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What Single Thing Would You Eliminate
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<blockquote data-quote="Xetheral" data-source="post: 8238512" data-attributes="member: 6802765"><p>Thanks for the detailed reply! I think I have a better sense now of where you're coming from. I'm going to start collapsing the different topics we were discussing into a holistic response--if I miss replying to something you'd like a specific response to, please don't hesitate to ask. Also, there's going to be some repetition of points we've previously discussed as I try to summarize my current understanding and how I got there.</p><p></p><p>First, I think I've identified some of the stylistic and perspective differences that were making it harder to understand each other. Most notably, when I think of my character's "goals", my first thought is the long-term goals that drive them to adventure in the first place. Meeting those goals tends to take the character out of play! So, as a player, even as I make decisions that bring the character towards their goals, I am hoping for progress, rather than for the possibility of outright success. This usually isn't a practical issue, as my characters' long-term goals tend to be outside the scope of a given campaign. But I think this perspective on goals contributed to why I was having a hard time understanding your focus on aligning the player's goals with the character's goals. At a much more micro level, I agree that it is advantageous to have a game where the players' and characters' immediate objectives align, so that the player isn't trying to sabotage their character (with the agreed-upon caveat for appropriately making decisions to exhibit flaws and disadvantages, even when those don't advance micro-level goals).</p><p></p><p>Relatedly, if I remember correctly from previous discussions, my preferred playstyle tends to highlight strategic-level decisions, whereas yours tend to highlight lower-level decision-making. (With "high" and "low" referring strictly to scale, and not in any way meant to imply that one is intrinsically more important than the other.) The choices of which adventures to undertake or objectives pursue is critical at my table, because those are the decisions that most strongly determine the PCs' impact on the game world, and highlighting how the setting changes in response to the PCs' choices is a (if not THE) major meta-theme of almost all of my campaigns. Since all of the options on offer (including hooks dangled by the DM, or PC-initiated options stemming from the pursuit of the PCs' long-term goals) are within-scope for the campaign, the idea of using XP to incentivize some strategic choices over others didn't make much sense to me--why would I be dangling hooks that I wanted to disincentivize the PCs from selecting? By contrast, in a playstyle with a focus on lower-level decision-making, where the important PC decisions are of the "how do we address our immediate circumstances?" variety, I can see how it might be desirable to incentivize certain solutions/responses over others, at least if the campaign is strongly themed to focus on certain types of action (e.g., as you mentioned, a campaign themed around overcoming foes, or a campaign themed around the acquisition of loot.)</p><p></p><p>That leads to the next of the stylistic differences that I think are making mutual understanding harder. I tend to prefer (both as a DM and as a player) campaigns that are <em>not</em> strongly themed to focus on certain types of action over others. I prefer when all options are always on the table, and for the choice of tactics to be determined by the PCs' values and their strategy for achieving their strategic goals with their available resources, rather than being influenced by a micro-level campaign theme.</p><p></p><p>If I'm understanding you correctly, it sounds like you instead prefer more tightly focused campaigns that provide both IC (via in-game rewards) and OOC (via XP) incentives for picking strategies and tactics in line with the micro-level theme of the campaign. If so, it now makes sense to me why you would want those IC and OOC incentives to be in harmony--it would indeed would be counterproductive to have the micro-level IC and OOC incentives in conflict!</p><p></p><p>Am I understanding you correctly? And if so, does it make sense how, in a campaign whose themes are all at a much larger/broader scope, there isn't a need/desire to incentivize certain micro-level decisions over others, either IC <em>or</em> OOC?</p><p></p><p>I'm tempted to respond in detail on the subtopic of ludonarrative harmony vs dissonance, but I think I'm going to save that for another thread to avoid going any more off-topic. <img src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7" class="smilie smilie--sprite smilie--sprite1" alt=":)" title="Smile :)" loading="lazy" data-shortname=":)" /> If my analysis above is on-point, however, then I would note that I suspect that the difference in scales at which we approach our campaigns likely also influences what we see as harmony vs dissonance.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Xetheral, post: 8238512, member: 6802765"] Thanks for the detailed reply! I think I have a better sense now of where you're coming from. I'm going to start collapsing the different topics we were discussing into a holistic response--if I miss replying to something you'd like a specific response to, please don't hesitate to ask. Also, there's going to be some repetition of points we've previously discussed as I try to summarize my current understanding and how I got there. First, I think I've identified some of the stylistic and perspective differences that were making it harder to understand each other. Most notably, when I think of my character's "goals", my first thought is the long-term goals that drive them to adventure in the first place. Meeting those goals tends to take the character out of play! So, as a player, even as I make decisions that bring the character towards their goals, I am hoping for progress, rather than for the possibility of outright success. This usually isn't a practical issue, as my characters' long-term goals tend to be outside the scope of a given campaign. But I think this perspective on goals contributed to why I was having a hard time understanding your focus on aligning the player's goals with the character's goals. At a much more micro level, I agree that it is advantageous to have a game where the players' and characters' immediate objectives align, so that the player isn't trying to sabotage their character (with the agreed-upon caveat for appropriately making decisions to exhibit flaws and disadvantages, even when those don't advance micro-level goals). Relatedly, if I remember correctly from previous discussions, my preferred playstyle tends to highlight strategic-level decisions, whereas yours tend to highlight lower-level decision-making. (With "high" and "low" referring strictly to scale, and not in any way meant to imply that one is intrinsically more important than the other.) The choices of which adventures to undertake or objectives pursue is critical at my table, because those are the decisions that most strongly determine the PCs' impact on the game world, and highlighting how the setting changes in response to the PCs' choices is a (if not THE) major meta-theme of almost all of my campaigns. Since all of the options on offer (including hooks dangled by the DM, or PC-initiated options stemming from the pursuit of the PCs' long-term goals) are within-scope for the campaign, the idea of using XP to incentivize some strategic choices over others didn't make much sense to me--why would I be dangling hooks that I wanted to disincentivize the PCs from selecting? By contrast, in a playstyle with a focus on lower-level decision-making, where the important PC decisions are of the "how do we address our immediate circumstances?" variety, I can see how it might be desirable to incentivize certain solutions/responses over others, at least if the campaign is strongly themed to focus on certain types of action (e.g., as you mentioned, a campaign themed around overcoming foes, or a campaign themed around the acquisition of loot.) That leads to the next of the stylistic differences that I think are making mutual understanding harder. I tend to prefer (both as a DM and as a player) campaigns that are [I]not[/I] strongly themed to focus on certain types of action over others. I prefer when all options are always on the table, and for the choice of tactics to be determined by the PCs' values and their strategy for achieving their strategic goals with their available resources, rather than being influenced by a micro-level campaign theme. If I'm understanding you correctly, it sounds like you instead prefer more tightly focused campaigns that provide both IC (via in-game rewards) and OOC (via XP) incentives for picking strategies and tactics in line with the micro-level theme of the campaign. If so, it now makes sense to me why you would want those IC and OOC incentives to be in harmony--it would indeed would be counterproductive to have the micro-level IC and OOC incentives in conflict! Am I understanding you correctly? And if so, does it make sense how, in a campaign whose themes are all at a much larger/broader scope, there isn't a need/desire to incentivize certain micro-level decisions over others, either IC [I]or[/I] OOC? I'm tempted to respond in detail on the subtopic of ludonarrative harmony vs dissonance, but I think I'm going to save that for another thread to avoid going any more off-topic. :) If my analysis above is on-point, however, then I would note that I suspect that the difference in scales at which we approach our campaigns likely also influences what we see as harmony vs dissonance. [/QUOTE]
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