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

[Ovinomancer]

Personally I find it easier to think mostly in simple task resolution terms. And yes, in sometimes this means that your success does not do much, except perhaps net some information about what is not there (you successfully search for secret doors, but there aren't any here, so what your success gains is the knowledge about the absence of secret doors) or even in some rare situations make a situation worse (you succeed at destroying a supporting pillar... causing the ceiling to collapse on you.) And to me this is perfectly fine.

There is 100% nothing at all wrong with wanting a good sim, process or otherwise. Many of the PC games I really enjoy are pure process sim. I don't want to run a process sim, because that's a huge amount of work, but I enjoy one well done.

 

[pemerton]

As you are working from the Basic primer, that leaves you as I predicted with missing pieces. The salient 5e game text is the whole of Core - PHB, DMG, and MM together.

The text quoted from the PHB by @Campbell is, as I noted, the same in effect as that which I quoted from the Basic PDF.

You're now saying that you don't follow the processes set out in the 5e rules. OK. But I'm at a loss as to what processes you do follow.

That is not what I am saying. I am saying that to be DM-curated entails that system and DM matters. As DM, I commit myself to being constrained by the game rules. Knock works, for example, it's not up to me to force the Arcane Trickster to roll some dice.

I quoted the processes. @Campbell quoted the processes. It is clear that, if those processes are applied, the presence or absence of the desired documents in the safe is determined by the GM's authorship of their notes, not as an outcome of a fortune resolution process.

Related to that: the players can't, of their own accord, decide that what is at stake in searching a safe is whether or not their PCs will find the documents they are looking for. The GM has authority over that, following from the GM's authority over the content of their notes.

Is the process that I quoted - which refers to the GM making maps and notes, establishing hazards and paths, etc, the one that you follow? Or not? From your posts to date I can't tell.

If they cast it, a knock spell allows your players to secure the resolution they want at the cost of a spell slot and a complication, i.e. a loud noise audible out to 300 feet. Can you say exactly what problem you see with that?

A 2nd level spell slot is not a significant cost at many levels of play; the closet analogue in 4e D&D would be an encounter power. The complication seems to be relevant in some contexts but not others.

I don't think the game is designed or balanced around 2nd level spells automatically resolving a situation in the players' favour. You are the first person I have ever encountered to suggest that sort of approach to 5e D&D.

When I read the questions you ask, they seem indicative of grasping the text in a way that I don't find fruitful or necessitated. You then challenge me to explain away the difficulties you encounter as a result of grasping the text that way.


What brought your players to this safe? Why does it figure in your play?


What is the situation? What did your players describe doing?

I don't really understand why you are answering my questions with questions.

In Burning Wheel, or in Cortex+ Heroic, resolution of searching in the safe is conflict resolution: success finds the documents; failure is to be narrated by the GM in light of relevant considerations for framing and consequences.

In Classic Traveller, the location of the safe would be Streetwise, which is conflict resolution (though as I noted upthread, there is no rule for how to narrate failure; I tend to follow AW norms). Actually opening the safe would be task resolution, but the prior Streetwise check would establish that it has the stuff in it.

A 4e skill challenge would be similar to Classic Traveller: Streetwise (or History, etc) to find the relevant safe; Thievery (or an appropriate ritual) to open it.

In Prince Valiant, the GM is assumed to have prepped this sort of material and so typically it would be task resolution. Though the most recent time something like this came up, the players conceived of the thing they wanted to find (it wasn't a safe, it was a spiritual anchor for an undead lord) and then spent a Storyteller Certificate to Find Something Hidden. I would say that this feature of Prince Valiant is consistent with its focus on situation rather than setting; in a sense it's "cheap" for the players to find whatever it is they want (the secret place, the secret information) because that won't be the answer to their problem, but rather just something that allows them to engage the situation in a new way.

I don't have answers to your questions in the context of 5e play as I don't play 5e D&D. Hence why I asked you about your methods. I am not asking you to "explain away difficulties". I'm just asking you what your procedures of play are. In this thread, and others - indeed, in this very post - I've explained the procedures I use in various RPGs. Presumably it's possible to explain the procedures one uses to play 5e D&D.

EDIT to respond to this further post:

It's then up to each group how they play it. One group might conduct a kind of objective-free, exploratory play (some sort of setting-tourism). Another might conduct a railroad (characters may have presumed objectives, but players don't get to say what those are). A third still might play as I advocate, where we reached this safe because it matters to the players' objectives.

<snip>

The rule that you only call for a roll when there are meaningful consequences means that you must decide on those consequences before the roll. It's not - fail the roll and make whatever up - it's what are we rolling for?

We reached this safe - how? Who decided it is part of the shared fiction? Using what principles? What is the framing?

In Classic Traveller, for instance, the conflict resolution character of Streetwise checks means that it will be the safe with the documents in it. Are you saying that 5e works this way too?

And who is the you in "you must decide on those consequences"? The GM? The players? Table consensus? Who has to tell whom? What principles govern all this?

The answers to those in, say, Burning Wheel are clear: the GM chooses failure consequences, the player success consequences. The player has to be express about intent as well as task. The core rules say the GM has to be express about failure, but Luke Crane in his Adventure Burner commentary tells us that he often leaves the failure consequences implicit, and I take the same approach in my GMing. The player can follow whatever principles they like in setting their intent, but the game strongly incentivises engaging Beliefs. For the GM's part, the narration of failure consequences absolutely should engage Beliefs, reflecting but denying or twisting the player's intent.

Are you saying that this is how you play 5e D&D? I'm assuming not, because of your posts upthread about following from what is established in the fiction. But as I said, I can't really tell.

 

[Thomas Shey]

That thing is that the difference between High Concept Simulation and Story Now play might actually be subtle to an outside observer but huge to the folks playing.

As long as that's "might be huge to those playing" I agree with this. As I've noted before, the GDS dramatists considered both approaches just part of their toolkit, and didn't seem to find one on the whole preferable to the other. So Story Now may seem extremely distinct to some people using it from other techniques (Campbell clearly finds it so), but it hasn't always seems like that to even people using it in a less formal way.

 

[pemerton]

if your 'concept' relies on heavy genre logic and dramatic things happening at 'appropriate' moments etc, then some sort of no-myth setup will probably cause way less issues, and conflict rather than task resolution approach would probably work better too.

At this point your play will probably drift from simulationism to story now.

The point of the prep-and-task-resolution, rather than no-myth-and-conflict-resolution, is to locate the responsibility for delivering the desired play somewhere other than in the actual process of play itself.

After writing the previous two paragraphs I saw @Manbearcat's post 1933. Here's my take on Fate, prompted by his post: it presents itself as fortune resolution but it's actually much closer to drama resolution (with Fate points as the currency spent to secure drama privileges). Thus if anyone cares enough, they can resolve the conflict in their favour without having to really stake anything. (Similar to what I said about the Knock spell in 5e D&D.) I think this is what makes it High Concept simulationism rather than Story Now.

(And I'll apologise to @Aldarc - the previous paragraph is probably a bit crude in its picture of Fate, but I hope not so crude as to fail utterly at conveying the difference from (say) Burning Wheel or Apocalypse World.)

 

[clearstream]

It was a hypothetical example. Suppose that the safe is something that was keyed on the map (and not put there for the PCs’ needs), or that the two consequences are consequence A and consequence B. Is the purpose of the roll just to decide A or B?

Sorry, I'm not sure what you are getting at here.

However, let’s assume one of your examples. Suppose the party attempts to open the safe with the purpose of obtaining the treasure inside for the purpose of resurrecting their friend, and they fail. Is it now impossible to try again to get at that treasure? Can the barbarian smash the safe open, or the artificer apply some concoction to damage the safe such that it opens? I assume yes based on your discussion re: knock, assuming retries are possible.

Can you say what meaningful consequences of failure you are thinking of here, other than time taken? if it's just time taken, then sure, they get it open eventually somehow. That's a given.

Also, returning back to the hypothetical. I suggested assuming that it was just something keyed. You suggested that it serves some purpose for the PCs in your examples. Who decides that?

Do you mean, who decides whether it is map-and-key play or players pursue their own objectives?

You’ve already indicated that this approach is not Story Now nor conflict resolution, so would the DM need to recognize the need and put in place the necessary objectives to meet it? For example, the party wants to resurrect their friend, so the DM decides the funds can be found in a safe, which the adventure is then about finding an opening.

Rather I think the party start snooping around looking for a safe that could contain the necessary funds. Say they're in a large city, in previous play it might have been established there is a Merchant's Guild and so the players might feel that there could well be a safe in there and take steps to figure out if that's true and how they can get to it. The DM is answering their questions, which might well author elements of the world that were previously unknown. Those elements should be consistent with what is known.

I'm not aiming for story now here, in case there is doubt. So the questions answered here are orthogonal to my assessment that 5th edition is consequences-resolution. I follow an approach of asymmetric but equal roles. Suppose there just is no safe already established in our fiction or game state? Then we figure out in our conversation - playfully - whether it makes sense to have one.

 

[pemerton]

Personally I find it easier to think mostly in simple task resolution terms. And yes, in sometimes this means that your success does not do much, except perhaps net some information about what is not there (you successfully search for secret doors, but there aren't any here, so what your success gains is the knowledge about the absence of secret doors) or even in some rare situations make a situation worse (you succeed at destroying a supporting pillar... causing the ceiling to collapse on you.) And to me this is perfectly fine.

I assume that the bolded bit, when it comes about, will be the result of what the GM decided to put in their notes. (Or if they are improvising, what they extrapolated from their notes and their sense of the setting logic.)

This is precisely the privileged authorship that Vincent Baker refers to. To you, it is fine. In the blog of his I was quoting from, he doesn't like it because it undermines the particular sort of collaboration he is aspiring to. The key point for me is simply that we can all agree that it is occurring.

 

[pemerton]

I think the party start snooping around looking for a safe that could contain the necessary funds. Say they're in a large city, in previous play it might have been established there is a Merchant's Guild and so the players might feel that there could well be a safe in there and take steps to figure out if that's true and how they can get to it. The DM is answering their questions, which might well author elements of the world that were previously unknown. Those elements should be consistent with what is known.

I've bolded one part of your post, and underlined another.

The bolded bit could happen in Burning Wheel, in Classic Traveller, in Marvel Heroic RP or a fantasy Cortex+ Heroic variant, in Torchbearer, in Apocalypse World (make it a hardhold rather than a city), in 4e D&D, even in Prince Valiant though that's a bit less likely.

The underlined bit is not part of the process in Marvel Heroic RP/Cortex+ Heroic. In Burning Wheel or Torchbearer, it is part of the process only in the sense that the players can frame those questions as Wises or other sorts of knowledge/research tests, which require the GM to say stuff depending on success or failure. In AW the asking and answering of questions is a process disciplined by the rules, and subject to the same soft/hard move structure as the rest of the game. A 4e skill challenge can play like BW/TB, or a bit like AW, or some mix of both - but with the GM being obliged to honour individual successes while also moving the fiction towards resolution of the situation.

Classic Traveller tends to elide the whole of the underlined bit into a single Streetwise check.

Prince Valiant has no clear approach to this. It's not really it's thing to do setting rather than situation-focused play.

The 5e Basic rules spell out a way of doing the underlined bit, as I have posted upthread: map-and-key, notes-based resolution. I am still basically at a loss as to whether that is the technique you use, or whether you do something else.

I'm not aiming for story now here, in case there is doubt. So the questions answered here are orthogonal to my assessment that 5th edition is consequences-resolution. I follow an approach of asymmetric but equal roles.

This addition to your post reinforces my impression that you are engaged in exploratory play, with the GM taking responsibility for producing the material that is explored (either via notes or via improvisation). I don't see how it is differing from John Harper's diagram, or from Vincent Baker's description of the GM enjoying "privileged authorship". (I know you assert the roles are equal, but I'm not seeing what this is adding to the description of them as asymmetric.)

 

[Crimson Longinus]

I assume that the bolded bit, when it comes about, will be the result of what the GM decided to put in their notes. (Or if they are improvising, what they extrapolated from their notes and their sense of the setting logic.)

Yes, it often would be. Though it also could be that the the character simply decides to do something which is not particularly helpful, but outcome of which is still uncertain and we nevertheless want to determine whether the 'task' succeeds.

This is precisely the privileged authorship that Vincent Baker refers to. To you, it is fine. In the blog of his I was quoting from, he doesn't like it because it undermines the particular sort of collaboration he is aspiring to. The key point for me is simply that we can all agree that it is occurring.

Yeah, sure. I don't think it is particularly controversial that in a traditional GM-curated style the GM has pretty big role in authorship of the fiction. It just gets contentious when this is phrased in way that implies some sort of passivity and lack of contribution on the part of the players. Deciding the actions of the main characters of the story is still significant and important contribution, even if the GM is the one determining what's in the treasure chest etc.

 

[pemerton]

I don't think it is particularly controversial that in a traditional GM-curated style the GM has pretty big role in authorship of the fiction.

I've participated in threads where this is extremely contentious. Or at least where it has been extremely contentious to suggest that any smaller role is feasible.

 

[Aldarc]

After writing the previous two paragraphs I saw @Manbearcat's post 1933. Here's my take on Fate, prompted by his post: it presents itself as fortune resolution but it's actually much closer to drama resolution (with Fate points as the currency spent to secure drama privileges). Thus if anyone cares enough, they can resolve the conflict in their favour without having to really stake anything. (Similar to what I said about the Knock spell in 5e D&D.) I think this is what makes it High Concept simulationism rather than Story Now.

(And I'll apologise to @Aldarc - the previous paragraph is probably a bit crude in its picture of Fate, but I hope not so crude as to fail utterly at conveying the difference from (say) Burning Wheel or Apocalypse World.)

It's also worth keeping in mind that the primary way that players (re-)gain Fate points is through the GM invoking their Trouble, which often invites dramatic conflict and complications. Yes, a player can spend a Fate point to turn down an invocation of their Trouble, but it comes at the cost of their ability to lean into their more favorable aspects later. That said, Fate is a game that very much emphasizes knowing the stakes of the consequences when rolling.

I don't disagree with you, however, that Fate is a High Concept Sim game.