What is *worldbuilding* for?

[Bedrockgames]

I am certainly not suggesting [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] does not choose his adversaries, nor that I do mine. I am explaining that adversaries are introduced with regard to their salience in play, not as "gotcha" impossible foes or obstacles, which would be in direct opposition to the "fail forward" maxim. (And this, of course, is not to say that PCs do not fail in declared actions, do not face serious risks of death, etc. Failing forward and failure are not mutually exclusive!)
.

I realize you didn't specifically make this argument, but it has been suggested by others in other posts, other styles of play are not usually about 'playing gotcha' with adversary and obstacle placement. Just because a person isn't using fail forward or story now, it doesn't mean all the things they introduce are there to simply screw the players. Most GMs I know place things because they make sense to be there for some reason (i.e. this NPC really, really wants to protect his gold so he is going to place a clever and potentially lethal trap inside the main entrance to the vault). There are different points of view on how easy or hard that should be to figure and detect out in play. But if you are in a campaign where such a threat is hard to see, you know you are in such a campaign. You are not blind-sided when there is a lethal trap in the vault to the treasure, because you understand those are the kinds of threats that exist in this world (and you are probably not just going to walk straight into a vault).

 

[Imaro]

No matter how many times you write "irregardless" (and I've seen you use it a dozen times, at least), it is still not a word. Use "regardless" or "irrespective of" in its place. Grammar has no bearing on your argument, and I'm not trying to "take you down"; I am simply an English professor with just enough ingrained pedantry not to pass up an opportunity for education.

Thanks for the "education" but forum posting isn't formal writing so I think it'll be fine if I continue to use it, especially since the "word" has been in use since 1927 according to Merriam. Oh and technically not generally accepted it is in fact a word. Here you go teacher...

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/irregardless

In my game the default is the Moderate DC; I'm not choosing DC difficulty willy-nilly. If circumstances are particularly favorable or unfavorable for a check, resulting in an Easy or Hard DC, that is explicitly discussed. There are some circumstances that would call for an Easy or Hard DC as the default (one example is more complex SCs include one or more Hard checks), but, again, those are made clear to the players; they are not set to GM whim.

Ok now we are getting into your particular house rules but standard 4e let's the GM set the difficulty and none of it's outlined play procedures call for you to explicitly discuss said ruling with the players. You modify a game enough and you can get it to do anything.

I am certainly not suggesting @pemerton does not choose his adversaries, nor that I do mine. I am explaining that adversaries are introduced with regard to their salience in play, not as "gotcha" impossible foes or obstacles, which would be in direct opposition to the "fail forward" maxim. (And this, of course, is not to say that PCs do not fail in declared actions, do not face serious risks of death, etc. Failing forward and failure are not mutually exclusive!)

The red dragon doesn't have to be a "gotcha" impossible foe. Is talking, bribing, sneaking past it, etc... not options in Story Now? Even if for some reason the only possible choice they have is to leap head long into a battle with the dragon... I stated they have a slim chance to win... and couldn't they loose the battle and not fail forward in Story Now? So I'll ask again, is the GM's choice of adversaries a limiter on player agency in the way @pemerton defines it?

I can only address how I would handle this: In my game, if there were to be genre-defying elements, we, as a group, would have to have agreed upon them in advance of play, something like "Okay, we've decided to play a game focused on Bronze Age hunters faced with a new ice age who seek to discover a refuge for their people against the encroaching glaciers. But the human inhabitants of the world are actually descendents of aliens who crashed on the planet millenia ago, so some few relics of this ancient history may occasionally become part of play."

I wouldn't just add elements like this if they weren't agreed upon and didn't speak to group expectations in some way.

I know this isn't addressed to me but this really feels extremely limiting as a GM... I'm starting to realize that this playstyle, while great for those who enjoy it (and I could definitely see myself stealing some techniques from it) just doesn't deliver what I want out of GM'ing a game. In the same way that the players are free to control their characters I want a way to express my creativity that doesn't involve a committee decision to ok it. Can I ask in this style what exactly does the GM own (in the same way players own their characters)... it's not the world, it's not the setting, it's not the adversaries, it's not the genre... so what exactly is it? Or does the GM ultimately own nothing, have no outlet for his creativity that doesn't involve the other players approval whether implicitly or explicitly given?

 

[darkbard]

Thanks for the "education" but forum posting isn't formal writing so I think it'll be fine if I continue to use it, especially since the "word" has been in use since 1927 according to Merriam. Oh and technically not generally accepted it is in fact a word. Here you go teacher...

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/irregardless

No need to get snippy. You use the word the way you want to. I thought, though, that since you use it frequently you may wish to know the correct usage, and I hoped to correct you in a polite, even self-deprecating manner (see my playful self-teasing regarding pedantry).

Frequent misspellings and incorrect usages have long been included in dictionaries for use in reference. That doesn't make them correct usage, however.

Now back to your regularly scheduled discussion.

Here is what I wrote regarding the setting of DCs initially, and your response:

That's not a limit on player agency any more than the orc's A.C. is. GM judgment is still a thing in Story Now gaming!

That is a limit on player agency... If I know Bob's character sucks at stealth and I want to shape the story so that he can't sneak up easily, I use the hard DC. The only way it's not would be in a system like [MENTION=9200]Hawkeye[/MENTION] described Dungeon World to be... a set DC for all actions and only your attributes and abilities modify it.

As to your example about the Orc's AC... Let me pose this question, is choosing to stick a red dragon the characters only have a slim chance to beat at 1st level into an adventure... limiting their agency as [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] describes it?

That'sIf the GM frames the PCs into a meeting with such a dragon as the outcome of some failed check, (1) the GM is obliged to build off player cues, so they must have indicated a desire to encounter such a dragon for it to be salient, (2) the stakes would have been set prior to resolution, so if they fail the roll, they get what they bargain for, (3) red dragons can be made to be level appropriate foes even for first level characters in 4E, and (4) why would you presume such an encounter would be combat, and fight-to-the-death combat at that? More likely, such an outcome of some failed action would be the initiation of a skill challenge, perhaps to escape a threatening red dragon.

Now you ask:

The red dragon doesn't have to be a "gotcha" impossible foe. Is talking, bribing, sneaking past it, etc... not options in Story Now? Even if for some reason the only possible choice they have is to leap head long into a battle with the dragon... I stated they have a slim chance to win... and couldn't they loose the battle and not fail forward in Story Now? So I'll ask again, is the GM's choice of adversaries a limiter on player agency in the way @pemerton defines it?

It sure seems to me your example of the red dragon IS meant to be an example of the GM limiting player agency in the same manner as "rocks fall; everyone dies." I was the one suggesting other ways such a GM-placed foe could not be a limiting factor on player agency.

Ok now we are getting into your particular house rules but standard 4e let's the GM set the difficulty and none of it's outlined play procedures call for you to explicitly discuss said ruling with the players. You modify a game enough and you can get it to do anything.

As far as I can tell, both [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] and I run fairly straightforward 4E games in Story Now mode. [MENTION=82106]AbdulAlhazred[/MENTION] runs his own Story Now with a hack of 4E, which serves as the framework. 4E isn't explicitly a Story Now game, though it supports its play.

I know this isn't addressed to me but this really feels extremely limiting as a GM... I'm starting to realize that this playstyle, while great for those who enjoy it (and I could definitely see myself stealing some techniques from it) just doesn't deliver what I want out of GM'ing a game. In the same way that the players are free to control their characters I want a way to express my creativity that doesn't involve a committee decision to ok it. Can I ask in this style what exactly does the GM own (in the same way players own their characters)... it's not the world, it's not the setting, it's not the adversaries, it's not the genre... so what exactly is it? Or does the GM ultimately own nothing, have no outlet for his creativity that doesn't involve the other players approval whether implicitly or explicitly given?

I feel like I have plenty of creative outlet. My creativity is expressed through framing scenes and implementing new elements as the outcome of failed PC action declarations. To have agreed to run a stock Points of Light campaign, as just one example, doesn't feel limiting to me. I have a whole range of fantasy tropes at my disposal; I'm just going to do my best to bring those tropes to bear on PC interests and in accord with the limits of genre established by the group at the outset!

 

[Tony Vargas]

Just as an aside question: in a DM-driven game the DM can now and then introduce non-genre-convention stuff into the game e.g. a spaceship into a sword-and-sorcery setting. How could this be done (if at all) in story-now where the players can't declare out of genre and the DM has to stick with what the players are doing?

Wow, talk about 'bug vs feature.' Yes, D&D was a child of the 70s, with all the grace and dignity that implies. There's nothing in the rules of D&D per se, that 'allows' (or prevents) the DM from dropping a spaceship into what had otherwise been a very poorly-emulated High-Fantasy/S&S-sub-genre FRPG - indeed, Temple of the Frog did exactly that, nor was it alone.

If there's a table convention that you actually stick to one genre, that genre can be High Fantasy or S&S or Planetary Romance, or goofy Science-Fantasy. You just have to own up to it earlier. You can't bait-and switch, offering Tolkienesque High Fantasy and then delivering Sid&Marty-Kroft-esque science-fantasy.

That - and the reverse, for example doing story-now in 1e D&D - is only true if you take the view that the game/campaign/style of play is subservient to the system rather than the system being subservient to the game. It's always possible to make something work given enough kitbashing of the rules - it just sometimes takes more effort than it's really worth.

Whether your drop one system and try a new one, or extensive modify a system to make it work for your game/campaign/style of play, you're not 'making the system subservient to the game,' you're changing to a different system. By the same token, when you pick a system that works up-front, for the game/campaign/style of play you want, that's not making your style 'subservient to the system,' it's just doing some legwork to find a system that's a good fit, instead of a lot of design work to 'fix' a system to make it fit.

This is in fact one of my own pet peeves and always has been, when people use these terms interchangeably. It's annoying at the least, and adds greatly to confusion at the wosrt.

I'm surprised, because I'd expect you to be over on the immersion/first-person end of the spectrum.

But, yes, it bothers some and seem meaningless to others. Obviously if you say a character chooses a feat or a PC rolls the dice, you mean the player. Obviously if you say a player was turned to stone by a medusa, you mean that player's character. ;P

I can tell you, forcing Gygax's AD&D into "story now" service is not easy.

Forcing 1e AD&D into /any/ style, including Gygax's own quasi-adversarial 'skilled play' style, is not easy. It's just not an easy game no matter how you use it. It's like trying to spin circuit boards out of primordial sludge.

Trying to do dungeon crawling of the classic D&D variety would be impossible, or near enough to, using Cortex+ Heroic.

Telling a story of a dungeon crawl - the one dungeon crawl in decades of campaigns that made a good story when you retell it again & again, that is - would be quite possible, though, wouldn't it?

Of course you can introduce new rules if you want, and take out the rules that get in the way, but that doesn't show that any system can do anything; it shows that if you design the right system, it can do what you want.

Modding systems is design work, yes. I kinda don't want to admit that to myself, because I love to hide behind "I'm not a designer!"

 

[pemerton]

What if a player (intentionally or otherwise) forces you to introduce a fourth element - say, she tries to climb one of the cliffs along the defile, so now you have to worry about a Steep Cliff issue. What then?

If a player wants ihs/her PC to climb a cliff, that is either an action declaration to create an asset (along the lines of High Up the Cliff) or else mere colour.

If the GM thinks that Steep Cliffs could be an obstacle to creating such an asset, s/he can spend a d8 from the Doom Pool to establish that scene distinction, and then include it in the pool rolled to oppose the asset creation.

 

[pemerton]

Telling a story of a dungeon crawl - the one dungeon crawl in decades of campaigns that made a good story when you retell it again & again, that is - would be quite possible, though, wouldn't it?

I don't quite follow, so I'm going to give a literal response: classic dungeon crawling involves maps, movement rates, wandering monster checks, the GM having the capacity to establish hidden threats, etc.

Cortex+ Heroic uses none of those devices. You can see the contrast in my conversation with [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION] - no maps or minis, broad-brush scene distinctions, what would be tactical moves in a dungeon crawl being the establishment of assets by way of opposed checks in Cortex+, etc.

When the action in my current Cortex+ Fantasy game happened in a dungeon, one PC found a secret door (estabished a Secret Door asset); the PCs got teleported away by a Crypt Thing (the Doom Pool built up to 2d12, and I spent those to end the scene); the PCs deciphered mysterious sigils (I narrated a Mysterious Sigils scene distinction, and one of the players had his PC use that to establish something along the lines of an Information About the Dungeon asset); etc.

As a narrative, it was a dungeon crawl. But as a play experience, it was nothing like a classic dungeon crawl.

 

[Tony Vargas]

I don't quite follow...
As a narrative, it was a dungeon crawl. But as a play experience, it was nothing like a classic dungeon crawl.

After you've completed a classic dungeon crawl, those of you who survived could recount the narrative of it. If that narrative actually made a good story, you might very well be able to tell a similar story using an entirely different, more narrative-oriented system.

It's kinda a monkeys typing Shakespear thing. In a classic dungeon crawl, you put together all these elements of a possible story, with fairly arbitrary checks attached to them, and a lot of oddball gaming conventions, and, on rare occasions, they may all align in a way that creates a compelling story ("Story Later," I guess). You could use a different system to tell a story like that, or even, hypothetically, the same story. For instance, I could re-package the story of a successful dungeon crawl in a "Story First" style, and push/pull some players through it, generating about the same story for them. Similarly, by sheer coincidence, a "Story Now" group doing a story about a dungeon crawl using the same elements, might come up with the same story, too.

No?

 

[Lanefan]

All this talk of Burning Wheel lately (Luke Crane) must have my left middle finger confused with my right ring finger!

And here I was, thinking you were going all obscure Star Wars on us.

I can only address how I would handle this: In my game, if there were to be genre-defying elements, we, as a group, would have to have agreed upon them in advance of play, something like "Okay, we've decided to play a game focused on Bronze Age hunters faced with a new ice age who seek to discover a refuge for their people against the encroaching glaciers. But the human inhabitants of the world are actually descendents of aliens who crashed on the planet millenia ago, so some few relics of this ancient history may occasionally become part of play."

I wouldn't just add elements like this if they weren't agreed upon and didn't speak to group expectations in some way.

So, no opportunity to surprise the players with something out of left field. I understand the rationale, but still think it's a pity.

Lanefan

 

[darkbard]

So, no opportunity to surprise the players with something out of left field. I understand the rationale, but still think it's a pity.

Lanefan

There are still surprises aplenty; they're just not out of left field, as you say.

 

[Maxperson]

Thanks for the "education" but forum posting isn't formal writing so I think it'll be fine if I continue to use it, especially since the "word" has been in use since 1927 according to Merriam. Oh and technically not generally accepted it is in fact a word. Here you go teacher...

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/irregardless

To be fair, even that link says that it's not a generally accepted usage and that you should use regardless.