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Supposing D&D is gamist, what does that mean?
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<blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 8633975" data-attributes="member: 42582"><p>This isn't true.</p><p></p><p>I've already mentioned the Prince Valiant scenario The Crimson Bull. I'll mention it again. It's a published scenario that does not involve the GM establishing the PCs' dramatic needs.</p><p></p><p>Another published scenario of which the same is true is Robin Laws's The Demon of the Red Grove, in the HeroWars Narrator's Book. (I adapted this scnenario to 4e D&D.)</p><p></p><p>Another scenario that doesn't involve the GM establishing the PCs' dramatic needs, and that needed only one scene edit to work in Burning Wheel (as I also mentioned upthread) is the d20 module Maiden Voyage.</p><p></p><p>The fact that the majority of scenarios for D&D <em>do</em> presuppose the GM establishing the PCs' dramatic needs tells us something about mainstream D&D play, not about the published scenario form.</p><p></p><p>Upthread I mentioned the bounds of good taste. This is not what is at issue when (to quote myself) "social cues or signals or pressures, or there are overt directives in the rules of the game itself, . . . dictate answers or responses to questions of value that the fiction of the game might generate".</p><p></p><p>When such things are taking place, we don't have story now. Because we are not getting authorial contributions from the participant players that express their judgements by way of their play.</p><p></p><p>I'm not suggesting that there are not people who are fine with such cues, signals, pressures and directives. In fact I'm very confident that most RPGers are very happy with them! But for the same reason, I'm very confident that the majority of RPGers are not playing "story now".</p><p></p><p>Saving the kingdom is not changing the setting! Especially in context where the GM has a back-up/deus ex machina device ready to hand to make sure that if the PCs fail in their attempt to save the kingdom.</p><p></p><p>Confining the PCs' actions to villages, in a setting context in which it is established, or at least implied, that villages are a dime-a-dozen, is also a way of reducing the capacity of the players to change the setting via their play.</p><p></p><p>I'm sure there is D&D play going on somewhere where the players, via their play, have a large and lasting impact on the setting - on politics, religion, cosmology, etc. But again, all I can say is that I do not see a lot of evidence for it. Most GMing advice that I see that touches on this issue seems to be aimed at helping a GM minimise the impact of the players on the setting (using guards, or religious sanctions, to respond to certain behaviours; kings or nobles who won't dain to truck with mere adventurers; high level adventures where the basic story elements are no different from low level ones except that giants or dragons replace kobolds and gelatinous cubes). Where change <em>does</em> take place, it seems most often to be along pathways conceived of and opened up, or even encouraged, by the GM.</p><p></p><p>EDIT: This post is a good articulation of the point I was trying to make in the preceding paragraph:</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="pemerton, post: 8633975, member: 42582"] This isn't true. I've already mentioned the Prince Valiant scenario The Crimson Bull. I'll mention it again. It's a published scenario that does not involve the GM establishing the PCs' dramatic needs. Another published scenario of which the same is true is Robin Laws's The Demon of the Red Grove, in the HeroWars Narrator's Book. (I adapted this scnenario to 4e D&D.) Another scenario that doesn't involve the GM establishing the PCs' dramatic needs, and that needed only one scene edit to work in Burning Wheel (as I also mentioned upthread) is the d20 module Maiden Voyage. The fact that the majority of scenarios for D&D [i]do[/i] presuppose the GM establishing the PCs' dramatic needs tells us something about mainstream D&D play, not about the published scenario form. Upthread I mentioned the bounds of good taste. This is not what is at issue when (to quote myself) "social cues or signals or pressures, or there are overt directives in the rules of the game itself, . . . dictate answers or responses to questions of value that the fiction of the game might generate". When such things are taking place, we don't have story now. Because we are not getting authorial contributions from the participant players that express their judgements by way of their play. I'm not suggesting that there are not people who are fine with such cues, signals, pressures and directives. In fact I'm very confident that most RPGers are very happy with them! But for the same reason, I'm very confident that the majority of RPGers are not playing "story now". Saving the kingdom is not changing the setting! Especially in context where the GM has a back-up/deus ex machina device ready to hand to make sure that if the PCs fail in their attempt to save the kingdom. Confining the PCs' actions to villages, in a setting context in which it is established, or at least implied, that villages are a dime-a-dozen, is also a way of reducing the capacity of the players to change the setting via their play. I'm sure there is D&D play going on somewhere where the players, via their play, have a large and lasting impact on the setting - on politics, religion, cosmology, etc. But again, all I can say is that I do not see a lot of evidence for it. Most GMing advice that I see that touches on this issue seems to be aimed at helping a GM minimise the impact of the players on the setting (using guards, or religious sanctions, to respond to certain behaviours; kings or nobles who won't dain to truck with mere adventurers; high level adventures where the basic story elements are no different from low level ones except that giants or dragons replace kobolds and gelatinous cubes). Where change [i]does[/i] take place, it seems most often to be along pathways conceived of and opened up, or even encouraged, by the GM. EDIT: This post is a good articulation of the point I was trying to make in the preceding paragraph: [/QUOTE]
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