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

[clearstream]

We don't agree on this (ie on the heavily flawed bit). I don't think Edwards's model is perfect - Vincent Baker's work on fictional positioning and "clouds and boxes" gives more insight into techniques than anything I know of from Edwards - but I do think the model is pretty powerful.


Ezekiel Raiden gives some terrific examples here of how understanding - which can include the use of models, analytic taxonomies and the like - can be very useful, including for making one's way practically through the world, without being predictive in any meaningful sense.



In addition to EzekielRaiden's accurate remark, the second quote here from clearstream seems to contain a non-sequitur.

Characterising my comment as a non-sequitur makes me suspect we are speaking past one another. We're likely equally mystified by the other's position!

Weber's theory of legitimate government, and his related theory of bureaucracy, is (in my view) extremely powerful for explaining phenomena that have occurred since he wrote that work. But his theory does not predict anything. As @Hussar said, it does its explanatory work "after the fact" - ie we observe some phenomenon, we are puzzled by some of its features, its apparent internal dynamics, the sort of legitimacy it does or does not seem to engender - and then we bring Weber's analysis to bear, and things fall into place, the features become less puzzling, other things we see going that we had no intitially connected to our observed phenomenon are revealed to be consequences of it, or related to it in some fashion, etc. As a result of this, we might even have a better handle on how to engage, in practical terms, with the phenomenon. But having useful information or useful advice isn't anything like making a prediction in the sense that eg verificationist and falsificationist accounts of laboratory science have in mind.

Here is the quoted definition/description of the phenomenon of incoherence:

Play which includes incompatible combinations of Creative Agendas among participants. Incoherent play is considered to contribute to Dysfunctional play, but does not define it. Incoherence may be applied indirectly to game rules. Abashedness represents a minor, correctable form of Incoherence.​

The verb "contribute to" is not a component of a prediction, particularly when qualified by the phrase "but does not define it".

Just for avoidance of doubt, I am not suggesting that the specific words capturing a theory must include the word "predict" or its variants in order to be predictive.

No prediction is being made about when dysfunctional play will occur, nor about what will cause it if it does.

If A contributes to B such that in the presence of A, B is more likely, then it is correct to say that A predicts (with some probability) B. There might be a misapprehension that when I use "predicts" I mean with certainty. To ensure that's not getting in the way, I mean "predicts at some probability, itself unknown". Hypothetically, factor-based analysis might be done to establish if mixtures of agendas are predictive of dysfunction using Bayesian algorithms. That'd be a tremendous amount of work, and not something we're likely to have the resources to embark on!

A claim is being made that some dysfunctional play is sometimes the consequence, in part at least, of incoherence. That claim is too weak, isn't it, to count as a prediction? No one is suggesting that a controlled experiment might be run to test this conjecture; and - in contrast with complex claims about multiple factors of causation in (say) medicine - no one can even say what such a controlled experiment might look like, as the notion of "dysfunctional play" is not itself precise enough to be used in such an experiment. And that's before we get to the possibility of "abashedness" - any apparently-diagnosed incoherence, which appears not to contribute much to dysfunction, is amenable to being characterised as mere abashedness.

Weakness or scattered manfestation of consequence isn't of itself a failure to count as prediction. This suggests to me again that we may have different expectations as to "predicts". A predicts B at some probability, which need not be 1. We can say that in the presence of A, B is more (or less) probable, and talk about the power and significance of any such correlation. I believe that is what Edwards is claiming: incompatible agendas "contribute". The qualification isn't a taking back of "contribute", it's saying that the nature of dysfunctional play is not tautologically the simple noticing of incompatible agendas (i.e. realising one is in the presence of agendas that are incompatible), dysfunction is its own phenomena. Love is perhaps one of the factors that may contribute to childbirth, so that childbirth is more likely in the presence of love, but love isn't childbirth. Maybe others can find better examples?

As I posted (to @Hussar and @EzekielRaiden) perhaps the key misgiving is that to say predicts sounds like entailing with certainty, whereas your position might be that the presence of incompatible agendas (once identified) is only at some low degree of signficance correlated with the presence of dysfunction. Note this isn't a claim that the former causes the latter, although one might want to investigate the possibility of a casual relationship. Even were a causal relationship established, it need not ignore complexity: incompatible agendas could (hypothetically) cause dysfunction at some degree of likelihood or only in the presence of some additional factor, C. We need not assume the factors are sufficient and invariant, or that the values are static.

The point of the notion of "incoherence" is to enable individual players, or play groups, who find their RPGing unsatisfactory in some way, to reflect on what they and their friends are trying to get out of it, and to see if there is conflict going on. A third party observer can also use the notion to conjecture an explanation of why certain apparent conflicts or difficulties occur - eg in this thread I've suggested that much of the discussion and debate among D&D players is driven by the fact that most D&D play, and the published rules for 2nd ed AD&D, 3E and 5e, straddle the relatively thin line between gamism with fairly low competition, and characters-face-problems-high-concept-sim. None of that is prediction, except in the rather banal sense that I predict that debates about "fudging" in D&D, and about how the GM is expected to manage the pacing of an "adventuring day" to answer demands around balance, resource management, etc will not go away, because those debates are driven by the incoherence I've mentioned.

And the point of the notion of "abashedness" is to describe a recurring trend in the writing of RPG rulebooks, to frame things in terms that reflect the dominant game (ie D&D) or some other well-known and influential games (eg RuneQuest), even when its tolerably clear that the author plays the game in a different fashion and the game system will work best when played in that fashion. So you'll see a game that, as a whole, makes the most sense for gamist, or for narrativist, play, that neverthless contains boilerplate text about the players, via their PCs, experiencing the GM's world; or you'll see a game that, as a whole, makes the most sense for simulationist play, that includes gambling-gamist rules for random PC gen because those are copied from D&D. Calling such a game "abashed" is a way of signalling that it is easily drifted towards its profitable play mode, by (eg) ignoring the boilerplate text, or dropping the random PC gen, or whatever else. It's a term of criticism, not a way of making a prediction.

EDIT: here's another example.

An auto-repair manual seems pretty useful for repairing a car. Or modifying the car. Or pulling the car apart and then rebuilding it. But an auto-repair manual is not a prediction of when a car will need repairing, whether or not any particular person can repair it or rebuild it or modify it, nor even of whether any particular repair or modification will work - a person might read the manual and make a repair and yet the car still not go because there's some other factor at work that they didn't notice.

I feel the analogy of an auto-repair manual does not serve your argument (as I understand it) very successfully, as one does predict that when one follows the manual one will achieve the specified result. A good manual is a case of strong and confident predictability.

For example, I recently noticed a new warning light on my VW dashboard. Following the manual I saw that it warned of a lighting fault. Based on that, I made the prediction that one of the lights was out and checked them all. The prediction turned out right. I turned to the manual for the size and type of lamp to buy. Based on the manual I felt optimistic in predicting that a given lamp would match the fitting. It did. Suppose however that I had ignored the manual and chosen a lamp at random: could I have predicted that it would fit with any confidence?

And the behaviour of a car is far more regular and predictable than a group of human beings engaged in a social activity!

I'm especially sympathetic to the point that human behaviours are extremely complex. I mean, think of generalised intelligence which has been subject to a tremendous amount of factor-based analysis as to what it predicts! I additionally believe GNS theory is unrepresentative in important respects, noted by others. Should I expect an unrepresentative theory to predict an exceedingly complex phenomena in a testable way?

No, in the end I agree with you. Not as to prediction, but let's set that aside. GNS has important limitations to bear in mind going forward. There's a high risk of refitting the facts to the theory. Emphasising the parts that seem to fit. We'll find I think that multiple theories will explain what we observe equally well, and we cannot exclude ourselves from our analysis. One person might apply GEN two-tier theory and see the features fall into place, everything becoming less puzzling, and arrive at new and helpful insights. Another preferring or getting more out of GNS. That might be excluded by testing and falsifying, but as we are agreeing that we cannot test and falsify we cannot exclude it. And all the theories are likely to be improvable.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Considering I'm one of the "few people" you mention, I just have to comment on this.

My comment?

WOW

"throw-away line?"

This is one of the most subversive, indie-game-derived elements of 4e (along with Fail Forward, Success With Complications, Closed Scene Resolution for Noncombat Conflict, 4e's version of "cut to the action" and "drive play toward conflict" in "skip the gate guards and get to the fun" and all the other elements that we've talked into the floor)! This is full-on Forge-derived Story Now player-authored kicker that could have been ripped directly from Dogs in the Vineyard initiation/background conflict or Sorcerer.

If Player-Authored-Kickers, which puts players in charge directly of the course of the upcoming conflict-scape (and therefore wresting the trajectory of play from the traditional authority structure of D&D; the GM's), is "throw-away" rather than subversive and a huge deal...? What exactly would be subversive? What isn't throw-away?

It is just incorporating the character background in the game and taking suggestions from the players. Everyone and their grandmother have been doing it for decades in every RPG. Look at the Critical Role. The characters have very elaborate backstories and a huge chunk of the game's content is drawn from those. GMs might rely on this more or they may rely on it less, but almost everybody does it to some extent. This is not revolutionary, it is pretty much the default practice as far as I know.

 

[clearstream]

In order for play to be Story Now/Narrativism, you need both:

* Open-ended situations where player input + principally/procedurally constrained antagonism/opposition by GM + system's say drives the action and dictates the outcome. This infuses play with the necessary "play to find out" quality.

Would you count Karma-based resolution methods effective (or equally effective) for "procedurally constrained" for this purpose? Can "+ system" in your view by satisfied by a karma system?

 

[Crimson Longinus]

And?

Ovinomancer said that "story now" is not about emergent story. You can't rebut that claim by pointing out that a story may emerge from the play. Because the claim concerned what the play of the game is about.

Here's how Edwards defines "story": an imaginary series of events which includes at least one protagonist, at least one conflict, and events which may be construed as a resolution of the conflict.

Those indubitably are elements that help make a good story. It is not a definition of story though, you don't need to build a story that way. But fair enough.

Story now play, therefore, is about having this sort of thing occurring here and now via the play of the game by all participants. At it's most basic, the player establishes the dramatic needs of the character (which may be internal, or may be driven by the setting); the GM frames a scene that puts those needs under pressure; the player declares an action for their PC; the action resolution mechanics resolve the action, with the upshot either being a defusing, or an escalation, of the conflict. Well-designed mechanics for this sort of play will reliably produce a "rhythm" or pacing of success and failure, so as to get a pattern of increased stakes, and then partial resolution, that roughly reflects the rising action and then resolution in other storytelling forms.

Whether what emerges from the play of a story now game is a story, or not, is secondary. What the play is about is those moments of conflict in which the protagonist must struggle in some fashion to achieve their dramatic need, with the upshot, and the possibility of failure or success, being open at the time the scene is framed, and the action declared.

It is utterly absurd to say it is secondary as the whole process is intentionally constructed so that a story emerges! You have characters (protagonists) whose dramatic needs are established, and the GM challenges them (conflict) then the situation is resolved in some manner. And it is not merely a process for generating story, it cares about creating a compelling one, in a sense that dramatic needs of the characters are important.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

If the action declaration is we sail to the island and the GM (via prep, or via a random events roll, or whatever) says that the PCs' vessel is washed away to a different shore, then resolution was not open.

But if the PCs' vessel is washed away to a different shore as a result of the GM establishing it as a consequence of a failed perilous journeys (or some such) check by the player it is? Why it matters whose hand rolls the dice?

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Yeah I guess I just think, when you say things like...

What kind of success do you think GNS is a tool for predicting? What are some examples of predictable failures?

Oh right. When I think about any model, I ask myself what we predict we will see given the model is true?

I think we can easily just grasp the nettle: GNS isn't predictive and therefore it can tell us nothing about what to do, avoid, or expect in our future game designs or play. It can only supply an interpretation and analysis of some objects of study that cannot be related to any future objects (no matter how similar in apparent type.)

Alternatively, we can take the other view: GNS can tell us something about future game designs and future play. For me that seems a very useful viewpoint, and it seems to be the view that many of the posts in this thread are predictated upon.

...then you don't seem to be using a "weak" meaning of "predict." You seem to be using a pretty strong one: "How does this theory teach us to construct games?" And the thing is, it doesn't. It doesn't even do so weakly.

"What kind of successes do you think GNS is a tool for predicting?" (and likewise failures) is why I pointed to things like "coining new phrases in English" or "writing good poems" or "cooking good French cuisine." As part of doing these things, you learn theories that are...not really "predictive" in any sense with regard to "success" or "failure." These bodies of theory, which contain both highly formal and highly informal elements, may kind of give us information about "what we will see given the model is true," but...because they've mostly been constructed in response to what is observed, that's a bit like saying that if I kept a daily schedule, that schedule would be "predictive" of my daily activities. Of course it would be--I wrote it so that it would remind me what my activities are supposed to be!

Likewise, I really don't think GNS does very much to tell us "what to do, avoid, or expect in our future games." It's a classification scheme--closer to a cladogram than a manual. At absolute best, it lets us consider in advance that some methods have been counter-productive, and others have been useful, but that's nowhere near the level of "kind[s ] of success...GNS is a tool for predicting." I would not ask a paleontologist to ask me what "success" or "failure" their models predict because "prediction" is not, and has never been, the purpose or intent. Classification, association, and the ways these things can enlighten us are the purposes and intents of these models, even though these are theories from a purely physical science. Likewise, things patterned after Campbell's "monomyth" (but recognizing that his actual project was deeply flawed and probably false at its root) have literally zero interest in predicting what stories will contain or predicting what story-elements will "succeed" or "fail," but rather "what are elements that stories frequently contain? How are these elements used? How prevalent is their use?"

The closest you can get to "prediction," in these models, is saying that there are (probabilistic) links between certain structures. E.g., if a particular unclassified dinosaur fossil appears to show feather impressions, then it is probable that you will also find other structures, such as lightened bones or certain types of dentition (or even a beak in some cases). If instead you find certain types of serration on the teeth, then you are probably looking at a carnivore, and will thus find other structures that support a carnivorous diet. Etc.

GNS is not meant, in any way, to provide guidance or instruction on the construction of games any more than a cladogram of known dinosaur fossils is meant to provide guidance or instruction on the construction of dinosaurs. Now, if we had sufficient command of genetics to be able to whip up creatures to our whim, then yes, a cladogram of dinosaurs could be a useful tool in the sense that it would show us structures that tend to go hand in hand (and thus, have tended to succeed in tandem with each other), but it could not really tell you much about whether a novel combination of traits would succeed (as in, survive and thrive in any given environment).

If someone asks you the question, "How should I make a new kind of sandwich?" it would be, formally speaking, an incorrect answer to say, "Well, these are ways other people have made sandwiches." What the person wants with that question is a guide that explains the causal relations between parts, the justification for choosing ingredient X or condiment Y (e.g., very few sandwiches would ever include sauerkraut or thousand island dressing, but reubens do, for particular reasons). GNS is not predictive in the sense of answering, "How should one build a game?" It is of some predictive value if your question is more in the sense of, "What structures can games use?", but only in the pretty limited sense that it was specifically designed to survey what things had been done and ask whether there were any visible gaps (with the rather specific intent of "we already know gap X exists, but we wish to articulate what it is and why it has been overlooked.")

 

[pemerton]

Well, because it doesn’t do that. The DM is still the final authority. Which is why this is buried in a paragraph in the DMG, not the PHB.

You keep saying this, even though I've quoted the page from the 4e PHB.

 

[pemerton]

I have done the scene framing, as I believe @pemerton has put it, but the reason the scene needs framing in the first place is because the Druid (jokingly, out of character) said "I need JEEEESUS!"

This is a clear example of the point I've made multiple times in this thread: at the heart of "story now" RPGing is not allocations of authority but rather the principles and expectations that guide the exercise of authority.

Whose ideas are expected to guide the GM in scene-framing - the GM's own, or the players'? When the players set goals that they have chosen (and not just from a menu provided by the GM as part of the GM's setting design), and the GM starts framing in response to those evinced goals, we have the beginning of "story now" RPGing.

 

[pemerton]

Players wanting to quest after a magic item. Or seeing "here be dragons" on a map and deciding to go there.

How is seeing "here be dragons" on a map that someone else wrote a player-authored quest?

 

[pemerton]

It was never really a big part of the game though and absolutely something that was 100% condemned by lots and lots of people. The idea that the Player could not only ask for something, but also EXPECT that that request would be honored is more than enough to send various people into fits. The whole "entitled player" schtick of the past twenty years is based entirely around the idea that players must never expect that their requests be accepted. They might be, they might not be, but, it's 100% up to the DM.

Heck, look at the absolute freak out you see when someone has the temerity to suggest that DM's allow various races into their setting, just because a player wants to play one.

I was going to make the same point, but your post saved me from doing so!

If the 4e advice on player-authored quests is so commonplace, then where are all the threads talking about player-authored quests in D&D play? Why is it so controversial to imagine a player deciding stuff about PC race (as you flag), or about their sister working for the mayor (as per another recent thread) or really anything at all?

The whole history and context of discussion around D&D play reveals that player-authored quests are not commonplace at all!