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

[FrogReaver]

And what can you tell us about how authorship works in the BitD inventory rules?

What kind of a question is this?

 

[Micah Sweet]

Where is the retcon? When was it established that the PC had no rope in their load-out?

Again, in a system like D&D (which many people here are using as a reference to contrast BitD), if you don't establish what you have at a time when you can get it during the game, you're out of luck. Obviously it doesn't work that way in BitD, and that's fine. But it doesn't mean everyone has to like it, and it doesn't feel good (and indeed feels like a retcon) to some.

 

[Ovinomancer]

Again, in a system like D&D (which many people here are using as a reference to contrast BitD), if you don't establish what you have at a time when you can get it during the game, you're out of luck. Obviously it doesn't work that way in BitD, and that's fine. But it doesn't mean everyone has to like it, and it doesn't feel good (and indeed feels like a retcon) to some.

Where is this in the rules?

 

[Malmuria]

Do you use "spell component pouches" in D&D?

Especially when spell components are things like dried crickets, or a wisp of hair, or 3 drops of crow's blood (made up examples). Does the wizard just chuck all that in their pouch? How on earth do they find the exact right component in 6 seconds?

 

[Malmuria]

Again, in a system like D&D (which many people here are using as a reference to contrast BitD), if you don't establish what you have at a time when you can get it during the game, you're out of luck. Obviously it doesn't work that way in BitD, and that's fine. But it doesn't mean everyone has to like it, and it doesn't feel good (and indeed feels like a retcon) to some.

In dnd, at least in classic/OSR dnd, purchasing items is part of the broader dungeoncrawl gameplay loop. Such that, a 10 foot pole is both a very helpful thing to have but also inconvenient to carry around. In practice, after the first few levels when characters have hirelings and/or a bag of holding, that aspect of the game is not as present (and adding adventuring gear to encumbrance is an optional rule in b/x). Arguably, 5e does away with this from level 1. Basically, 5e seems to say "you have adventuring stuff, don't worry about it too much." Meanwhile characters are walking around (and fighting!) with a great axe, a long bow, a sword, and heavy backpack strapped to various parts of their body in some way.

I'll say in Blades it doesn't feel like a "retcon" so much just because it's such an explicit part of play. It's very structured and there are costs and benefits of using flashbacks, for example. You can easily describe flashbacks as they would appear in a movie.

 

[pemerton]

Nobody is saying that BinD has an objectively bad loadout system, they're saying they don't care for it. Why is this such a problem that is seems to cause hostility?

I don't care what people play, or enjoy. I'm only engaging with incorrect descriptions of the system.

Heck, I have never played BitD and doubt that I ever will. The genre doesn't really engage me, and I've got some doubts about whether I would enjoy the mechanics. But describing its load-out system as involving "retcons" or things "popping into existence" when it obviously doesn't; and drawing ostensible contrasts between it and D&D which don't actually obtain; seems worth calling out, in a thread that is a discussion about how RPG mechanics work, what they are for, and how they relate to the shared fiction.

The principle I stated that you accused of special pleading was, "fictional situations shouldn't be resolved via player authorship" - with the acknowledgment that for RPG play there are certain player authorships that are necessary for playing the game and that this isn't intended to eliminate those. Being able to pull out a knife that wasn't already established in the fiction isn't a necessary player authorship for playing an RPG. Thus, it's not special pleading.

I've played D&D games where the characters have needed strips of cloths, and so the players describe their PCs tearing up their shirts/tunics, although we have never established anything about what the PCs are wearing except (often by mere implication) that they are clothed.

I've played D&D games where we have, in the course of play when it becomes relevant, established that a PC has a scabbard that goes with their blade.

In a CoC game, it would not be remarkable for a player, who needs a length of string, to declare that their PC removes the lace from a shoe, although again the table has never established anything about what the PCs are wearing except (again, mostly by implication - ie they are walking around the streets of 1920 American towns) that they are clothed. Of course, it goes without saying that if a PC takes the laces out of their shoe, their player can't retcon that they were wearing (say) slippers all along.

In my view, establishing in the course of play, when it becomes salient, that a character is carrying this or that piece of equipment is incredibly common. As well as the sort of thing I've described, there is the example @Ovinomancer gave, of changing gp totals and equipment lists after it has been established that the PCs have left town, with the rationale for the change being that my PC would have done that during their downtime. I also think that that is pretty common in D&D play.

 

[Micah Sweet]

In dnd, at least in classic/OSR dnd, purchasing items is part of the broader dungeoncrawl gameplay loop. Such that, a 10 foot pole is both a very helpful thing to have but also inconvenient to carry around. In practice, after the first few levels when characters have hirelings and/or a bag of holding, that aspect of the game is not as present (and adding adventuring gear to encumbrance is an optional rule in b/x). Arguably, 5e does away with this from level 1. Basically, 5e seems to say "you have adventuring stuff, don't worry about it too much." Meanwhile characters are walking around (and fighting!) with a great axe, a long bow, a sword, and heavy backpack strapped to various parts of their body in some way.

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I'll say in Blades it doesn't feel like a "retcon" so much just because it's such an explicit part of play. It's very structured and there are costs and benefits of using flashbacks, for example. You can easily describe flashbacks as they would appear in a movie.

I'm sure it doesn't feel that way in Blades. For someone used to D&D, where you buy stuff and don't have stuff that you didn't buy, it can feel weird and potentially off-putting. To each their own. Also, it has been mentioned that Blades is designed to feel like a story, with narrative mechanics to that effect. I'm sure the load out system helps with that feel, but again, to someone else used to many versions of D&D where creating a story together, with mechanical aid, is not the explicit goal of the game, it can feel weird and potentially off-putting.

It really is a different strokes situation.

And for the record, I don't use component bags. For me it is more immersive to use the actual components.

 

[pemerton]

What I would find cartoonish is a player declaring they had a previously unestablished large or bulky item when their previous activities would have been hampered or even prevented had we all known they had it on them.

For example if a player character scaled a cliff side then squeezed through some vents to enter a room, then noticed they needed a ladder to reach the security cameras. It would bother me for the player to declare they had a ladder on them the whole time.

The way Blades accounts for this is that you have to choose the amount of your load at the beginning the session. And if you choose a heavy load (6 slots), you are encumbered for the whole session even before you choose what those items are, so it would come into play in situations where being encumbered would matter.

Thank you as well. Not as bad as I thought previously. So do some items take multiple slots?

Given your admitted unfamiliarity with the rules of BitD, why did you assume that it would not have some mechanism to avoid the absurd thing that you envisage in the first of your posts that I've quoted?

This is @Ovinomancer's point, as I understand it: you have made assumptions without warrant.

What kind of a question is this?

Well, if you can't talk about how the BitD work rules, what is your basis for explaining what principles they do or don't conform to, or what problems you do or don't have with the authorship they permit?

If, like @RhaezDaevan, you're just making up your own idea of how they work, and then analysing the thing you've made up, what do you think the value of your contributions is?

I'm sure it doesn't feel that way in Blades. For someone used to D&D, where you buy stuff and don't have stuff that you didn't buy, it can feel weird and potentially off-putting.

In BitD you have to acquire stuff and carry it.

Again, in a system like D&D (which many people here are using as a reference to contrast BitD), if you don't establish what you have at a time when you can get it during the game, you're out of luck.

I've posted examples, from completely mainstream D&D play, that contradict what you say here. So has @Ovinomancer.

And in BitD it is established that you have some stuff: you load up with a certain volume/quantity of gear.

To give another example: when you play D&D, do you establish how much wood, leather, metal etc is on the shield your PC buys? What length of leather is available by taking the straps of a character's armour? But all these things can come up from time to time. When your PC buys their fresh rations, what food are they carrying? Do they have the herbs that Sam Gamgee wanted when he was cooking his coneys? Or will they have to go and search for them, hence running the risk of encountering warriors on their mumaks?

 

[Thomas Shey]

I think to compare things people have by implication with things they may or may not have and nothing prior to the situation suggests one way or another is a little disingenuous.

 

[pemerton]

I think to compare things people have by implication with things they may or may not have and nothing prior to the situation suggests one way or another is a little disingenuous.

I assume this is addressed to me?

My character, in BitD, loads up on (say) 3 slots of useful gear. How does that fail to suggest that they might have useful gear?