Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Manbearcat" data-source="post: 8244469" data-attributes="member: 6696971">Yup.  D&D 4e follows this same regime however.  The decision-point > action declaration > action resolution and the resource scheduling and x/y axis relationship of PC prowess (broad competency and significantly bounded, by historical comparison, "Y capability") was considerably smoothed out and with parity.  This, along with the deep synergies and encoded amplification of Team PC with/by each party member, the potency and synergies of Team Monster, the stakes of the noncombat conflict resolution framework created a continuous "beefy decision-point" experience like Game 1 (a PC going down in a combat could trivially snowball and a resource misallocation/lack of Skilled Play with the fiction in Skill Challenges could lead to a "Story Loss Condition").  When you include the Quest System + the PC build Flags of Theme > Paragon Path > Epic Destiny and intent-based Fail Forward guiding play, it is why those of us who loved the game put it in the "Game 1" category above.  The collection of the above is why the people who liked it for Protagonistic, Story Now play liked it.  It is also why those who wanted their D&D to be of the "strategic management of the heap" + "Y-axis intensive" (spikey in terms of decision-point weight with big power plays leading to comparatively huge changes on the gamestate) variety of Skilled Play with a lot of "necessarily" thematically neutral/throttled back moments of play because (as they would put it) "if everything is cool/high stakes, then nothing is cool/high stakes" (which I fundamentally do not agree with that formulation in theory or in practice) hated it.Its also why those GMs who needed to heavy deploy Force to ensure the trajectory of play (because they were running Adventure Paths with structured, node-based narratives) hated the game because the player/table-facing mechanics, the transparent machinery of play, and the deeply embedded thematics and player control (all the stuff mentioned above but also the Magic Item System) made it extraordinarily difficult for GMs to control the trajectory of play.And a few other types (eg Sandbox GMs would have to rewire their brain around the Blades in the Dark "subjective, orbiting around the PCs Sandbox" regime...or they would have to do the kinds of things [USER=386]@LostSoul[/USER] did with D&D 4e to create a more BECMI/RC Hexcrawl) didn't like it for different, but related reasons.[HR][/HR]On your last point, there is an incredibly fraught tightrope that a GM has to walk when constraint is loosened, because when system doesn't structurally reify that Protagonism, there are dozens of ways, both real and perceived, that Protagonism can either outright be lost or feel like its lost.Here is one example of how loosened GM constraint + heavy requirement in action resolution mediation + lack of structural reification of Protagonism can lead to either feeling Deprotagonized or actually being Deprotagonized:* I make move x against obstacle y because I feel that expresses my thematic interests and will put my dramatic need in sharp focus in this conflict or the ensuing conflict.  The GM is neither constrained to follow the rules nor to oblige this move.  They're also not constrained to forbid it.  Their action resolution mediation could be extrapolation based on naturalistic, causal logic...it could be genre logic...it could be some "rule of cool/storytelling impetus"...it could be some indecipherable alchemy of 2 or all 3 of the above.  GM says yes?GM says no?GM says roll the dice but due to their heavy mediation requirements, my chances of realizing my intent could be 50 % likely or 150 % more likely at 75 % (because GM a might choose Hard DC while the next might feel its a Really Hard DC)?  And what if my PC doesn't have the ability to martial resources to overwrite/influence/control that 25 % spread (like the aforementioned Diviner's Portent)?My volitional capacity in this situation may actually be lost.  Or, simply because of the lack of certitude that comes with structural reification (and the fact that the lack of GM constraint + lack of table-facing machinery is the volitional force here), it may actually be there, but it may just feel like it isn't there.  It is a tricky pickle which is made profoundly worse by the deep fallibility of human Perception Error and Perception Bias.  A player may feel like they were Deprotagonized in just such a situation before...maybe a few times.  When in reality, they were not...but now they're working off of tainted priors so their working model for what is happening is askew!</blockquote>

Verification