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

[Crimson Longinus]

No it doesn't! You posted to me, in apparent shock, "You don't use maps?" And @Campbell's account of participant roles basically rules out the use of maps!

I don't think you are really reading and taking literally what he is posting.

If the players are the ones who bring the dramatic needs, and the GM's job is to create situations that respond to that, then every old-school module and every adventure path suddenly becomes unusable. That's not mainstream D&D RPGing!

A lot of RPGs are, in fact, not old school D&D adventure modules. What maps have to do with anything, I don't know.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

re: player-driven quests

For those of you who played/play 4e, what do you think of the implementation of player-driven quests? Does it work fine as is (i.e., as a section in the dmg), or would you rather it took some different form? I'm not familiar with these books, but I can imagine that if a game really wants to focus not just on quests but quests that are player driven, it could be more fundamentally integrated into the play advice and mechanics. It's very clear to me how this works in Blades in the Dark, for example, because the mechanics (such as players choosing which type of action they are going to take, being able to manipulate the dice pool in a variety of ways, xp for desperate rolls) match up with the play advice (fall in love with danger for players, asking questions for GMs). So that makes it very clear what player-driven means.

Well, I don't think that it was deeply enough integrated. That is to say, in a mechanical sense it was OK, a quest is rated as an encounter, or part of one, and XP (and thus by implication treasure) is granted. What they consist of, and who can construct them is reasonably well specified too, though it might be a bit less clear as to whether or not a quest MUST require fulfilling some sort of conditions that are additional to anything that might happen anyway. The DMG does say that just clearing a dungeon, for example, "isn't a quest." but finding a magic bow could be (but wouldn't I just get it as treasure anyway, but OK not a problem). So that could be a bit fuzzy in some cases, though erring now and then isn't going to break anything. Frankly I always held that some checks should need to be passed, which is logical, defeating a monster involves some fighting or an SC too (or maybe solving a puzzle).

So, the issue is, when you leave them out, it doesn't break anything! I mean, it breaks the game in a principle sense, but if it also broke it in a mechanical sense, I'd be happier! I like things to be more explicit, when possible.

Separately

Is player-driven gameism ever a thing, or is player empowerment in this way only a feature of Story Now games? There has recently been some talk in OSR spaces about how the 1e dmg assumed that the DMs worlds would be inhabited by several play-groups worth of characters, all operating in competition with each other. I'm not necessarily charmed by such Gygaxian fundamentalism, but for those interested it would seem to provide a model of dnd play that is both 1. very gameist (especially as it leans into the wargames heritage of the game) and 2. very player driven (as a session isn't even scheduled unless a group of players, who each may have several characters, bring some of them together to work on a particular project).

Well, yeah, Gygax kind of assumes 'Troupe Play" where there are many PCs and they form parties on a fairly ad-hoc basis, vs the more common practice (even back in the '70s) of 'Party Play' where there's just a single party of PCs, at least at any given time. I guess in the former case the players have some kind of freedom to play this guy or that guy, possibly. MAYBE that is part of Gary's obsession with time and space, because it works against that! My feeling is that at least in his games there was Gary, Benevolent Dictator for Life. lol. As I've never seen a living example of this model of play I cannot say how it would work out, that would probably depend on the GM, as its still D&D and they can put their foot down on anything they want to.

Separately Separately

Is 4e as a Story Now game the way it is typically understood, or is that a particular point of view established on these boards? I've mostly heard it referred to as too gameist.

I think the understanding has grown over time. Even WotC seemed to eventually at least grok that people were actually playing it that way at some point. To be honest, I ran a prep-free (almost) 4e for a few years, about 3 campaigns worth. I've read about others here. I haven't SEEN another, but then I don't hang with a lot of D&Ders IRL, and I never actually witnessed a 4e game that I didn't run myself, except online. I didn't get a chance to play a whole lot!

 

[pemerton]

You're right, but it doesn't matter. The folks arguing for this bizarre misinterpretation of 4E are doing so only by intentionally misreading or outright ignoring the actual text of the game.

So just to be clear - the people who played 4e and loved it and learned from it are misreading and misinterpreting. But the ones who played it in a fashion that led to frustration and disappointment and sloggy combats with no story relevance were playing the game right?

 

[Thomas Shey]

Well, yeah, Gygax kind of assumes 'Troupe Play" where there are many PCs and they form parties on a fairly ad-hoc basis, vs the more common practice (even back in the '70s) of 'Party Play' where there's just a single party of PCs, at least at any given time. I guess in the former case the players have some kind of freedom to play this guy or that guy, possibly. MAYBE that is part of Gary's obsession with time and space, because it works against that! My feeling is that at least in his games there was Gary, Benevolent Dictator for Life. lol. As I've never seen a living example of this model of play I cannot say how it would work out, that would probably depend on the GM, as its still D&D and they can put their foot down on anything they want to.

Saw it all the time in the 70's on the West Coast. Partly because there was a lot of multi-world crossover play going on.

 

[pemerton]

The player authored quests advice basically amounts to: "If PCs set a goal to themselves and accomplish it, give them XP." That's basically my reading of its intent.

That's not what it says.

From PHB p 258:

You can also, with your DM’s approval, create a quest for your character. Such a quest can tie into your character’s background. For instance, perhaps your mother is the person whose remains lie in the Fortress of the Iron Ring. Quests can also relate to individual goals, such as a ranger searching for a magic bow to wield. Individual quests give you a stake in a campaign’s unfolding story and give your DM ingredients to help develop that story.​

From DMG p 102 - "Quests are the fundamental story framework of an adventure".

In other words, players are encouraged to establish the fundamental story framework of adventures, contributing "ingredients" that the GM uses to help develop that story. In the example in the PHB, it is the player who establishes what is going on in the Fortress of the Iron Ring.

This is the same basic paradigm as a Belief in Burning Wheel. Like my PC's sidekick in the BW game where I'm a player, who had the Belief that "I'm not going to finish my career with no spellbooks and an empty purse!": out of that - via action declarations, and the GM's resulting narration of consequences and framing of scenes - came a whole "arc" of play involving Evards' tower (introduced into the fiction by me, the player) and Aramina's search for spellbooks, but also the GM's deft interweaving of my PC's backstory and Beliefs involving the honour of his family.

This is not the same thing as the GM dangling a hook and a player saying "OK then, my quest is to resolve that hook."

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Last thought before sleep:

This thread was about D&D and gamism. Whilst I doubt the value of GNS model, one observation I've been trying to make is that D&D, as it is often these days played, is rather character centred, having heavy focus on character narratives, their traumas relationships and other drama. Now I don't know if that is proper Forge-approved narrativism, not I terribly much care, but it definitely is not gamism and it would be misguided to label it simulationism either. But whatever it is, it is popular, and the game designers would be wise to pay attention to it. They should consider how future editions could better serve that sort of desires, if not via rules then at least via robust advice.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I don't think that level of myth or character definition (above zero) are relevant to Story Now play. But, the point of Story Now is to explore and generate story in the moment during play, so creation of myth or character definition outside of play, is by definition not Story Now play. Doing either of those, however does not make subequent Story Now play impossible or invalid. You can have a session of freewheeling discussion and then do Story Now. You can roll dice on tables to generate myth & background, and then do Story Now play. You can all write up 40-page character backstories and then do Story Now.

Definitely. Erithnoi was authored by me, as a setting around 1976, and it has been the setting of the vast majority of D&D games that I've run since then (100's and 100's of them, at least). So, clearly there is, potentially a vast wealth of established information within that setting, as well as characters and settings. We still play Story Now games using that setting and 4e or now HoML, or even Dungeon World. Yeah, generally the PCs start in some place that has room for defining whatever is needed, its a big world, there's plenty of holes in the maps still! I'd be hard pressed to think of a time when established setting actually caused an issue with play. It is more likely that if players wanted to engage with some specific sort of thing, they'd just go to where that exists. Its a magical world, going hither and yon is as easy as we want it to be

I've also had players make up rather elaborate backstories at times. While it could cause an issue, I suppose, that isn't really a big problem either. I mean, one player invented a barony, a castle, a family full of ninja-esque spies, etc. No problem. They got framed into some scenes here or there, and we discovered that maybe her infatuation with some of her family members extraordinary skills was interfering with her seeing clearly who they really were, that was cool.

I'd note that I'm pretty highly transparent about all this stuff too. I do not have secret notes about Erithnoi, anyone can read whatever they like, and the example PC above didn't have a secret backstory either, granting that the other PCs might not have had a way to know it, but all the players did. I mean, now and then I will spring something in play, but remember, NO PREP! At best I might have a location and various possible NPCs to use. Framing a betrayal or plot twist is not some secret plan, it would be a direct response to something about a character, and it is quite possible the players might have even suggested it, or know about it! (but surprise can be fun too).

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Edwards talks about this sort of thing happening in early D&D, and also in some T&T. To me, it reinforces the idea that "vanilla narrativism" is a real, and under-appreciated, thing.

My view (influenced by Edwards' generalisations which fit with my own more limited experience and observations) is that somewhere in the early to mid 80s a lot of this got squashed, with the idea emerging that more setting and more pre-authorship meant better RPGing.

Well, also a lot of people thought that MORE RULES would do that, or at least 'better sim'. So I would have said that it was around 1980 that things kind of began to go in a few directions. There were some early moves into a bit more Narrative kind of focus, like FASERIP Marvel with its currencies, and some games like Toon and Paranoia (I think that one came out in '84). OTOH you had Rolemaster, Aftermath, Twilight 2000, and a few others that tried to go full bore 'simulate the real world and good story must emerge!' (which was silly on the face of it, but people are often silly). I guess the idea was that somehow drama would emerge from realistic stories, and abstraction and inaccuracy were the enemy of that, or something like that. I only bought it for about a week of playing in my Brother-in-Law's Aftermath campaign... lol.

It did take a LONG while for the ghost of D&D to kind of fade away and people to come to realize that different fundamental design choices were possible, and then sadly Storyteller showed up... Never understood the draw there, I really hated the way that whole thing played from day one myself.

 

[Ovinomancer]

Last thought before sleep:

This thread was about D&D and GNS. Whilst I doubt the value of GNS model, one observation I've been trying to make is that D&D, as it is often these days played, is rather character centred, having heavy focus on character narratives, their traumas relationships and other drama. Now I don't know if that is proper Forge-approved narrativism, not I terribly much care, but it definitely is not gamism and it would be misguided to label it simulationism either. But whatever it is, it is popular, and the game designers would be wise to pay attention to it. They should consider how future editions could better serve that sort of desires, if not via rules then at least via robust advice.

D&D, insofar as any published adventure or even advice fir play construction this is obviously false. Adventures especially are utterly agnostic to whatever characters are involved. Nothing in, say, Curse of Strahd changes at all -- the plot, the antagonism, locations, NPCs or their agendas, nothing. Hard to claim this is a game about the characters when nothing at all changes in the material. The only thing that changes are the particular details of resolutions of a scene before that's largely ignored before the setup of the next scene.

 

[Thomas Shey]

. OTOH you had Rolemaster, Aftermath, Twilight 2000, and a few others that tried to go full bore 'simulate the real world and good story must emerge!' (which was silly on the face of it, but people are often silly). I guess the idea was that somehow drama would emerge from realistic stories, and abstraction and inaccuracy were the enemy of that, or something like that.

I think you're misinterpreting the purposes of those systems.