon, but now the fiction is clear, either the sword blow is true or its grillin' time! The player will just have to roll the dice and take her chances at this point, a 6- is unlikely to be pretty...

OK, how is it determined the sword wouldn't work on the dragon? Is that predetermined by the GM, or just a judgment on the spot?

I mean, its all up to the players and GM of course. Set your pacing. DW has some GM 'stuff' that happens, there are Grim Portents and even Dooms. If the players say "well, we're just going shopping..." The GM could simply say "well, OK, lets do that, but while you're in the market place you hear the news, the Orcs sacked the priory outside of town." Its not ACTION, at this point, maybe there's a bunch of RP here too, the players see some injured priests, they ask what happens, whatever.

I wouldn't want a consequence for every action/decision the players make. That's good sometimes, but a trip to granny's house shouldn't always lead to a wolf having eaten/replaced her. I know some argue "if it doesn't lead to drama/action, then what's the point", but I like a mix.

Yeah, the thing with Dungeon World is there's the danger that everyone involved might just sort of try to play D&D. It won't work well, but its not always obvious to people why it isn't so great. Apocalypse World, or Blades in the Dark, etc. might be easier to use due to simply being less familiar genre. I guess Masks is a pretty decent Supers PbtA, though I know little about it. There are various sci-fi ones, and lots of other types as well.

I've not played any supers RPG either, so maybe that's another option. Thanks.