# Players choose what their PCs do . . .



## pemerton

The function of players in RPGing is often described as _deciding what their PCs do_. But this can be quite ambiguous.

A classic article on the analysis of actions (Donald Davidson, "Actions, Reasons, and Causes" (1963)) gives the following example:

I flip the switch, turn on the light, and illuminate the room. Unbeknownst to me I also alert a prowler to the fact that I am home. Here I need not have done four things, but only one, of which four descriptions have been given.​
In RPGing, I think it's a big deal who gets to decide what descriptions of the PCs' actions are true, and how.

For instance, suppose that my ability to decide what descriptions are true of my PC's actions is confined to very "thin" descriptions focused on the character's bodily movements, like _I attack the orc with my sword_ or _I wink at the maiden_. Playing that game will produce a very different experience from one in which I can decide that the following description is true of my PC's actions: _I kill the orc with my sword_ or _I soften the heart of the maiden with a wink_.

The same point can be made in relation to success on checks: if succeeding at a check makes a description such as _I find what I was looking for in the safe_ true, that game will produce a different experience from one in which it makes true only a description such as _I open the safe_, with the description of my action in terms of _I find X in the safe_ remaining something for someone else - eg the GM - to decide.

This example shows how it is possible (i) for it to be true that _the players choose what their PCs do_ - under a certain, fairly thin or confined sort of description - and (ii) for there to be fudge-free checks and yet (iii) for it also to be the case that _the GM decides everything significant that happens_ - ie it is the GM who gets to establish the richer, wider, consequence-laden descriptions of what the PCs do.

I think that a failure to recognise this point makes a lot of discussions of railroading, "player agency" less productive or insightful than they might be.

What do others think about who does, or should, get to establish the truth of descriptions of PC actions, and how?


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## Ovinomancer

That it's a according to preference.

Firstly, I agree with the way you've presented this -- so no issues at all with how you've explained the difference in approach.  That said, the choice is really a matter of preference.  There's two different kinds of games going on here, with different play goals, and that means that it's the play goals that are making the choice, not the actual mechanic.  So, in that sense, I think your question is a bit misformed -- it's aimed at the wrong thing.  It should be aimed at what are you accomplishing with your choice -- what play does it enable -- rather than asking about the mechanic used.  Mechanics are just tools, after all.

I stand a foot in both.  I enjoy the play of 5e, which is very GM determines heavy, but moderate a good bit towards letting players have more control over outcomes, especially in cases where build choices have been made to enable such.  Very lenient on 'saying yes', and very attentive to the goal of an action, not just the approach (thin declaration, if you will).  I dislike gotchas.  However, in 5e, it's the job of the GM to narrate outcomes, so I do, even if I keep a weather eye out on making sure I don't invalidate player intentions (too often).  On the other hand, I also like Blades in the Dark, which is very much player narrated outcomes on success of the mechanics.  As a GM, I prefer the low-prep, heavy in-session work of the latter a bit more.  My players prefer the former more.  We compromise by playing mostly 5e with the larger group and Blades with a subset.  I get my itches scratched, and so do my players.  

As for why my players seem to prefer a thinner declaration?  A few reasons.  One, they trust me to not be unnecessarily mean (but definitely necessarily mean) and like the scramble to react to situations.  They like the tactical game a good bit (most also have or still do wargame), and that's full of thin declarations (the mechanics provide outcomes, not players or GMs).  I think they also like the discovery of a story rather than the creation of one?  That's not very clear, so let me try to clarify. They seem to like the idea that they're affecting a larger plot they didn't have input into prior to play.  This is very much a feel thing, but they seem to like foiling whatever thing the GM (often me) came up with.  That there was a story without them _that they then changed_.  And part of getting this feeling, I suppose, is to make the right thin declarations to get the GM to narrate that success.  There's an element of puzzle solving there. This sounds bad, so remember this isn't a hard, "this is the reason" thing, but rather a tendency in a group that also, largely, enjoys playing the other way.  But, I think it's the tendency that keeps 5e at the top spot of the play roster.

Hmm.  I think I have rambled enough, for now.


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## GMMichael

pemerton said:


> For instance, suppose that my ability to decide what descriptions are true of my PC's actions is confined to very "thin" descriptions focused on the character's bodily movements, like _I attack the orc with my sword_ or _I wink at the maiden_. Playing that game will produce a very different experience from one in which I can decide that the following description is true of my PC's actions: _I kill the orc with my sword_ or _I soften the heart of the maiden with a wink_.
> 
> The same point can be made in relation to success on checks: if succeeding at a check makes a description such as _I find what I was looking for in the safe_ true, that game will produce a different experience from one in which it makes true only a description such as _I open the safe_, with the description of my action in terms of _I find X in the safe_ remaining something for someone else - eg the GM - to decide.




Maybe try viewing this through a different lens or two?

1) Player control is based on difficulty.  Clutching a sword is easy.  Swinging a sword (at least the first few times) is easy.  Attacking an orc is more difficult.  Killing said orc is (probably) far more difficult.  Player agency ends where difficulty begins.

2) Does the game require the players to act -through- their characters?  As in, you can do whatever you want, as long as it's something you could do as your character.  The GM doesn't often have this limitation.  Does the GM want to place a volcano in the middle of town?  Done.  No character needed.

Food for thought.


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## pemerton

DMMike said:


> Player control is based on difficulty.  Clutching a sword is easy.  Swinging a sword (at least the first few times) is easy.  Attacking an orc is more difficult.  Killing said orc is (probably) far more difficult.  Player agency ends where difficulty begins.



I don't quite get this.

The player decides _I wink at the maiden_. Who gets to decide whether it's also true that _I soften the heart of the maiden with a wink_? They're too different descriptions of the one action, so framing things in terms of difficulty doesn't seem to help.


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## hawkeyefan

For the example of the safe, what if you’re not already looking for something specific in it? What if it’s more a case of “ooo a safe! Let’s see what’s inside.”


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## GMMichael

pemerton said:


> The player decides _I wink at the maiden_. Who gets to decide whether it's also true that _I soften the heart of the maiden with a wink_? They're too different descriptions of the one action, so framing things in terms of difficulty doesn't seem to help.




It might not.  It's just one way to look at things.  But for the exercise, it's pretty easy to wink.  Softening hearts sounds a bit more difficult.  Especially when your name is, say, Quasimodo.

Also, some analysis of the problem might be in order, because I don't see Soften Heart and Wink as the same action.  If a player told me "I wink," I'd say "great."  If a player said "I soften the maiden's heart," I'd say "so how do you do that?"


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## Ovinomancer

DMMike said:


> It might not.  It's just one way to look at things.  But for the exercise, it's pretty easy to wink.  Softening hearts sounds a bit more difficult.  Especially when your name is, say, Quasimodo.
> 
> Also, some analysis of the problem might be in order, because I don't see Soften Heart and Wink as the same action.  If a player told me "I wink," I'd say "great."  If a player said "I soften the maiden's heart," I'd say "so how do you do that?"




Sounds like you have half of it down pat.  Now, you need to work on grasping how the _player _determines the outcome of the wink rather than the GM.


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## Ovinomancer

pemerton said:


> The function of players in RPGing is often described as _deciding what their PCs do_. But this can be quite ambiguous.
> 
> A classic article on the analysis of actions (Donald Davidson, "Actions, Reasons, and Causes" (1963)) gives the following example:
> 
> I flip the switch, turn on the light, and illuminate the room. Unbeknownst to me I also alert a prowler to the fact that I am home. Here I need not have done four things, but only one, of which four descriptions have been given.​
> In RPGing, I think it's a big deal who gets to decide what descriptions of the PCs' actions are true, and how.
> 
> For instance, suppose that my ability to decide what descriptions are true of my PC's actions is confined to very "thin" descriptions focused on the character's bodily movements, like _I attack the orc with my sword_ or _I wink at the maiden_. Playing that game will produce a very different experience from one in which I can decide that the following description is true of my PC's actions: _I kill the orc with my sword_ or _I soften the heart of the maiden with a wink_.
> 
> The same point can be made in relation to success on checks: if succeeding at a check makes a description such as _I find what I was looking for in the safe_ true, that game will produce a different experience from one in which it makes true only a description such as _I open the safe_, with the description of my action in terms of _I find X in the safe_ remaining something for someone else - eg the GM - to decide.
> 
> This example shows how it is possible (i) for it to be true that _the players choose what their PCs do_ - under a certain, fairly thin or confined sort of description - and (ii) for there to be fudge-free checks and yet (iii) for it also to be the case that _the GM decides everything significant that happens_ - ie it is the GM who gets to establish the richer, wider, consequence-laden descriptions of what the PCs do.
> 
> I think that a failure to recognise this point makes a lot of discussions of railroading, "player agency" less productive or insightful than they might be.
> 
> What do others think about who does, or should, get to establish the truth of descriptions of PC actions, and how?




You know, thinking on this a bit more, I'm not sure where the resolution mechanic comes in.  Are you talking about the outcome on a successful resolution?  I'd guess you are, but it's best to be clear.  Note that I'd lump, "saying yes" under successful resolution.


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## Umbran

pemerton said:


> What do others think about who does, or should, get to establish the truth of descriptions of PC actions, and how?




Who does, or should, get to establish the truth of descriptions of PC actions... depends on what game you are playing.  

It isn't as if we all like the same foods, music, or books.  So, we should not expect everyone to like the same games.    We should instead, expect a varied collection of games, with different ways of doing things.


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## Maxperson

pemerton said:


> I don't quite get this.
> 
> The player decides _I wink at the maiden_. Who gets to decide whether it's also true that _I soften the heart of the maiden with a wink_? They're too different descriptions of the one action, so framing things in terms of difficulty doesn't seem to help.




Only one of those is a description of an action.  The second is a description of both an action and the result of that action.  The action is a wink, the result is the softening of the heart.


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## Ovinomancer

Maxperson said:


> Only one of those is a description of an action.  The second is a description of both an action and the result of that action.  The action is a wink, the result is the softening of the heart.




Yes, and the topic is about who gets to choose the outcome -- the GM or the player.


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## Ovinomancer

Umbran said:


> Who does, or should, get to establish the truth of descriptions of PC actions... depends on what game you are playing.
> 
> It isn't as if we all like the same foods, music, or books.  So, we should not expect everyone to like the same games.    We should instead, expect a varied collection of games, with different ways of doing things.




Yes?  How does this advance a discussion about the differences in play who chooses makes?  

A good example of a game that can go either way, look to 4e, which has a split personality depending on which method of outcome resolution you choose. So, no, it's not always about the game you've chosen -- there are opportunities in a number of games to let choice of outcome drift.  I let this drift in my 5e games, where I, as GM, try to let the players choose outcomes more often than not.


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## Fenris-77

If we're talking 5e the declaration matters. Winking at the maiden is an action, but it isn't tagged with a desired result. Does it result in a die roll to determine effect? Who knows. The second example, in 5e, would be a declaration of intent and a roll at DM mandated DC would determine the truth of the statement. Does the wink soften her heart? Let's see... Now, in other game the player often has a lot more agency when it comes to the result. Different systems are designed to handle authorship of result differently, and I think a lot of systems fall somewhere in between the two extremes in the example.

I guess what I'm getting at is that intent and declaration matter a lot when it comes to result, and in systems like 5e, that's where player agency lies. In the wink example the player is deciding what a successful outcome will be, but that's not quite the same as deciding that the outcome is successful.


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## Maxperson

Ovinomancer said:


> Yes, and the topic is about who gets to choose the outcome -- the GM or the player.




It doesn't really matter.  Pick the game you like and be done with it.  There's no right or wrong here, unless you're trying to say your way is the best.


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## Guest 6801328

Ovinomancer said:


> Yes, and the topic is about who gets to choose the outcome -- the GM or the player.






Except the OP is trying to make it sound like the distinction between the wink and the softening is blurrier than it is. 

I mean, it’s still useful and interesting to talk about who gets to resolve the action, and the division line moves depending on the game. 

But it’s a more straightforward question than the OP seems to be suggesting.


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## pemerton

hawkeyefan said:


> For the example of the safe, what if you’re not already looking for something specific in it? What if it’s more a case of “ooo a safe! Let’s see what’s inside.”



That seems to be the player-side equivalent of the GM asking "OK, so what are you hoping to find?"

An RPG needs some way to establish these descriptions of PC actions. Different ways make different sorts of action declarations permissible or impermissible, or affect the resolution of them. Maybe in this particular system there's a random safe contents table that someone is expected to roll on, if no one wants to put a richer description of the action on the table.


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## pemerton

Ovinomancer said:


> they seem to like foiling whatever thing the GM (often me) came up with.  That there was a story without them _that they then changed_.  And part of getting this feeling, I suppose, is to make the right thin declarations to get the GM to narrate that success.  There's an element of puzzle solving there. This sounds bad



I don't think it sounds bad! Not quite my cup of tea, but that's a different less interesting matter.

A little while ago now I started a thread which tooks as its premise that there is a key puzzle-solving/learning-what-the-GM-is-thinking aspect in the sort of approach to fiction-creation you are (if I've understood you) describing here. I think this sort of play, which seems very prevalent, is under-analysed.



Ovinomancer said:


> They like the tactical game a good bit (most also have or still do wargame), and that's full of thin declarations (the mechanics provide outcomes, not players or GMs).



I think another avenue of exploration is around _what sorts of descriptions are up for grabs when checks are made_ - who gets to decide what they are, and how do we choose between them? Many traditional combat systems offer fairly precise and sometimes fairly rigid answers to these questions, which I think may be what you're getting at here.



Ovinomancer said:


> in 5e, it's the job of the GM to narrate outcomes, so I do, even if I keep a weather eye out on making sure I don't invalidate player intentions (too often).



I think the issue of "invalidation", or as I sometimes put it in the affirmative _honouring player successes in checks_ is a very interesting phenomenon. In my experience in quite few systems it is this principle which helps establish wider/richer descriptions, extrapolating from players' thinner descriptions plus (sometimes quite amorphous) hopes/expectations.

When that principle isn't applied (and I think there are some well-established approaches to some systems - at least D&D and CoC that I'm familiar with - where it often isn't applied) then players can't establish much beyond those thin descriptions.

When that principle is applied I think it's interesting to consider how we should think about who is driving the wider descriptions - eg even if the GM is doing it in a formal sense where are they getting their material from, what constraints do they apply to themselves, etc.

EDIT to add a reply to this:


Ovinomancer said:


> You know, thinking on this a bit more, I'm not sure where the resolution mechanic comes in.  Are you talking about the outcome on a successful resolution?  I'd guess you are, but it's best to be clear.  Note that I'd lump, "saying yes" under successful resolution.



I was leaving it open, though in the second of the middle paras (the safe example) I was imagining that we are using a check to establish the success of an action.

For instance, here is one way to set up a resolution system: player posits a description; GM counter-posits a description; a check is made; on a success player's posit is true in the fiction, on a fail the GM's is. (I'm taking it for granted that posited descriptions are genre and context appropriate; if that's up for grabs at the table then it will need to be sorted out before resolution can proceed.)

Burning Wheel played canonically works like this. Much of AD&D, played canonically, differs from this (some combat-ish elements might be partial exceptions if looked at in the right way).

So I think the relationship between _resolution _and _establishing true descriptions of PC actions_ can be quite variable across actual and conceivable systems. And there are other things besides _resolution_ that this is true of: eg what is the relationship between _stuff the GM writes down in advance of play_ and _establishing true descriptions of PC actions_. In Cortex+ Heroic, not a lot; in classic AD&D, the relationship can be very tight (again with some combat-ish elements perhaps being exceptions); in PbtA the relationship is different again; etc.


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## aramis erak

The premise statement is a longstanding falsehood, all too often unchallenged. 

Players decide what their character _attempts_, not what they _do_.

GM's decide what the PC's do, based upon the stated attempt, the rules, and their common sense, and sometimes, their story sense.

Players may or may not be deciding how their PC's feel; many systems allow forced emotional states, which only works when players agree to those stakes, but can be fun for some.


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## pemerton

Maxperson said:


> Only one of those is a description of an action.  The second is a description of both an action and the result of that action.  The action is a wink, the result is the softening of the heart.



Well, this goes back to the quote from Donald Davidson in the OP:



pemerton said:


> A classic article on the analysis of actions (Donald Davidson, "Actions, Reasons, and Causes" (1963)) gives the following example:
> 
> I flip the switch, turn on the light, and illuminate the room. Unbeknownst to me I also alert a prowler to the fact that I am home. Here I need not have done four things, but only one, of which four descriptions have been given.​



If the PC _winks at the maiden and softens her heart_ the PC hasn't done two things (_wink_, and as a separate thing _soften her heart_) - that way lies madness because it will quickly lead to near-endless multiplication of the number of events that have occurred (eg you'll have each movement of an eyelash through each point of space as a separate and distinct thing that the PC did).

There is one action but it falls under more than one description. In the context of playing a RPG, which involves generating shared agreement on the descriptions that are true in the fiction, I think the question of who gets to establish which descriptions is quite interesting. And I think that saying _the player gets to decide what the PC does_ isn't a useful way of answering the question.



Elfcrusher said:


> Except the OP is trying to make it sound like the distinction between the wink and the softening is blurrier than it is.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> But it’s a more straightforward question than the OP seems to be suggesting.



The OP makes a straightforward but perhaps not simple point: when the PC winks at the maiden and softens her heart, the PC has performed one action (that falls under more than one description), not two. Separating it into _action_ and _result_ already assumes a regimentation that is not straightforward either in theory or in practice - eg is the player allowed to describe _I tighten my hand about the pommel of my sheathed sword and move it in a sword-drawing motion_ or is the player allowed to describe _I draw my sword_. Those are two different descriptions of what, typically, will be the one action. You can frame the first as the action and the second as the result if you like, but I think there is a lot of RPG play which won't conform to that way of parsing the example.

Likewise for _I use my larynx, mouth, breath etc as I would to loudly speak the words "Help me"_ and _I call out to my companions, "Help me"_. Etc.

It seems to me that in different systems, and perhaps on different occasions within a system, it may become important to know who has authority to establish which descriptions as true in the fiction, and how they can do this. Saying _the player gets to describe what the PC does_ and/or _the GM gets to decide the result_ won't help. Whereas characterising it as _establishing the truth of a description in the shared fiction_ gets the subject-matter of the discussion right.



DMMike said:


> it's pretty easy to wink.  Softening hearts sounds a bit more difficult.  Especially when your name is, say, Quasimodo.
> 
> Also, some analysis of the problem might be in order, because I don't see Soften Heart and Wink as the same action.  If a player told me "I wink," I'd say "great."  If a player said "I soften the maiden's heart," I'd say "so how do you do that?"



And what if a player says "I wink at the maiden to soften her heart"?

I'll have another go:

Suppose the player says _I wink at the maiden to soften her heart_.

And the GM replies _OK, that's a Difficulty 4 Presence check. You can add your Glamourie to your pool if you have it_. (I'm using Prince Valiant as the system here - it's pretty simple.)

And the player replies _Right, well I've got 3 Presence and 2 Glamourie so that's 5 coins in my pool_ - then tosses the coins, and they come down in a 3/2 split, so FAILURE - ie short of 4 successes.

Now, what is true in the fiction? From the failure, we know it's not true that _the PC winked at the maiden and softened her heart_. Is it true that _the PC winked at the maiden_? Who gets to decide that, and according to what principles? Is it true that _the PC winked_? Who gets to decide that, and according to what principles?

The Prince Valiant rulebook doesn't actually come out and answer these questions - it was written in the late 80s and RPG designers hadn't got as good as contemporary ones about addressing these important issues of play - but it does contain some hints.

I don't think you can answer by saying _the player decides what the PC does_ - because if this was true, then the player could decide that the PC _softens the maiden's heart with a wink_. Yet we know that has been taken off the table in virtue of the failed check result.


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## Wightbred

pemerton said:


> In RPGing, I think it's a big deal who gets to decide what descriptions of the PCs' actions are true, and how.




I totally agree. The Czege Principle ("When one person is the author of both the character's adversity and its resolution, play isn't fun.") means that the authoring of scene framing, adversity, action and result need to be shared around to keep the game fun.

A GM could set the scene - but not always. There are games like Hillfolk where anyone can set a scene, and games like Wrath and Glory and D&D 5e where spending points can add things to scenes.

A GM could choose the adversity - but not always. There are games where other players can add adversity to rolls such as Danger Patrol.

A non-GM player could choose the action a character makes - but not always. There are situations in D&D where a DM might say ‘your character can’t do that because they are charmed’.

A GM could choose the result - but not always. There are games where you roll to see who narrates the outcome, like John Wick’s Blood and Honor, where a player can win and choose to narrate their character failing.

in addition, any GM might rule that winking to impress someone is irrelevant and so allow it, or is important and require a resolution irrespective of the rules of the game. This is down to factors like the preference of the table, how late in the night it is, etc.

Since playing PbtA and Blades games I have become enamoured with the way these games cleverly move authorship around, and we have ported this concept successfully into the way we play more ‘commercial’ games. I recommend Vincent Baker’s Anyway blog as a great place to read interesting ideas on games as conversations and authorship - although my simple summary is not doing it justice.

We are living in a golden age of RPGs, where there are options to support many styles of play. Have fun with yours!


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## Maxperson

pemerton said:


> Well, this goes back to the quote from Donald Davidson in the OP:
> 
> If the PC _winks at the maiden and softens her heart_ the PC hasn't done two things (_wink_, and as a separate thing _soften her heart_) - that way lies madness because it will quickly lead to near-endless multiplication of the number of events that have occurred (eg you'll have each movement of an eyelash through each point of space as a separate and distinct thing that the PC did).
> 
> There is one action but it falls under more than one description. In the context of playing a RPG, which involves generating shared agreement on the descriptions that are true in the fiction, I think the question of who gets to establish which descriptions is quite interesting. And I think that saying _the player gets to decide what the PC does_ isn't a useful way of answering the question.




Eh, no.  That's not the same thing at all.  This is not the case where the winker is committing several micro-actions that are all connected to form one single larger action.  He is engaging in the action of winking.  And then after that action(and all of its micro-actions) concludes, there is the result of that action, the softening of her heart.  The act of winking concludes before there is a softening of the heart.

In a game, I don't get to declare that I am going to pull out my sword, threaten the prince, have him concede half of his lands to me, go farm those lands, harvest the crops, and then sell them all as a single action.


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## lowkey13

*Deleted by user*


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## Ovinomancer

aramis erak said:


> The premise statement is a longstanding falsehood, all too often unchallenged.
> 
> Players decide what their character _attempts_, not what they _do_.
> 
> GM's decide what the PC's do, based upon the stated attempt, the rules, and their common sense, and sometimes, their story sense.
> 
> Players may or may not be deciding how their PC's feel; many systems allow forced emotional states, which only works when players agree to those stakes, but can be fun for some.




That is, indeed, one way it happens, and one of the ways [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] noted in his OP.  There are other ways, though, like the other one in the OP, that you've dismissed as a falsehood.  Given that it exists in a number of games, and can exist in even more, you should reconsider whether or not you've grasped the intent of the OP and whether or not you're the one engaged in a falsehood.

As [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] noted, Burning Wheel's core loop is opposing truth statements about the world, on the player's the other the GM's, which the dice then decide which occurs.  If the GM wins, the GM get to both narrate their outcome AND any actions the PC takes to realize that outcome.  If the player wins, they get to do the same.  This fundamentally disagrees with your universal assertion.  "There are other ways than these," to paraphrase.

I like Blades in the Dark, which does a similar thing.  The player nominates both the action and the outcome -- what they want to happen and how they're doing it.  The GM then sets the risk of that action (how bad will the consequences of a failure be) and the effect of that action (how much will it go towards achieving the player's goal).  There's a negotiation that can occur, here, and the player has a number of PC resources to bring to bear to improve odds, but, when the dice fly, a success means the player gets their goal or gains ground towards it.  On a failure, the GM uses the risk setting to level consequences.  There's also a more likely middle ground where the player partially succeeds and the GM gets to level a partial complication.  Many games that feature the player having the ability to set both the action and what a success looks like have partial success mechanics.

So, the intent of the OP, if I divine it correctly, is to get people to step back and think about which method they use, which they might prefer, and why that may be so.  I know that doing so helped me better understand what it is both I and my players get out of games, and has made me more successful at GMing in either style (because I don't fight the system, which is a primary cause of system frustration for people).  I, until rather recently, thought as you did.  Turns out I was wrong.  Not that play is wrong, but that it's the only way play occurs.  It's hard to grasp games that place the authorities in different places if you've come from a D&D only background.  It's a different way of thinking about games entirely -- which may or may not appeal to you and that's just fine.


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## Ovinomancer

Maxperson said:


> Eh, no.  That's not the same thing at all.  This is not the case where the winker is committing several micro-actions that are all connected to form one single larger action.  He is engaging in the action of winking.  And then after that action(and all of its micro-actions) concludes, there is the result of that action, the softening of her heart.  The act of winking concludes before there is a softening of the heart.
> 
> In a game, I don't get to declare that I am going to pull out my sword, threaten the prince, have him concede half of his lands to me, go farm those lands, harvest the crops, and then sell them all as a single action.




Is there, maybe, a middle ground between 'I pull my sword" and the entirely of what you posit?  Could, maybe, discussion happen about things in that middle ground?  In other words, no, you can't do the bottom in any game, but that's because you're not engaging the fiction of the scene or the genre of the game and are, in fact, being a jerk.  Can we please dispense with the "but if a jerk does it" arguments? 

Stating the result of your action isn't the same as assuming success.  That's why games have resolution mechanics.  In your above, it fails because there are multiple goals.  [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION]'s example doesn't fail because it's a single goal -- soften the heart of the maiden.  The action is to wink.  The difference between what you're trying to say and what [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] is saying is that, in your preference, the player can state their goal as information to the GM, but the GM will decide both what a success and what a failure will look like.  The other way to do it is to take the player's goal as the only success option.  In other word, if a success is rolled, then the GM's job is to narrate how they player's goal comes to be given the player's actions.  The GM doesn't get to decide what success looks like.

That said, actions and goals need to be rooted in the fiction of the moment.  Your example runs off into future goals that aren't established as at stake in the current scene.  This is a player violation of the game construct, and is just bad play, not a problem with the player getting to say what success is.


----------



## pemerton

Maxperson said:


> In a game, I don't get to declare that I am going to pull out my sword, threaten the prince, have him concede half of his lands to me, go farm those lands, harvest the crops, and then sell them all as a single action.



That sounds like it may be several actions eg that are separate in time and space.

But (eg) threatening the prince and having him concede lands sounds like a single action, again perhaps falling under multiple descriptions.

Whether or not one can do some or all of these things via a single episode of resolution in the play of a RPG would depend on the system.


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## pemerton

Wightbred said:


> I recommend Vincent Baker’s Anyway blog as a great place to read interesting ideas on games as conversations and authorship



Yes, I'm a big fan of Anyway - although in my experience it's not very popular among ENworld posters.

You'll recognise my example of the safe in the OP as coming from Baker's blog. Though I think framing the matter in terms of _who gets to make what descriptions true_ may be more helpful than framing it in terms of _task resolution_ vs _conflict resolution_.


----------



## TwoSix

Ovinomancer said:


> Yes?  How does this advance a discussion about the differences in play who chooses makes?
> 
> A good example of a game that can go either way, look to 4e, which has a split personality depending on which method of outcome resolution you choose. So, no, it's not always about the game you've chosen -- there are opportunities in a number of games to let choice of outcome drift.  I let this drift in my 5e games, where I, as GM, try to let the players choose outcomes more often than not.



Yea, I agree, assigning the method to individual systems isn't really correct.  Except for a few modern games, most game designers probably haven't even considered the question.

I don't even think it's uniquely the GM's purview as to what method is used (although they hold considerable sway, and will end up as the final arbiter if they decide to be).  Even as a player, you have the opportunity to frame your declarations in terms of physical actions or in terms of overall intent.  I know my personal play has improved when I switched to always stating my actions in terms of overall intent, as it leads to less confusion between myself and the DM as to where the play is leading.  Ideally, you can steer the situation so that any resolution check can help you achieve the stated goal, but the question as to the extent of the resolution mechanics will still be primarily driven by the DM and the system. For most of the DMs I know, I can tell them that I'm looking in a safe to find the secret documents, but they probably aren't going to add them into the safe even if I succeed.


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## pemerton

Ovinomancer said:


> I like Blades in the Dark, which does a similar thing.



I don't know BitD beyond what I read about it.

I've played a bit of DW and am slowly working my way through a close reading of AW preparatory, I hope, to playing it - it actually feels more compelling to me than DW, though some of that may be the visceral Vincent Baker prose!

In BitD does a failure permit the GM to narrate a PC's action at the "micro-"/thin level (eg _you failed to wink_)? My sense of AW is that the answer to that question is assumed to be _no_ - that when the GM makes a move, even a hard/direct move, it draws on prep to establish stuff beyond the intentional bodily motions of the PC. Though (as in BW) it can extend to the PC's gear.

Which sends me off on a whole other tangent - in what ways is _gear_ able to be brought under descriptions of actions, and by whom? I have a soft spot for the way that AW and BW encourage the GM to use effects to gear as part of their narration of failure; and BW's approach to this infuenced my GMing of 4e and similarly (but probably more cautiously, given how gear is part of PC build in 4e) making effects to gear part of my narration of failure.

(A variant of this is the Old School Primer's "Rule of the Ming Vase" - that is, the GM including threats or actual damage to valuable objects in the vicinity as part of the descriptions of PC actions.)


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## Guest 6801328

Wightbred said:


> I totally agree. The Czege Principle ("When one person is the author of both the character's adversity and its resolution, play isn't fun.") means that the authoring of scene framing, adversity, action and result need to be shared around to keep the game fun.
> 
> A GM could set the scene - but not always. There are games like Hillfolk where anyone can set a scene, and games like Wrath and Glory and D&D 5e where spending points can add things to scenes.
> 
> A GM could choose the adversity - but not always. There are games where other players can add adversity to rolls such as Danger Patrol.
> 
> A non-GM player could choose the action a character makes - but not always. There are situations in D&D where a DM might say ‘your character can’t do that because they are charmed’.
> 
> A GM could choose the result - but not always. There are games where you roll to see who narrates the outcome, like John Wick’s Blood and Honor, where a player can win and choose to narrate their character failing.
> 
> in addition, any GM might rule that winking to impress someone is irrelevant and so allow it, or is important and require a resolution irrespective of the rules of the game. This is down to factors like the preference of the table, how late in the night it is, etc.
> 
> Since playing PbtA and Blades games I have become enamoured with the way these games cleverly move authorship around, and we have ported this concept successfully into the way we play more ‘commercial’ games. I recommend Vincent Baker’s Anyway blog as a great place to read interesting ideas on games as conversations and authorship - although my simple summary is not doing it justice.
> 
> We are living in a golden age of RPGs, where there are options to support many styles of play. Have fun with yours!




XP for the username.


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## Blue

pemerton said:


> I don't quite get this.
> 
> The player decides _I wink at the maiden_. Who gets to decide whether it's also true that _I soften the heart of the maiden with a wink_? They're too different descriptions of the one action, so framing things in terms of difficulty doesn't seem to help.




I know the poster of this already replied, but I want to reply how this means to me.

Amount of uncertainty that can be dictated is the limit of player narrative control.

"I wink at the maiden" has a very low uncertainty.  Unless you've been paralyzed without knowledge, this is very likely true.  "I wink at the maiden attempting to melt her heart is the same" - low uncertainty, just providing more contact so others interpret correctly.

Melting their heart though may have a lot of unknowns.  She's a recent widow, she's in a true love relationship, she secret hates something about the PC, etc.

"I drink everyone else under the table" - an established hard drinking dwarf at a table of halflings could probably make this statement in any game because it has low uncertainty.  In some games it would be fine all the time.  Other time, like when said by the 8 CON wizard, saying it requires the players to have a strong amount of authorial control, and others may dislike it if there isn't a narrative reason supporting it.

"I open the safe and find X" - again, needs very strong authorial power on behalf of the player.  Some games have this as assumptions for the game.  Others don't.  (Even if silent in the rules, there's usually an assumption one way or the other.)  It's few that either allow both natively, and if they do it's usually that there is some sort of limited narrative currency that needs be spent, like in FATE.


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## GMMichael

aramis erak said:


> Players decide what their character _attempts_, not what they _do_.









pemerton said:


> Suppose the player says _I wink at the maiden to soften her heart_.
> 
> And the GM replies _OK, that's a Difficulty 4 Presence check. . . _Now, what is true in the fiction? From the failure, we know it's not true that _the PC winked at the maiden and softened her heart_. Is it true that _the PC winked at the maiden_? Who gets to decide that, and according to what principles? Is it true that _the PC winked_? Who gets to decide that, and according to what principles?
> 
> . . . I don't think you can answer by saying _the player decides what the PC does_ - because if this was true, then the player could decide that the PC _softens the maiden's heart with a wink_. Yet we know that has been taken off the table in virtue of the failed check result.



Well, in Modos RPG, you wouldn't tell the player that she failed.  Success/fail is just as old as Prince Valiant.  You'd tell her that she got an unfavorable result (a "Con"), and then the player would "let the other players know what the contest result means."  The GM would guide that as needed to keep the story rolling.

An old wise man once said:


DMMike said:


> 1) Player control is based on difficulty.  Clutching a sword is easy.  Swinging a sword (at least the first few times) is easy.  Attacking an orc is more difficult.  Killing said orc is (probably) far more difficult.  Player agency ends where difficulty begins.
> 
> 2) Does the game require the players to act -through- their characters?  As in, you can do whatever you want, as long as it's something you could do as your character.  The GM doesn't often have this limitation.  Does the GM want to place a volcano in the middle of town?  Done.  No character needed.



So, is it true that the PC winked?  Yes - it's not difficult.  Or yes - it's something you could do as your character.  Is it true that the PC winked at the maiden and softened her heart?  Evidently not, since we're using succeed/fail mechanics here.  But, since I've already weighed in on the winking part: no - heart softening is difficult/more difficult than winking.  Or no - it's not something your character could do (with a simple wink).


----------



## steenan

Isn't this what the IIEE framework for resolution is about?

There are two separate but connected parts of an action a player declares. What the character does (in a "thin" sense) and what the player wants to achieve. Action description is necessary to give it a solid form in the fiction. Intent is necessary because that's what gets resolved.

As soon s the action and intent are known it's possible for the GM to decide if it will obviously work, obviously not work or needs a roll (or whatever given game uses) to resolve. It is also the point where potential misunderstandings may be discussed until everybody is on the same page. Maybe, for example, the player wants to attempt something that is possible, but bunches too many activities into a single action, while the GM thinks that the situation needs more focus and should be played step by step. Or maybe some facts about the fiction weren't communicated clearly and people imagine it differently.

Up to this point, the player and the GM are discussing potentialities. After that is agreed on, the action happens and the dice hit the table. 

Because the intent is known, it's clear what a successful roll will achieve. For the same reason, a failed roll may, if the GM decides so, still mean that the action itself succeeded, but that it brought a complication instead of achieving the intention.


----------



## GrahamWills

Maxperson said:


> In a game, I don't get to declare that I am going to pull out my sword, threaten the prince, have him concede half of his lands to me, go farm those lands, harvest the crops, and then sell them all as a single action.




It seems to me like this discussion is based on a certain assumption of scale; people saying "this seems like a single action" or "those are two actions" -- these depend heavily on the scale of the game.

I have been in games where the above would be a fine description of an action; as an example, I was running  DramaSystem and a player declared "I take control of the army, march to the coast, make a speech to my warriors before battle, kill the Black Knight in one-on-one combat and march home to a feast in my honor". That was a fine declaration and everyone was OK with it. If the same player had said "I bring a smile to the Queen's lips by playing a tune" then that would have been challenged and would need an entire scene to resolve. This is because DramaSystem is all about relationships, so a war can be resolved by fiat or a quick check, but making an important character happy is a major event.

I've also played games where "I hit the orc" requires multiple steps: determine who goes first, determine if the attack hits, determine if the attack causes critical damage, determine damage, determine critical result. It's just a question of  what your game wants to focus on.

The OP says, effectively, that the scale of an action is ambiguous. Absolutely. Until you specify the game, when it becomes a lot less ambiguous. But in the little bit of ambiguity that remains, it's never been my experience that it's an issue. Players learn what the group likes pretty rapidly, and at most a clarifying question revolves the odd confusion.


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## Wightbred

GrahamWills said:


> It seems to me like this discussion is based on a certain assumption of scale; people saying "this seems like a single action" or "those are two actions" -- these depend heavily on the scale of the game.
> ...




The scale of the game is definitely critical to the discussion. But so is the fictional situation and the dynamics around the table. In the last few minutes of a D&D campaign we might wrap up the story by making a few critical rolls like this.


----------



## Wightbred

pemerton said:


> I've played a bit of DW and am slowly working my way through a close reading of AW preparatory, I hope, to playing it - it actually feels more compelling to me than DW, though some of that may be the visceral Vincent Baker prose!
> ...
> Which sends me off on a whole other tangent - in what ways is _gear_ able to be brought under descriptions of actions, and by whom? I have a soft spot for the way that AW and BW encourage the GM to use effects to gear as part of their narration of failure; and BW's approach to this infuenced my GMing of 4e and similarly (but probably more cautiously, given how gear is part of PC build in 4e) making effects to gear part of my narration of failure.




I love DW (wrote for the Kickstarter) but I definitely feel AW is the tighter implementation. Seemingly the further a PbtA game gets from AW the less I like it.

Gear is an awesome tool for engagement - even more so than the environment, because it belongs to the characters. Engaging this is where the conversation comes in. When we play any game, all players can suggest bad / good things that might have happened - particularly on critical - and the relevant player chooses and narrates.


----------



## pemerton

steenan said:


> Isn't this what the IIEE framework for resolution is about?
> 
> There are two separate but connected parts of an action a player declares. What the character does (in a "thin" sense) and what the player wants to achieve.



Yes, although we can then take the inquiry the next step: what descriptions are permissible in respect of _what the player wants to achieve_?

For instance, is this to be described as _I open the safe_ or _I find such-and-such stuff in the safe_? As _my wink is a jaunty one apt to soften a maiden's heart_ or _my wink softens the heart of this very maiden_?



steenan said:


> Maybe, for example, the player wants to attempt something that is possible, but bunches too many activities into a single action, while the GM thinks that the situation needs more focus and should be played step by step.



This is a thing, but I think it's orthogonal to the issue I'm raising in the first para of this reply.


----------



## pemerton

Blue said:


> Amount of uncertainty that can be dictated is the limit of player narrative control.
> 
> "I wink at the maiden" has a very low uncertainty.  Unless you've been paralyzed without knowledge, this is very likely true.  "I wink at the maiden attempting to melt her heart is the same" - low uncertainty, just providing more contact so others interpret correctly.
> 
> Melting their heart though may have a lot of unknowns.  She's a recent widow, she's in a true love relationship, she secret hates something about the PC, etc.
> 
> "I drink everyone else under the table" - an established hard drinking dwarf at a table of halflings could probably make this statement in any game because it has low uncertainty.  In some games it would be fine all the time.  Other time, like when said by the 8 CON wizard, saying it requires the players to have a strong amount of authorial control, and others may dislike it if there isn't a narrative reason supporting it.
> 
> "I open the safe and find X" - again, needs very strong authorial power on behalf of the player.



Can you elaborate on _uncertainty_? Are you meaning _epistemic uncertainty_ - as in, we don't know whether or not X is in the safe; we don't know how this maiden will respond to this character's wink?

Or are you meaning _metaphysical/causal uncertainty_ - as in, there are very few causal pathways that allow these halflings to stay sober while this dwarf is drunk; or there are very few causal pathways that allow this frail wizard to stay sober while his/her drinking comanions are drunk.

When you refer to _player authorial control/power_, are you meaning _the power to decide that X is in the safe_ or _the power to decide that, on this occasion, it so happens that the wizard stays sober while the other drinking companions fall down drunk_, or both?



DMMike said:


> So, is it true that the PC winked?  Yes - it's not difficult.  Or yes - it's something you could do as your character.  Is it true that the PC winked at the maiden and softened her heart?  Evidently not, since we're using succeed/fail mechanics here.  But, since I've already weighed in on the winking part: no - heart softening is difficult/more difficult than winking.  Or no - it's not something your character could do (with a simple wink).



I'm not really following this difficulty thing.

By _difficulty_ I assume that you mean _difficutly for the character in the fiction_. But then, how do we know that winking is more difficult than softening a heart? Eg if just as the character decides to wink s/he sneezes, winking may be very difficult; yet that display of vulnerability may be just the thing that softens the heart of this maiden!

Or turning to the safe example: suppose it's a true description of the character's action _I opened the safe_. Is it also true that _I found X in the safe_? Is it more difficult to find X in the safe then to open the safe? Not really, if X is in there. Obviously far more - to the point of impossibility - if X is not in there.

So I'm having a hard time seeing how you would implement a rule about who gets to establish what descriptions by reference to how difficult it is for that description to be true.


----------



## Maxperson

pemerton said:


> That sounds like it may be several actions eg that are separate in time and space.
> 
> But (eg) threatening the prince and having him concede lands sounds like a single action, again perhaps falling under multiple descriptions.
> 
> Whether or not one can do some or all of these things via a single episode of resolution in the play of a RPG would depend on the system.




It may be a single episode, but what you are doing is declaring one action for your PC, winking at her, and declaring a separarte action for the NPC, she softens her heart.


----------



## Maxperson

GrahamWills said:


> It seems to me like this discussion is based on a certain assumption of scale; people saying "this seems like a single action" or "those are two actions" -- these depend heavily on the scale of the game.
> 
> I have been in games where the above would be a fine description of an action; as an example, I was running  DramaSystem and a player declared "I take control of the army, march to the coast, make a speech to my warriors before battle, kill the Black Knight in one-on-one combat and march home to a feast in my honor". That was a fine declaration and everyone was OK with it. If the same player had said "I bring a smile to the Queen's lips by playing a tune" then that would have been challenged and would need an entire scene to resolve. This is because DramaSystem is all about relationships, so a war can be resolved by fiat or a quick check, but making an important character happy is a major event.




So what I'm not understanding is if, "I bring a smile to the Queen's lips by playing a tune" would be challenged and possibly fail, why is it phrased that way at all.  Why wouldn't the player just say, ""I try to bring a smile to the Queen's lips by playing a tune?"  In both cases the intent is the same and there is going to be a challenge that could fail, but only in the latter does the phrase not contradict one of the possible outcomes.


----------



## aramis erak

Wightbred said:


> I totally agree. The Czege Principle ("When one person is the author of both the character's adversity and its resolution, play isn't fun.") means that the authoring of scene framing, adversity, action and result need to be shared around to keep the game fun.




Which is itself another untennable stance. As stated, it only takes one to falsify. I have met many who not only don't want adversary authority, but their fun is diminished when said authority is shared, because they may have to use it. I have found most of my friends do NOT appreciate being put on the spot to be in the authorial stance. 

It's worth noting that I often see (for lack of a better term) disciples of Mr. Baker stating shared GMing as if it is universally good. It isn't. It's good for some, bad for many (perhaps most), and is certainly uncomfortable for most groups I've tried it with.

I should rephrase for clarity, my prior...
A player declares what their character attempts, while the authority uses the rules and their common and story senses to determine what they accomplish. The authority might be another player, might be the group as a whole, might be a table which is rolled against... but the distinction of an RPG being a game is that lack of authorial stance on the outcome of at least some actions.

None of your examples are GM-less - they're all variations on variable authority. Noting the Wick games... essentially, HotBlooded and Blood & Honor rotate authority turn-by-turn, but the player, unless they win the roll, does NOT control the outcome. And, due to the bidding, even the winner seldom controls the outcome entirely. Never play these with someone you cannot trust to stay inside the boundaries of inoffense to others...

Let's address the AWE/PBTA use case...
AWE/PBTA typically presumes several key things:

Assent may be assumed on any narration unless the authority states otherwise.
The authority should stop for resolution any narration that constitutes a move.
The authority should stop any narration that is not in line with prior narration by asking suitable questions
The authority should encourage participation by all, usually by asking questions of inactive players
The authority should narrate NPCs in a manner consistent with the above, sometimes allowing players to act as authority towards his/her NPCs.

The wink to melt her heart bit is fine, right up until the GM says "roll ___." In if he allows it without roll, he's _still using the rules_... because he doesn't see it as a move. On the other hand, if the character doing so has been defined as a being of no romantic appeal and no sexual appeal at all, the GM is perfectly reasonable to say, "and what about your repellant contenance?" or even to put it to a group vote, or even deny flatly, for violating the existing narrative. 

But, until the authority (in most PBTA, a GM) remains silent after, it's still describing the _attempt_, not the outcome.


----------



## Tony Vargas

pemerton said:


> it is possible (i) for it to be true that _the players choose what their PCs do_ - and (ii) for there to be fudge-free checks and yet (iii) for it also to be the case that _the GM decides everything significant that happens_



 Sounds obvious, now that you've said it.



> What do others think about who does, or should, get to establish the truth of descriptions of PC actions, and how?



 It seems a TTRPG could consist mostly of a give-and-take, perhaps mediated by resources, like FATE points in that system (or slots in D&D), of establishing "truths" in that sense, and reconciling them to find out what happens.


----------



## aramis erak

Tony Vargas said:


> Sounds obvious, now that you've said it.
> 
> It seems a TTRPG could consist mostly of a give-and-take, perhaps mediated by resources, like FATE points in that system (or slots in D&D), of establishing "truths" in that sense, and reconciling them to find out what happens.




There are several games that are "point-pushers"...

The best known I can think of is Marvel Universe (by Marvel Comics Group)... also noted as a pretty big flop.

The Warriors Adventure Game (based upon the _Warriors_ novels and comics) also is a point pusher. 

I've 3 or 4 others I've read... I've not enjoyed the two I got to table. Others do enjoy them, and I cannot recall the titles of the others. But there are some out there.

If one wanted to convert D&D 5 to a point pusher...
All weapons/spells use the fixed damages, not rolled.  (not popular, but allowed in 5E).
Change advantage from 2d20 to +5, and disadvantage likewise to -5. (as it would be for passives).
Every die you roll on checks gives half its maximum roll in points. You can spend any amount of points desired, within the range of the minimum for the die type(s) and the maximum for the die types. 
Such would be quite playable... and for some, better than rolling. For others, and especially so for me, very unfun.


----------



## pemerton

aramis erak said:


> it's still describing the _attempt_, not the outcome.



In PbtA do you think it's acceptable for the GM to establish that the PC _didn't actually wink_ - whether by exercise of authority or, more likely, as the result of a failed check?

My feeling is "no", but I'm no sort of PtbA expert.

In BW I think the answer can be "yes", though I don't think that would be all that common. In The Dying Earth I'm pretty confident the answer can be "yes".


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## Wightbred

aramis erak said:


> Which is itself another untennable stance. As stated, it only takes one to falsify. I have met many who not only don't want adversary authority, but their fun is diminished when said authority is shared, because they may have to use it. I have found most of my friends do NOT appreciate being put on the spot to be in the authorial stance.






aramis erak said:


> It's worth noting that I often see (for lack of a better term) disciples of Mr. Baker stating shared GMing as if it is universally good. It isn't. It's good for some, bad for many (perhaps most), and is certainly uncomfortable for most groups I've tried it with.




Hi friend, and thanks for your reply. You might have noticed I’m a lurker not a fighter here. I’m more interested in new ideas than convincing someone on the internet. But given you have prepared such a detailed response to my original quick missive I’m happy to elaborate a little more, but perhaps with a wry smile in the corner of my mouth.

I suspect you perceive me in the mold of ‘damn hipster disciples of Mr Baker’ that unfortunately wounds my sense of being a well-rounded individual. I am a definitely a devoted disciple of Mr Baker, but also Mr Mearls, Mr Ross Watson, Mr Morningstarr, Mr Laws, Masters Livingston and Jackson, and many other excellent designers. I am currently running AiME D&D 5e and the Marvel Superheroes Adventure Game and playing Wrath and Glory rather than any indie nonsense, so I feel I might escape this constrained view.

I have played many an excellent game in the past with close friends who do not enjoy authoring and many of them are not base villains and some didn’t even have two heads. I find myself and the people I play with share more authoring in our current expeditions, Like the vast majority of RPG players I find myself disinclined to point out to anyone playing a different way that they only think they are having fun and to take away and burn their books or perform other clearly justified punishments. The final point in my first post is a sincere and genuine satisfaction that there are a wide range of high quality modern games that allow everyone to play the way they want.

I’m not sure we have the same understanding of the Czege Principle. Rather than debating at length there is a detailed explanation here: http://www.lumpley.com/archive/167.htmlhttp://www.lumpley.com/archive/167.html but I must warn you that it is from Mr Baker’s blog. 




aramis erak said:


> None of your examples are GM-less…



How I love a good GM-less / GM-ful game! I foolishly left them out because I was worried they would cloud the issue. But Fiasco and Remember Tomorrow and other gems really do show new ways of sharing authoring, which is a boon for people who like this style. We also (heresy!) play AW without having a single GM / MC at the table on occasion and we don’t just sit silently all night.




aramis erak said:


> Let's address the AWE/PBTA use case...






aramis erak said:


> AWE/PBTA typically presumes several key things:
> - Assent may be assumed on any narration unless the authority states otherwise. … the authority … the authority …




I don’t find this a particularly good summary of AW of the MC role therewithin. For me it misses the approach of shared responsibility and key elements of drawing out authoring like ‘draw maps and leave blanks’, ‘ask questions’, ‘build on each other’s ideas’, ‘so it is a charged situation?’, examples where the MC changes their view in response to players and the way many 7-9 results deliberately share authoring around. In play I find that AW draws out the truth that any game is a construct of the situation and conversation, and what happens at the table is really agreed by everyone in a shared way, not enforced by a single authority figure. I feel you may ask me to elaborate here, but this is probably well off topic for the OP and it involves more of Mr Baker’s work which I sense you are not as enamoured with.

This was pretty fun to write up. I hope you take it in the honest but tongue-in-cheek way I intend it and we can enjoy some further positive and fun exchanges on this issue.


----------



## Maxperson

Wightbred said:


> How I love a good GM-less / GM-ful game! I foolishly left them out because I was worried they would cloud the issue. But Fiasco and Remember Tomorrow and other gems really do show new ways of sharing authoring, which is a boon for people who like this style. We also (heresy!) play AW without having a single GM / MC at the table on occasion and we don’t just sit silently all night.





Those games function by having players be GMs(even if they don't call them GMs specifically). The players step out of the duties that players have in RPGs and assume the duties that GMs have in RPGS when needed, effectively making people both a GM and a player, depending on what they are doing at the time.

They aren't really games with no GM.


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## Aldarc

Maxperson said:


> [/FONT][/FONT][/COLOR]Those games function by having players be GMs(even if they don't call them GMs specifically). The players step out of the duties that players have in RPGs and assume the duties that GMs have in RPGS when needed, effectively making people both a GM and a player, depending on what they are doing at the time.
> 
> They aren't really games with no GM.



It's probably not wise to resume this past debate, [MENTION=23751]Maxperson[/MENTION], especially in a thread that has managed fairly well with keeping on topic. It's okay to disagree without comment.


----------



## Maxperson

Aldarc said:


> It's probably not wise to resume this past debate, @_*Maxperson*_, especially in a thread that has managed fairly well with keeping on topic. It's okay to disagree without comment.




I was right then, too.


----------



## Aldarc

Maxperson said:


> I was right then, too.



Reads Maxperson's post: /disarm trap and continues with thread.


----------



## Maxperson

Aldarc said:


> Reads Maxperson's post: /disarm trap and continues with thread.




I don't create traps.  If you saw one, it was entirely within your own mind.


----------



## Imaro

pemerton said:


> This example shows how it is possible (i) for it to be true that _the players choose what their PCs do_ - under a certain, fairly thin or confined sort of description - and (ii) for there to be fudge-free checks and yet (iii) for it also to be the case that _the GM decides everything significant that happens_ - ie it is the GM who gets to establish the richer, wider, consequence-laden descriptions of what the PCs do.




Could you better explain what you mean by significant in this case  When you say "richer, wider, consequence-laden descriptions of what the PCs do..." are you just speaking to results of an action?  Because I don't think establishing the result falls into the same bucket as descriptions of what the PC's do.  

In your example about winking and melting the woman's heart the I see it as the action is winking... the intent is to melt the maiden's heart... and whether that happens or not is the result.  Now different games will handle resolution differently but in most games since there would be uncertainty in whether the wink melts the woman's heart or not... how is that describing what the PC does until that uncertainty has been resolved?  IMO it's describing the (intended/desired) result.

As to your example around the safe again I feel it's not declaring a PC's action... it's declaring an action _ search the safe_...intention _to find document X_ and the result/uncertainty would be whether said documents are in the safe or not.  The main difference I am seeing between your example and one for a traditional game is that the GM cannot decide an intention automatically fails or succeeds... is that the main crux?


----------



## hawkeyefan

pemerton said:


> That seems to be the player-side equivalent of the GM asking "OK, so what are you hoping to find?"
> 
> An RPG needs some way to establish these descriptions of PC actions. Different ways make different sorts of action declarations permissible or impermissible, or affect the resolution of them. Maybe in this particular system there's a random safe contents table that someone is expected to roll on, if no one wants to put a richer description of the action on the table.




That's true. My point was more about how the fictional situation will play a major part. If the PCs are already looking for something specific....let's say they've broken into a place for the specific purpose of finding a map....then that's potentially going to influence how they declare actions. "I want to see if the map is in this safe" is more specific than "Let's see what's in this safe". A given method may or may not work for both these instances. Rolling and consulting a table may not help when something specific is sought, for example.

As others have pointed out, how such an action might be resolved will vary from game to game. Personally, I like the idea of the players having some ability to determine the outcome of their stated action. I like when the players say what they want to achieve, and then we determine how they will try to achieve it. 

This is how Blades in the Dark handles it; the player will say something like "I want to convince this cop to ignore what we're doing" and then the GM says, "okay what action do you think that is?", and the player decides how they want to achieve the goal. "Well, I'd say it's a Sway attempt, but I think I'm gonna give him a threatening look and say 'Mind your business, bluecoat' so I think that's more a Command" and then they proceed with the GM determining the Position for the character, and the potential Effect of the attempt. All of this is based on the fictional situation that's been established...what exactly it is that the PCs are up to, how righteous the cop is, etc. 

In a way, it's not about "What do you do?" although I ask that question  all the time in my game. It's really about "What do you hope to  accomplish?" Some games give more ability for the players to determine if they can succeed at what they want the character to do, and others give less. I honestly like both kinds of games, but I'd lean toward giving a bit more toward the players if I had to choose.


----------



## GrahamWills

Maxperson said:


> So what I'm not understanding is if, "I bring a smile to the Queen's lips by playing a tune" would be challenged and possibly fail, why is it phrased that way at all.  Why wouldn't the player just say, ""I try to bring a smile to the Queen's lips by playing a tune?"  In both cases the intent is the same and there is going to be a challenge that could fail, but only in the latter does the phrase not contradict one of the possible outcomes.




Because I have never played in any roleplaying game, ever, where the GM has not had final say. Yes, I could play D&D and say "I try and swing my sword at the orc" or "I try and walk across the room", or "so long as it makes sense to the GM, I'll drink the ale in front of me" but it's just a waste of words. Everything my character does is subject to challenge from the GM or other players, always. So the "I try to" is just straight assumed. Everything can fail.

I have one player who very much likes to preflight things; they will say "my intention is to try and get the king to agree to fund us, because I think he secretly does want to go to war", but it slows the game down. Because it invites an out-of-character discussion every time you say "I try" it doesn't help with immersion either. I'd much rather have people just say what they do and correct them if it needs challenging. 

Maybe this approach is influenced by how I direct plays. I much prefer an actor to try something (assuming it is not going to endanger or embarrass a fellow cast member) and me say "yeah that works" or "umm, like the idea, but not the way it looks" rather than stop the action, ask permission and then, virtually all the time, do it. My players are also pretty competent, so I'd prefer to trust and adjust, rather than stop to get permission.

YMMV; but for me as a GM there is very little difference between "I try to bring a smile to the Queen's lips" and "I bring a smile to the Queen's lips". They are both statements of intent, and both subject to adjustment and resolution.


----------



## Nagol

Imaro said:


> Could you better explain what you mean by significant in this case  When you say "richer, wider, consequence-laden descriptions of what the PCs do..." are you just speaking to results of an action?  Because I don't think establishing the result falls into the same bucket as descriptions of what the PC's do.
> 
> In your example about winking and melting the woman's heart the I see it as the action is winking... the intent is to melt the maiden's heart... and whether that happens or not is the result.  Now different games will handle resolution differently but in most games since there would be uncertainty in whether the wink melts the woman's heart or not... how is that describing what the PC does until that uncertainty has been resolved?  IMO it's describing the (intended/desired) result.
> 
> As to your example around the safe again I feel it's not declaring a PC's action... it's declaring an action _ search the safe_...intention _to find document X_ and the result/uncertainty would be whether said documents are in the safe or not.  The main difference I am seeing between your example and one for a traditional game is that the GM cannot decide an intention automatically fails or succeeds... is that the main crux?




I mostly agree and where I don't it is more semantic quibbling.

A player adding the melting heart of a maiden the PC winked at is assuming facts not in evidence.  The player is assuming the maiden is real and not a illusion or construct, has a heart i.e. is not a succubus, disguised lich, or other inhuman monstrosity, and is capable of feeling appropriate emotions i.e. not dominated, controlled, or sociopathic, and has a personality that allows the 'melting' to occur i.e. not specifically anti-PC gender/race, without serious psychological scarring, etc.

Now many games do grant the player the ability to make those statements and have those statements be true so long as they don't contradict previous declarations. Games heavy in exploration and discovery do not.  For D&D play, I prefer to play in and run the latter.


----------



## Lanefan

There's a problem with the example "I wink at the maiden and soften her heart" that I think has thus far been overlooked here, which is this:

Flip it around.  If the GM says to you "The maiden winks at you and softens your heart" without invoking any game mechanics there'd be (justifiable) cries of bloody blue murder: the GM is dictating the PC's reaction to the wink.

So why isn't the GM given the same agency over how her NPCs react to the PCs' actions?


----------



## Tony Vargas

Lanefan said:


> So why isn't the GM given the same agency over how her NPCs react to the PCs' actions?



In what someone called a 'point push game,' like FATE, there is.  The GM could, assuming the PC had an appropriate aspect, describe the scene that way, and offer a FATE point to 'compel' it.


----------



## Nagol

Tony Vargas said:


> In what someone called a 'point push game,' like FATE, there is.  The GM could, assuming the PC had an appropriate aspect, describe the scene that way, and offer a FATE point to 'compel' it.




Big differences though.  Compels are always voluntary; the player may always refuse.  The player also had to signal a general openness to the general situation by buying the aspect to begin with.  The PC is known to have a soft heart or susceptible to flirtation, or whatever before the GM can use it.  You can't offer a compel to a PC who doesn't have an appropriate aspect.


----------



## hawkeyefan

Lanefan said:


> There's a problem with the example "I wink at the maiden and soften her heart" that I think has thus far been overlooked here, which is this:
> 
> Flip it around.  If the GM says to you "The maiden winks at you and softens your heart" without invoking any game mechanics there'd be (justifiable) cries of bloody blue murder: the GM is dictating the PC's reaction to the wink.
> 
> So why isn't the GM given the same agency over how her NPCs react to the PCs' actions?




I think it may be so, depending on the game in question. It depends on the mechanics of the game. 

Beside that, though, more broadly I think that most games tend to make a distinction between PCs and NPCs. Here you describe the NPC as belonging to the GM, almost like the NPC is the PC for the GM, which I don't think is the common take on NPCs. 

I know you hold a very specific "the PCs are no one special" kind of approach, and while I get that from an aesthetic point in the sense that they are no one special in their world, most games have different rules for PCs and NPCs, so in that sense, there are things that make the PCs different. Even most versions of D&D treat NPCs differently than PCs in many ways.


----------



## GrahamWills

Lanefan said:


> There's a problem with the example "I wink at the maiden and soften her heart" that I think has thus far been overlooked here, which is this:
> 
> Flip it around.  If the GM says to you "The maiden winks at you and softens your heart" without invoking any game mechanics there'd be (justifiable) cries of bloody blue murder: the GM is dictating the PC's reaction to the wink.
> 
> So why isn't the GM given the same agency over how her NPCs react to the PCs' actions?




Well, for a start, most games treat PCs differently from NPCs. So there is no more reason why an NPC should have the same agency as a PC does. Second, why should it not be exactly the same?

Player: "I winks at the maiden and soften her heart"
GM: "OK, she smiles at you"

Player: "I winks at the maiden and soften her heart"
GM: "Actually, she's not that into you. You'll need to test Flirting"

GM: "The maiden winks at you and softens your heart"
Player: "OK, I smile at her"

GM: "The maiden winks at you and softens your heart"
Player: "Actually, I'm not into her. I'll resist"

I'm not sure I'd characterize the last one  as "(justifiable) cries of bloody blue murder" -- I think I'd call it "pretty normal for a Tuesday game"


----------



## Wightbred

Maxperson said:


> [/FONT][/FONT][/COLOR]Those games function by having players be GMs(even if they don't call them GMs specifically). The players step out of the duties that players have in RPGs and assume the duties that GMs have in RPGS when needed, effectively making people both a GM and a player, depending on what they are doing at the time.
> 
> They aren't really games with no GM.




i absolutely agree, which is why I used the term GM-full (with a typo!), as in the table is full of GMs. I did also use GM-less as it was the term used by the poster I was responding to.

Contrasting just with GM-full is probably a simplification of a spectrum, from the GM is a god whose word is unquestionable and is solely responsible for all fun at one end, through to the GM is running the game but is open to ideas and discussion, to AW MCing, and finally to equally shared responsibility for authoring at the other end. I doubt many groups are playing at the extremes of this spectrum most of the time.

I forgot to mention a bunch of other great GM-full games like Microscope (great campaign starter) and Kingdom.

Happy gaming.


----------



## FrogReaver

Lanefan said:


> There's a problem with the example "I wink at the maiden and soften her heart" that I think has thus far been overlooked here, which is this:
> 
> Flip it around.  If the GM says to you "The maiden winks at you and softens your heart" without invoking any game mechanics there'd be (justifiable) cries of bloody blue murder: the GM is dictating the PC's reaction to the wink.
> 
> So why isn't the GM given the same agency over how her NPCs react to the PCs' actions?




I agree.  The most simple rationale is that true RPG play doesn't allow for players to dictate how anyone reacts to them.  That's the territory of the GM.  Nor for the GM to dictate how the players react.  That's the territory of the player.

Now there are many games that introduce story telling elements alongside true roleplaying to allow players to roleplay while also providing them some degree of narrative control.  I'm not willing to classify such games as non-roleplaying games, but I think it's important to point out the distinction about what actually is a role playing element and what actually is a collaborative story telling element.


----------



## Ovinomancer

Wightbred said:


> i absolutely agree, which is why I used the term GM-full (with a typo!), as in the table is full of GMs. I did also use GM-less as it was the term used by the poster I was responding to.
> 
> Contrasting just with GM-full is probably a simplification of a spectrum, from the GM is a god whose word is unquestionable and is solely responsible for all fun at one end, through to the GM is running the game but is open to ideas and discussion, to AW MCing, and finally to equally shared responsibility for authoring at the other end. I doubt many groups are playing at the extremes of this spectrum most of the time.
> 
> I forgot to mention a bunch of other great GM-full games like Microscope (great campaign starter) and Kingdom.
> 
> Happy gaming.




See, I disagree.  Without asking for specific duties and authorities that constitute the "GM role", we can say that whatever these are they must be severable -- ie, exercising one of these authorities does not necessarily entail the ability to exercise all of the authorities.  In fact, in many games with a GM, the specific authorities are defined and do not constitute the same set of authorities.  Sure, D&D uses the "GM has all authority" model, but this would entail that all authorities are the GM's role, as the ability to exercise a veto is the control of a thing.  Given that there's an assumed "Player role" as well, then it can't be the case that the GM's role can be so defined as it leaves no authorities for the player.  This is actually a point often made about D&D in favor of the GM's authority, so I'm not on terribly shaky ground here.

All that said, if the GM's role isn't well defined, and the individual authorities are severable, then it's hard to say that there is a definable GM's role rather than a number of authorities that many games assign to the GM.  Enough so that it's really not useful analysis at all to refer to the GM's role for this bucket, but rather to discuss how the specific authorities are distributed.  Refering to a shifting bucket of authorities as the "GM's role" doesn't illuminate what's happening in play, but obscures it.  I will concede it's possibly useful in introducing concepts of a game to new players that are steeped in D&D-style authorities, in that it frames the game inside their limited reference experience, but, past that, it's just not helpful at all.


----------



## Ovinomancer

FrogReaver said:


> I agree.  The most simple rationale is that true RPG play doesn't allow for players to dictate how anyone reacts to them.  That's the territory of the GM.  Nor for the GM to dictate how the players react.  That's the territory of the player.
> 
> Now there are many games that introduce story telling elements alongside true roleplaying to allow players to roleplay while also providing them some degree of narrative control.  I'm not willing to classify such games as non-roleplaying games, but I think it's important to point out the distinction about what actually is a role playing element and what actually is a collaborative story telling element.




Strongly disagree with this.  You've defined 'roleplaying' as 'how I prefer to play' and not in any terms outside of your preferences.  Burning Wheel is very much a role-playing game and yet has mechanics where the DM can indeed direct a PC's action.  This is because it's play loop is contested truth statements, and the winner of the roll gets their statement as truth.  On the GM side, this can very much be declaring a different action for the PC (and the outcome) than what the player wanted.  It's a still a role-playing game though, and actually centers much more of the play around the character than D&D does (because it has mechanics that focus play on the PC while D&D is a task resolution system).  Don't let your preferences become fetters that prevent you from seeing other games as valid.

EDIT: for a more D&D oriented response, see dominate person/monster, charm abilities, and emotion spells.  These can all have the GM dictating PC actions, so even in D&D your argument runs into problems.


----------



## GrahamWills

Ovinomancer said:


> Strongly disagree with this.  You've defined 'roleplaying' as 'how I prefer to play' and not in any terms outside of your preferences.  Burning Wheel is very much a role-playing game and yet has mechanics where the DM can indeed direct a PC's action ... On the GM side, this can very much be declaring a different action for the PC (and the outcome) than what the player wanted.




Agree with Ovinomancer; it's not a "requirement of roleplaying" that the DM cannot direct how players react. In fact, it'd guess that pretty much every GM has had players react to being hit by taking damage, react to being scared by running, react to being knocked unconscious by falling over, react to being awed by a dragon by taking a penalty to attacks, etc.

I know that some people like to make a distinction and say that the GM's job is to judge purely physical reactions only, making them play the role of a physics simulation runner. But that's only some GMs and some players -- many other of us prefer to play games where simulation of physical reality is accompanied by simulation of emotional reality also. In fact, some of use like games where that is the main role the GM plays and the physics part is shared by all players.


----------



## FrogReaver

Ovinomancer said:


> EDIT: for a more D&D oriented response, see dominate person/monster, charm abilities, and emotion spells.  These can all have the GM dictating PC actions, so even in D&D your argument runs into problems.




See Magic


----------



## Tony Vargas

FrogReaver said:


> I agree.  The most simple rationale is that true RPG play...



… if you find yourself needing to append "True" to something, you're probably trying to assume a conclusion about what that something is …


----------



## FrogReaver

Ovinomancer said:


> Strongly disagree with this.  You've defined 'roleplaying' as 'how I prefer to play'




No I've not.  I've defined it as what it is.



> and not in any terms outside of your preferences.  Burning Wheel is very much a role-playing game and yet has mechanics where the DM can indeed direct a PC's action.  This is because it's play loop is contested truth statements, and the winner of the roll gets their statement as truth.




Which is not a true RPG mechanic.  It's a narrative/storytelling style mechanic.  As I said, the games are RPG's because they do contain many RPG elements as well.  But the mechanic you are bringing up is not one of those RPG mechanics.



> On the GM side, this can very much be declaring a different action for the PC (and the outcome) than what the player wanted.




Which is not a roleplaying mechanic but a story/narrative mechanic.



> It's a still a role-playing game though,




Of course it is.  That doesn't mean every mechanic involved in for roleplay though.  See the distinction?



> and actually centers much more of the play around the character than D&D does (because it has mechanics that focus play on the PC while D&D is a task resolution system).  Don't let your preferences become fetters that prevent you from seeing other games as valid.




Those are very valid role playing games.  Those role playing games do have non-roleplaying mechanics.  They aren't pure and true role playing games, but rather blended hydrids of roleplaying and narrative style games.  Both have their place.  Both have those that like them.

But please don't act like anything that has some roleplaying elements means that all elements in it are elements of roleplay.  That's a fallacy.


----------



## FrogReaver

Tony Vargas said:


> … if you find yourself needing to append "True" to something, you're probably trying to assume a conclusion about what that something is …




Not at all.  True is used to draw a distinction between something that only contains roleplaying elements and something that contains role playing elements and non-roleplaying elements.  The systems being described don't only contain roleplaying elements, they contain a lot of other elements that are not role playing elements.


----------



## Tony Vargas

FrogReaver said:


> Not at all.  True is used to draw a distinction between something that only contains roleplaying elements and something that contains role playing elements and non-roleplaying elements.



Exactly.  You're trying to establish whether something is legit RP, and to do it, you first define it as not, then use it as proof.  Assuming the conclusion.

To put it another way, GMs describing player actions/reactions and Players describing things outside their characters are 100% perfectly legit RP.  

Just in a different style.



FrogReaver said:


> Now there are many games that introduce story telling elements alongside true roleplaying to allow players to roleplay while also providing them some degree of narrative control.  I'm not willing to classify such games as non-roleplaying games...



See, all you've proven is that you're unwilling to acknowledge a style or sub-set of RPGs as such.

That says nothing about the games or styles in questions.  It's just you.


----------



## Nagol

FrogReaver said:


> See Magic




There are many games where no magic is involved and the GM is not only expected to inform PC response, but is required to do so.

_Pendragon_ has a major portion of a character definition be the PC's relationship with a set of paired virtues and vices.  The PC is exposed to tests of a virtue or vice and the GM is expected to have the PC react according to how well or poorly the test has handled:



			
				Pendragon 3e said:
			
		

> A critical success in a trait roll indicates that the character _must_ act in the manner described by the trait.  The action needs not be totally outrageous and extreme, but is visible and overt enough to be noticed enough by others, and to make the character feel that he has revealed strong emotions or even compromised himself.  Thus we can imagine Sir Bors de Ganis gains a critical success on his Lustful trait of 1.  Certainly he does not rape the girl.  The gamemaster declares that he gently touches the maiden's fair cheek, causing her to blush.  This is enough for Sir Bors to feel embarrassed and ashamed for perverting his ideals.




_Fantasy Wargaming_ is another RPG with a series of personality tests designed to represent temptation, loyalty, and social pecking order in an adventuring group.

Other games have morale rules which may dictate how the PCs act under duress.


----------



## FrogReaver

Tony Vargas said:


> Exactly.  You're trying to establish whether something is legit RP




Of course.  The term roleplay has a precise meaning.  If we cannot establish whether something is legit roleplay then the term roleplay has no precise meaning.



> , and to do it, you first define it as not, then use it as proof.  Assuming the conclusion.




Consider a brown dog.  Brown is a specific color.  White is a different specific color.  Would you also accuse me of defining the brown dog as not white as if that is something to be frowned upon?

That's essentially the rebuttal I'm getting from you and it makes no sense - because words have meanings



> To put it another way, GMs describing player actions/reactions and Players describing things outside their characters are 100% perfectly legit RP.




Player's describing player actions is roleplaying.  Thus when a GM describes player actions that is not roleplaying.  Just like above where brown is not white.



> See, all you've proven is that you're unwilling to acknowledge a style or sub-set of RPGs as such.




I'm unwilling to define roleplaying as something it is not.  I acknowledge that the games in question do have many roleplaying mechanics, but my disagreement is in calling every mechanic in such a game a role playing mechanic.  Assuming the whole is something because part or even most of it is something is a major fallacy.  Please don't fall for that fallacy.


----------



## Tony Vargas

FrogReaver said:


> Of course.  The term roleplay has a precise meaning.



It certainly does not.  RPGs are just one meaning, and what is or is not an RPG is sometimes hotly debated.  You have roleplay in contexts of TTRPGs, CRPG, MMO RPGs, as well as in clinical and *ahem* other contexts.

By giving it a precise meaning of your own choosing, you assume a conclusion about that debate.  It's bad form.  It proves nothing.


What you could do, is draw distinctions among different sorts and styles of RP.  It's still going to be controversial, acrimonious, and accomplish nothing - just look at the Forge and GNS - but at least it won't be fallacious right out the gate.


----------



## FrogReaver

Nagol said:


> There are many games where no magic is involved and the GM is not only expected to inform PC response, but is required to do so.




Then those games have a non-role playing mechanic.  Nothing wrong with that.  But that's what it is.



> _Pendragon_ has a major portion of a character definition be the PC's relationship with a set of paired virtues and vices.  The PC is exposed to tests of a virtue or vice and the GM is expected to have the PC react according to how well or poorly the test has handled:




If the GM declares the player's action then it's not a role playing mechanic.  That is, the mechanic in question is taking the players ability to roleplay away in that specific situation.



> _Fantasy Wargaming_ is another RPG with a series of personality tests designed to represent temptation, loyalty, and social pecking order in an adventuring group.




I'm not familiar with the game, but if it requires the GM to dictate the PC's actions then it's not roleplaying.



> Other games have morale rules which may dictate how the PCs act under duress.




If it actually makes the PC do something then it's not roleplaying.

With all that said, if a game has one of those not roleplaying mechanics above but 99% of all the other game mechanics were role playing mechanics then I'm calling that a role playing game.


----------



## FrogReaver

Tony Vargas said:


> It certainly does not.  RPGs are just one meaning, and what is or is not an RPG is sometimes hotly debated.  You have roleplay in contexts of TTRPGs, CRPG, MMO RPGs, as well as in clinical and *ahem* other contexts.
> 
> By giving it a precise meaning of your own choosing, you assume a conclusion about that debate.  It's bad form.  It proves nothing.




By not adopting a precise meaning you can never prove anything.  There's no real debate going on until ya'll either adopt a definition or agree to debate about what the proper definition should be.




> What you could do, is draw distinctions among different sorts and styles of RP.  It's still going to be controversial, acrimonious, and accomplish nothing - just look at the Forge and GNS - but at least it won't be fallacious right out the gate.




Or you could define roleplay the proper way as I have done and then analyze the mechanics in question as I have been doing to determine if they are roleplaying mechanics or not - which is really the only proper way to have a debate about such things in the first place.


----------



## Tony Vargas

FrogReaver said:


> By not adopting a precise meaning you can never prove anything.  There's no real debate going on until ya'll either adopt a definition or agree to debate about what the proper definition should be.



And has everyone bought into your TRUE Roleplaying definition?  No.  So you're jump'n the gun there, aren't you.

The elements you're trying to pretend aren't roleplaying are a common feature of storytelling styles, which, back in the 90s, had proponents insisting that such was the One True Way to ROLEplay, and that anything else was inferior ROLLplaying.

And, really, what's to prove?  Some games give players and GMs more of the same tools, others segregate their tools, some - very old & popular - give prettymuch all the tools to the DM. Those are differences, but they don't make one sort more properly an RPG than another. 

Analyze those differences if you like, but don't pretend one is more legitimately RP by just arbitrarily defining it as such.  

If you need that kind of high ground to make your point, you must have very little confidence in the strength of whatever actual argument you may have.


----------



## FrogReaver

The current vibe i'm getting is that any mechanic in a game called a roleplaying game must be a roleplaying mechanic and that's simply not the case.  To then come out and vocally make the assertion that such is not the case is then viewed somehow as being One True Wayism.  - which is absurd.  

We should all be able to agree that not every mechanic in a roleplaying game is a roleplaying mechanic.  Once you get to that point then the question is - which mechanics aren't roleplaying mechanics?  That's when you had better be able to actually define what you mean by roleplaying.  

I've defined what I mean by it.  Does anyone have a better definition than mine?


----------



## Nagol

FrogReaver said:


> Then those games have a non-role playing mechanic.  Nothing wrong with that.  But that's what it is.
> 
> 
> 
> If the GM declares the player's action then it's not a role playing mechanic.  That is, the mechanic in question is taking the players ability to roleplay away in that specific situation.
> 
> 
> 
> I'm not familiar with the game, but if it requires the GM to dictate the PC's actions then it's not roleplaying.
> 
> 
> 
> If it actually makes the PC do something then it's not roleplaying.
> 
> With all that said, if a game has one of those not roleplaying mechanics above but 99% of all the other game mechanics were role playing mechanics then I'm calling that a role playing game.




They are role playing mechanics - the games just model that a person's impulse responses may not match their ideals.  The reason the players are removed from the PC response is because there are defined mechanics that are checked to determine behaviour in certain circumstances.  "I'd never steal money!"  "Well, there's a bag of unattended money in front of you..."  "I shouldn't have taken the $30,000!  Now what do I do!!?!?"

Champions/Hero System has a related set of mechanics where the player defines specific personality issues for a PC and is constrained to play within them.  The more extreme the reaction, the less player control can be exercised when they are triggered.

Players need not have complete control of their PC on a role playing game.  Indeed, if there are any mechanical systems for social interaction or strong emotion then almost by definition the players cannot have complete control.


----------



## Tony Vargas

FrogReaver said:


> Does anyone have a better definition than mine?



 Starting with no definition at all is better.  Since "what constitutes roleplaying?" is clearly part of the question, the definition is something you might have at the end.  

Though, honestly, good luck with that.



> The current vibe i'm getting is that any mechanic in a game called a roleplaying game must be a roleplaying mechanic and that's simply not the case.



Why would that not be the case?  I mean, you're trying to RP a character.  Defining that character is surely part of that.  How NPCs react to that character could well be among the things that define it.


----------



## FrogReaver

Tony Vargas said:


> And has everyone bought into your TRUE Roleplaying definition?




If they really don't know what roleplaying means by now then they ought to.



> No.  So you're jump'n the gun there, aren't you.




Nope.  I'm establishing the framework for using the definition I've proposed.  



> The elements you're trying to pretend aren't roleplaying are a common feature of storytelling styles, which, back in the 90s, had proponents insisting that such was the One True Way to ROLEplay, and that anything else was inferior ROLLplaying.




Does anyone take their arguments seriously anymore?  I think currently in the 21st century we've all agreed that roleplaying games and cooperative story games are different things.



> And, really, what's to prove?  Some games give players and GMs more of the same tools, others segregate their tools, some - very old & popular - give prettymuch all the tools to the DM. Those are differences, but they don't make one sort more properly an RPG than another.




You seem to be taking my statement as if not being an RPG is inferior to being an RPG.  It's not.  All are equals.  -No wonder these discussions always spiral into nothingness.



> Analyze those differences if you like, but don't pretend one is more legitimately RP by just arbitrarily defining it as such.




Of course one is roleplaying while the other isn't.  That you can't bear to actually let a definition speak for itself is the very problem I'm here trying to solve.



> If you need that kind of high ground to make your point, you must have very little confidence in the strength of whatever actual argument you may have.




Let's start simple.  Can an RPG contain non-RPG elements, or does an element being part of an RPG always make it an RPG element?


----------



## FrogReaver

Nagol said:


> They are role playing mechanics - the games just model that a person's impulse responses may not match their ideals.  The reason the players are removed from the PC response is because there are defined mechanics that are checked to determine behaviour in certain circumstances.




I understand why such is being done.  It's because we don't trust players to actually roleplay their PC's.  That's fine.  But we don't need to act like a mechanic created solely to remove a player's ability to roleplay their PC is actually a roleplaying mechanic...



> Champions/Hero System has a related set of mechanics where the player defines specific personality issues for a PC and is constrained to play within them.  The more extreme the reaction, the less player control can be exercised when they are triggered.




Right.  We constrain players within the rules to only play their characters a certain way.... that's not being done to enable them to roleplay, but rather to prevent them from it.



> Players need not have complete control of their PC on a role playing game.




Your getting the concept of a roleplaying game and roleplaying mixed up.  A roleplaying game can have non-roleplaying rules and mechanics.  We label it roleplaying because many of it's rules and mechanics enable roleplaying, but that doesn't mean all have to.



> Indeed, if there are any mechanical systems for social interaction or strong emotion then almost by definition the players cannot have complete control.




Just because a roleplaying game uses such systems doesn't mean those systems are roleplaying elements of the game...


----------



## FrogReaver

Tony Vargas said:


> Starting with no definition at all is better.  Since "what constitutes roleplaying?" is clearly part of the question, the definition is something you might have at the end.




But what is currently being done is - people are starting with games labeled role playing games and then attributing any and all mechanics in them as roleplaying mechanics.  Then they want to define roleplaying based on those findings.  You see the flaw in that right?



> Why would that not be the case?  I mean, you're trying to RP a character.  Defining that character is surely part of that.




Sure, presumably you are trying to roleplay some specific character you have created.  So suppose you want the lady charmer.  In 5e terms a high charisma accomplishes that.  In a more free form RPG you may not even have stats.  Simply the way the GM has NPC's react to your PC may provide the basis for that reality.  That doesn't mean you get specific control to ever charm any 1 specific lady.  The GM still determines if a particular lady is able to be charmed by you and how to resolve it if the outcome is uncertain.



> How NPCs react to that character could well be among the things that define it.




Sure.  In a roleplaying game it would be the GM's responsibility to have NPC's react in accordance to your character.  If the GM found there to be uncertainty then he would also determine the process used to resolve that uncertainty.


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## Guest 6801328

FrogReaver said:


> Or you could define roleplay the proper way as I have done and then analyze the mechanics in question as I have been doing to determine if they are roleplaying mechanics or not - which is really the only proper way to have a debate about such things in the first place.




But if nobody agrees with your definition....?


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## Manbearcat

Nagol said:


> They are role playing mechanics - the games just model that a person's impulse responses may not match their ideals.  The reason the players are removed from the PC response is because there are defined mechanics that are checked to determine behaviour in certain circumstances.  "I'd never steal money!"  "Well, there's a bag of unattended money in front of you..."  "I shouldn't have taken the $30,000!  Now what do I do!!?!?"
> 
> Champions/Hero System has a related set of mechanics where the player defines specific personality issues for a PC and is constrained to play within them.  The more extreme the reaction, the less player control can be exercised when they are triggered.
> 
> Players need not have complete control of their PC on a role playing game.  Indeed, if there are any mechanical systems for social interaction or strong emotion then almost by definition the players cannot have complete control.




Good post.

I think one of the big problems we have in this sort of discussion relates to your first paragraph.

There is a common refrain shared by a lot of TTRPG players that people (in this case their PCs) possess a level of cognitive continuity and coherency, or a lack of disunity among the various mental states and hardware that we all inhabit/deploy simultaneously, the sum of which means that every action that a person takes is some kind of expression of perception bias-less, maximal agency and coalitional consensus (amidst the various "selves").  Anything that falls short of that isn't immersive or unrealistic or something of the sort.

Modern cognitive and neuroscience very much disagrees with this.

One part of you being beholden to another (possibly unknown at the time of the decision-point) part (or parts...which in turn may be beholden to an externality) is pretty much par for the course in human experience.


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## FrogReaver

Elfcrusher said:


> But if nobody agrees with your definition....?




They are welcome to propose one.


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## Guest 6801328

FrogReaver said:


> They are welcome to propose one.




Ok.  Fun game. 

Here's my first attempt:

A roleplaying game is a game with the following characteristics:
 - The "tokens" controlled by players represent characters that are defined by a composite of qualitative and quantitative descriptors. 
 - Instead of choosing from a prescribed list of legal moves, players engage in free-form play, describing their interactions with an environment.  
 - The rules help one or more participants adjudicate in the case of ambiguity.

EDIT: Bear in mind I'm trying to define the kind of "roleplaying games" we are talking about here.  I'm not including something you might do in group therapy, in the privacy of your bedroom (or perhaps not your bedroom but a by-the-hour hotel room), or other activities which happen to carry the same appellation.


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## hawkeyefan

A game in which the participants take on the roles of characters in a shared fiction.

Seems pretty straightforward.

I don’t see how the question of who decides how an action is resolved really affects the above. Different systems will have different ways of doing that to appeal to different play experiences and/or achieve different play goals. Doesn’t change the fact that the participants are taking on the role of characters in the shared fiction.


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## FrogReaver

Elfcrusher said:


> Ok.  Fun game.
> 
> Here's my first attempt:
> 
> A roleplaying game is a game with the following characteristics:
> - The "tokens" controlled by players represent characters that are defined by a composite of qualitative and quantitative descriptors.
> - Instead of choosing from a prescribed list of legal moves, players engage in free-form play, describing their interactions with an environment.
> - The rules help one or more participants adjudicate in the case of ambiguity.
> 
> EDIT: Bear in mind I'm trying to define the kind of "roleplaying games" we are talking about here.  I'm not including something you might do in group therapy, in the privacy of your bedroom (or perhaps not your bedroom but a by-the-hour hotel room), or other activities which happen to carry the same appellation.




That's a subtle shift in the initial request - define roleplaying vs define roleplaying game as you did - but I'll go along.

There's one clause that seems a bit ambiguous to me "describing their interactions with an environment."  It seems that could refer to the player describing the action and the outcome or just the action or even just the outcome.  Did you have something more specific in mind here?

But even with without knowing the answer to that I'd like to point out one conclusion your definition leads to that I think you will find surprising.  If players are the ones describing their interactions with an environment then would a game where the DM describes a players interactions with the environment not be considered a roleplaying game by your proposed definition?  What about a game where most interactions with an environment are described by a player but some are described by the DM?​


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## FrogReaver

hawkeyefan said:


> A game in which the participants take on the roles of characters in a shared fiction.
> 
> Seems pretty straightforward.
> 
> I don’t see how the question of who decides how an action is resolved really affects the above. Different systems will have different ways of doing that to appeal to different play experiences and/or achieve different play goals. Doesn’t change the fact that the participants are taking on the role of characters in the shared fiction.




How exactly does one take on the role of a character in a shared fiction?

Is the answer that they choose what their PC does?


----------



## hawkeyefan

FrogReaver said:


> How exactly does one take on the role of a character in a shared fiction?
> 
> Is the answer that they choose what their PC does?




I would expect that the answer will vary. I feel that RPG is a category of game, not one game. So there would be any number of ways to play one.

I mean, even within a very traditional RPG like D&D, you have people roleplaying in different ways and with different rules applied. I don’t think that anyone would claim that the DM isn’t roleplaying because the characters he plays are more subject to the actions of the PCs. 

Role playing is as basic and simple as the two words imply. Playing a role.


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## FrogReaver

hawkeyefan said:


> I would expect that the answer will vary. I feel that RPG is a category of game, not one game. So there would be any number of ways to play one.




But surely there aren't many different ways to take on a role of a character in a shared fiction?  Are you incapable of even attempting to define what taking on the role of a character means?  If so I'd say that you've not really provided much of a definition at all, as it can mean whatever the reader actually wants it to mean, based on however the reader interprets "take on the role of a character".



> I mean, even within a very traditional RPG like D&D, you have people roleplaying in different ways and with different rules applied. I don’t think that anyone would claim that the DM isn’t roleplaying because the characters he plays are more subject to the actions of the PCs.




There are times a DM is roleplaying an NPC.  Pretty much anytime he is having an NPC interact with the PC's would be a time he could be considered to be roleplaying.  A large portion of his job isn't just controlling NPC interactions with PC's though.  It's also creating the setting/world etc.  That part isn't roleplay.



> Role playing is as basic and simple as the two words imply. Playing a role.




The Chess is a roleplaying game!  No?  Then maybe it's not quite as simple as playing a role...


----------



## pemerton

[MENTION=6785785]hawkeyefan[/MENTION] - there's more than one thing going on in your post but I thought I'd start with this one, as it speaks directly to the OP:



hawkeyefan said:


> In a way, it's not about "What do you do?" although I ask that question all the time in my game. It's really about "What do you hope to accomplish?"



The OP, following in the lead of Donald Davidson, is really asserting that "do" and "accomplish" are synonyms.

So _opening the safe_ is something that the PC does. And _finding X in the safe_ (or not, as the case may be) is also something that the PC does. And _nimbly moving his/her fingers while listening to the fall of the tumblers_ is also something that the PC does. And these are all _the same thing_, although under different descriptions - just as _moving my finger_, _flicking on the light switch_, _illuminating the room and alerting the prowler that I've come home are all descriptions - different descriptions - of the one action.

Building on this point, the OP is asking about who, at the table, gets to decide what descriptions are true and is pushing for answers to this - which of course might be different for different systems, different contexts of play, different preferences, etc - which go beyond the player decides what the PC does. Because once we recognise that what the PC does is something amenable to multiple descriptions, at varying levels of "thinness"/"thickness", some of which are intended and some of which - like the alerting of the prowler - might be inadvertent - then we can see that it doesn't take us very far to say that someone gets to decide what the PC does. Because we need to know what sorts of descriptions is that person entitled to make true.



hawkeyefan said:



			If the PCs are already looking for something specific....let's say they've broken into a place for the specific purpose of finding a map....then that's potentially going to influence how they declare actions. "I want to see if the map is in this safe" is more specific than "Let's see what's in this safe". A given method may or may not work for both these instances. Rolling and consulting a table may not help when something specific is sought, for example.
		
Click to expand...


One issue this raises is - what is the connection between player desire about the outcome of an action, PC hope/intention in performing an action (which may be the same as what the player desires, but perhaps not always), and true descriptions of the action?

In fairly traditional D&D action declarations which have no very rich intention behind them - say, I open the safe to see what's inside it - are fairly common. And the GM has a correspondingly very extensive licence to settle true descriptions of those actions- You open the safe and see nothing, or maybe You open the safe only to realise it's a gateway - your mind is blasted as you look on the face of Demogorgon at the other end of the interplaner portal!" Of course there are various principles that are expected to govern the formulation of those descriptions - including (say) fidelity to pre-written notes; cognisance of both PC level and dungeon level; not adopting such a "gotcha" appoach that skilled play becomes impossible, etc. But player desire and PC intention don't play a huge role.

Conversely, in BW an action declaration without some fairly rich specification of an intention or a hope isn't really well-formed. Which then has a big effect on how true descriptions are established: if the check succeeds, then we know that, in the fiction, there is a true description of the action which is the PC getting what s/he wanted. The rule book even describes this as "sacrosanct".

Does the above help make clearer what I'm trying to get at and ask about in the OP?



Imaro said:



			When you say "richer, wider, consequence-laden descriptions of what the PCs do..." are you just speaking to results of an action? Because I don't think establishing the result falls into the same bucket as descriptions of what the PC's do.
		
Click to expand...


Hopefully the earlier parts of this post help with this. When I turn on a light switch with the result that I illuminate a room and alert a prowler - with the motion of the switch itself being a result of moving my finger - these are all the same thing that I do], albeit described differently.

Of course in a RPG system you might impose a rule that (say) the players can make true such-and-such sorts of descriptions (eg descriptions about PC bodily movements) and the GM can make true such-and-such other descriptions (eg of what they see when the look somewhere) and maybe use random tables for something else, and make some authority subject to some mechanical checks, etc - but that is a decision about who gets to establish what descriptions as true. The point of the OP is that you can't get to it just by contrasting (so-called) actions with (so-called) results. That contrast is downstream of, not upstream of, a decision about who gets to establish what descriptions as true._


----------



## hawkeyefan

FrogReaver said:


> But surely there aren't many different ways to take on a role of a character in a shared fiction?  Are you incapable of even attempting to define what taking on the role of a character means?  If so I'd say that you've not really provided much of a definition at all, as it can mean whatever the reader actually wants it to mean, based on however the reader interprets "take on the role of a character".




Yup. It will indeed mean different things to different people.

For me, taking on a role most often means a role in a story....a persona, a specific character...and I play the game essentially advocating for that character within the story. 




FrogReaver said:


> There are times a DM is roleplaying an NPC.  Pretty much anytime he is having an NPC interact with the PC's would be a time he could be considered to be roleplaying.  A large portion of his job isn't just controlling NPC interactions with PC's though.  It's also creating the setting/world etc.  That part isn't roleplay.




I would say even that is debatable, but let’s not even worry about the GM’s other roles (whoa) in the game.

You claimed that true roleplaying doesn’t allow for the player to determine how anyone reacts to them, or for the GM to determine how a PC reacts. My point is that reactions of characters are different for players and GMs. The rules work differently for PCs than they do for NPCs (or, they very often do, I should say). And some of those ways clearly break this rule you’ve come up with. Something as simple as a surprise roll means the PC is surprised....no choice. Spells and saving throws and similar mechanics. Some games allow for social actions to influence others.

Sometimes the actions or reactions of characters are beyond the control of the player or GM. If my character fails a saving throw when a dragon lands next to him, are you going to say that I’m not roleplaying when I have him throw down his sword and run? Am I not playing the role of someone in the fiction by doing so? If I insist that I attack the dragon, is the GM somehow in the wrong to say “no, you cannot attack....you have to freeze in terror or flee”? 

Other games also break this rule of yours. It doesn’t make them any less roleplaying games than any other. 

And while I think your rule is a perfectly fine approach to roleplaying games, I think that’s all it is...an approach, not a definition. 



FrogReaver said:


> The Chess is a roleplaying game!  No?  Then maybe it's not quite as simple as playing a role...




I do think role playing is that simple. If I sit down to play chess with you, and every turn I have my King issue orders to the piece I move, and then I have that piece respond in kind...I’m roleplaying. But since chess doesn’t require that in order to function, I’m not playing a roleplaying game.


----------



## pemerton

Lanefan said:


> There's a problem with the example "I wink at the maiden and soften her heart" that I think has thus far been overlooked here, which is this:
> 
> Flip it around.  If the GM says to you "The maiden winks at you and softens your heart" without invoking any game mechanics there'd be (justifiable) cries of bloody blue murder: the GM is dictating the PC's reaction to the wink.
> 
> So why isn't the GM given the same agency over how her NPCs react to the PCs' actions?



That depends heavily on the system.

In Apocalypse World, to give one example, the resolution of "social" checks is defined differently when the target is a PC or a NPC - players have more capacity to generate true descriptions pertaining to NPC attitudes than to the attitudes of PCs who aren't theirs. And the GM is expected to treat NPCs as expendable in a way that PCs are not.

In Marvel Heroic RP/Cortex+ Heroic, the system is fully symmetrical as between players, GMs, PCs and NPCs.

In Traveller, there is a rule for making it true that a NPC freezes a PC's heart (morale checks that apply equally to PCs and NPCs) but not that s/he melts a PC's heart (reaction checks are used for NPCs but not PCs).

Etc.



FrogReaver said:


> See Magic



Well, magic is imaginary. Whereas in this thread I was hoping we could talk about the actualities of how RPGing can work.

We all know that D&D is a game in which the GM can produce true descriptions of NPC actions like _The wizard weaves a spell about you - make a save - <player rolls poorly> - the hostility you were feeling melts away, as you recognise the wizard as an old friend_. The fact that, in the fiction, this is the casting of a spell is part of the aesthetic of the game. But that doesn't illuminate how the process works at the table - eg how often per session is the GM allowed to do this? (Answer for D&D: as often as s/he likes, given largely unconstrained power to introduce magic-using NPCs into the situation)

In the Prince Valiant RPG, the GM can do something similar by using a Special Effect such as Incite Lust ("This Special Effect makes one character’s primary thoughts turn to lust for another character"). As the rules say (p 43),

When possible, the Storyteller should use coin throws [=checks] to impose his will on the Adventurers. . . . But a Special Effect gives the Storyteller an event that occurs without fail. This can help him control the story without being too dictatorial.​
The rules also advise (pp 43-44) that "Usually no more than three characters with Special Effects, or one character with three Special Effects, should be used [per scenario], so as to let the players retain some control."

The fact that a Special Effect in Prince Valiant need not be connected to the use of magic in the fiction changes the aesthetic of the game, but is largely irrelevant to considering how the GM-side mechanics of that game and D&D work.


----------



## Bagpuss

Ovinomancer said:


> Yes, and the topic is about who gets to choose the outcome -- the GM or the player.




This normally depends on the system, and usually some sort of success mechanic.


----------



## pemerton

Tony Vargas said:


> *GMs describing player actions/reactions* and Players describing things outside their characters are 100% perfectly legit RP.
> 
> Just in a different style.



Part of the point of the OP is that _the bit that I've bolded_ happens ubiquitously in RPGing. Including bog-standard D&D.

Eg the player declares _I hurl a flask of oil at the mummy_. Checks are then made (depending on system and table conventions, these might include throwing checks, saving throws, damage rolls, etc). The GM narrates, as the upshot _Cool! You set the mummy alight - its dry rags and embalming oils are burning furiously_.

Eg the player declares _I search for secret doors_. Checks are then made (depending on system and table conventions, these might include perception checks, a sui generis secret-door-finding mechanic, an ad hoc roll, etc). The GM narrates, as the upshot _As you run your finger along the architrave you feel a small but regularly-shaped bump. It's probably a button. And your rapping of the wall has suggested a hollow space behind it_.

Surely these examples, and dozens or hundreds like them, aren't controversial!



FrogReaver said:


> Player's describing player actions is roleplaying.  Thus when a GM describes player actions that is not roleplaying.  Just like above where brown is not white.



I just gave two examples, both extremely straightforward and either of which could come from a D&D table c 1975, in which the GM describes PC actions.

That's a ubiquitous part of RPGing. What the OP is asking about is really the contexts in which and extent to which _players_ get to describe PC actions, and also about enablers for that (eg successful checks).



FrogReaver said:


> Consider a brown dog.  Brown is a specific color.  White is a different specific color.  Would you also accuse me of defining the brown dog as not white as if that is something to be frowned upon?



This is a particularly odd example because the world probably contains many off-white dogs whom some think of as basically white while others think of them as some light or quasi- shade of brown.

And that's before we get to cases like brown dogs that have rolled in chalk or white dogs that have rolled in mud (or worse).


----------



## pemerton

Elfcrusher said:


> A roleplaying game is a game with the following characteristics:
> - The "tokens" controlled by players represent characters that are defined by a composite of qualitative and quantitative descriptors.
> - Instead of choosing from a prescribed list of legal moves, players engage in free-form play, describing their interactions with an environment.
> - The rules help one or more participants adjudicate in the case of ambiguity.





hawkeyefan said:


> A game in which the participants take on the roles of characters in a shared fiction.



I think that there are two things that are central to RPGs and distinguish them from games in the same general neighbourhood such as shared storytelling games, wargames and the like, all of which tend to involve a shared fiction:

* In a RPG, most if not all of the participants engage the game primarily through a particular person within the shared fiction - their moves primarily consist of descriptions of things that their corresponding person does or attempts to do in the fiction;

* In a RPG, the fiction matters to resolution of moves.​
The second point is what distinguishes a RPG from a boardgame and at least some wargaming. The first point is what distinguishes RPGing from most wargaming, and I think is a more precise take on what [MENTION=6785785]hawkeyefan[/MENTION] means by "taking on the roles of characters". Also note that, by my account of RPGing, players in a single-figure wargame where the fiction matters to resolution are playing a RPG - which I think is the right outcome, given that that's pretty much a description of the basics of Arneson's Blackmoor game as I understand it.

The issue of whether the moves are "free-form" or prescribed is, I think, secondary. Much more important, I think, is that the fiction matters to resolution.

The _way in which_ fiction matters to resolution - do we imagine in-fiction causal processes, do we use the fiction as a constraint on permissible framing and outcome narration, etc - varies across RPGs. The early ones tend to focus on in-fiction causal processes because of the wargaming inheritance but there are pretty early systems (T&T, Classic Traveller) which dispense with that in at least some respects and obviously there are contemporary systems (eg Apocalypse World) in which in-fiction causal processes are almost irrelevant to determining how the fiction matters to the resolution of player-declared moves.

What nature and scope of descriptions of actions that the character-playing participants can establish, and by what methods, is of course the topic of this thread. 



Nagol said:


> Players need not have complete control of their PC on a role playing game.  Indeed, if there are any mechanical systems for social interaction or strong emotion then almost by definition the players cannot have complete control.



Just to try to bring the discussion back on topic, I'll reiterate what I posted not far upthread: I think it's obvious that the referee/GM participant in a RPG (to the extent that the game has such a person) typically has quite a wide degree of power to establish descriptions of PC actions as part of the resolution process, and not confined to the social/emotional sphere of the life of those characters.

Of course the details of that - eg does it depend on a player failing a check (yes, typically, for BW; no for AD&D when a PC searches for a secret door) - will reflect the details of what character-playing participants can do in respect of establishing descriptions (assuming the game rules are coherent in this respect - it's not unheard of for RPGs to have incoherent rules in this respect because the full implications of being a fiction-establishing game hadn't been thought through).


----------



## Ovinomancer

Roleplaying is simply taking on an imaginary role in a shared fiction.  There are a number of ways of doing this, including acting, therapy, and playing games.

A roleplaying gane is one where the players roleplay a character(s) in the game and where the player is expected to advocate for their character. 

None of this is impacted by a GM being able to declare actions for a PC in some situations, especially if the action declaration is due to a failed attempt at action by the player.

This varues by game.  In 5e, the expectation is that players have absolute authority to declare thin actions, except in specific cases, usually magic.  But, in other games, where players often have much more control over the scene in general, this is countered by tge GM having control of PC actions in failure conditions.  This does not reduce the roleplaying in these games.


----------



## Aldarc

FrogReaver said:


> By not adopting a precise meaning you can never prove anything. There's no real debate going on until ya'll either adopt a definition or agree to debate about what the proper definition should be.



People spend their entires lives using imprecise definitions to prove things, including nearly the entire enterprise of academia. If academia has taught me anything so far, it's that useful definitions are hardly as precise (or meaningful) as people often like to imagine them being, especially when it involves people arguing on the internet. It's usually about finding serviceable, sufficient, and workable definitions that broadly describe (_and not dogmatically prescribe_) phenomenon. Meanwhile, the entire field of cognitive linguistics would be quick to point out that "meaning" is far from precise, with the field as a whole favoring (what they generally refer to as) "encyclopedic semantics" over "lexical semantics." In other words, the meaning of a thing (word, concept, etc.) is less dependent on lexical definitions, but, rather, on the larger body of knowledge, experiences, cultural/historical associations, and its various related, connected concepts. 



FrogReaver said:


> If they really don't know what roleplaying means by now then they ought to.



I kinda think that you're "Saelorning" on this issue right now. If you are arguing something that causes the likes of Pemerton, Tony Vargas, Elfcrusher, Maxperson, Ovinomancer, and hawkeyefan to collectively unite in their disagreement with you, then you have to wonder how badly you screwed up if the Justice League and the Legion of Doom have teamed-up against you. (I'll let them fight it out who belongs to which team in this scenario. It doesn't matter.) 



> Of course one is roleplaying while the other isn't.  That you can't bear to actually let a definition speak for itself is the very problem I'm here trying to solve.



How does presuming a correct definition (essentially begging the question) in the face of multiple forms of counter evidence solve anything, especially when most people here seem to disagree with it? If anything, your attempt to impose your restricted notion of a "roleplaying mechanic" appears to have instead propagated more problems that it solved.  

So do you adjust your definition with the evidence or do you go Seymour Skinner on us by rejecting your own possibility for error and declaring that everyone else must be wrong?  



FrogReaver said:


> I understand why such is being done.  It's because we don't trust players to actually roleplay their PC's.  That's fine.  But we don't need to act like a mechanic created solely to remove a player's ability to roleplay their PC is actually a roleplaying mechanic...



I think that it has more to do with the growing recognition among even roleplayers that human beings are irrational, biological creatures who are psychologically pushed and pulled in ways beyond even what they can rationally act upon. Roleplaying games are also about emulating certain facets of the human experience, including such things. As  [MENTION=23935]Nagol[/MENTION] said, our impulses and our ideals do not necessarily match. The roleplaying is not necessarily about choosing whether or not we have these impulses but what we do when faced with them.


----------



## Ovinomancer

FrogReaver said:


> See Magic




Magic is just a game mechanic, though.  You could say "social check" or "Tuesday" or "Bob did it" with exactly as much explanatory power as to how the game works.  "Magic" is just a fictional label.


----------



## pemerton

Ovinomancer said:


> In 5e, the expectation is that players have absolute authority to declare thin actions, except in specific cases, usually magic.



Even here I think there are some interesting exceptions (or maybe they're borderline cases).

Eg the search example: suppose the GM has narrated a wall that has a ledge towards its top that is too high for the PCs to visually inspect even when they stand on tippy-toes, but that they can reach with outstretched arms. A player narrates _I reach up high and run my fingers along the ledge_. The GM replies _You run your fingers along the ledge and feel several bumps - one of them depresses as you brush your fingers over it - make a DEX saving throw!_. The player makes the roll, and succeeds. The GM continues _You pull your hand away as a blade springs up from inside the ledge! If you'd been slower it might have pierced your hand. _

That might be good play or bad play, depending on everything from table preferences to larger context in which the episode is located to the dramatic tone of the GM's narration. But as far as the content of the narration is concerned, I don't think it's that remarkable from a D&D perspective.

Even though in giving this example I'm contradicting what you said, that's not my real point - I don't think you were trying to state a general law which I've now punctured with my one counterexample!

I'm more trying to point out that a lot of actual RPGing practice departs from some fairly common descriptions that are given of how it works - even in descriptions found in widely-read rulebooks! Rather than the sort of high-level normative definition-and-description advocacy that we're seeing from some posters, the idea of this thread is to try to hone in on the actualities of play and have a look at what's going on and why.

For instance, I think D&D permits the sort of example I just gave, but is less permissive to the GM when - in the fiction - what is going on is not inspecting an architectural feature but trying to understand a social situation.  Is that just legacy? Does it tell us something about the game's focus?

We could compare that to the "perception" moves in Apocalypse World (p 87 of the rulebook):

READ A SITCH
When you *read a charged situation*, roll+sharp. On a hit, you can ask the MC questions. Whenever you act on one of the MC’s answers, take +1. On a 10+, ask 3. On a 7–9, ask 1:

• where’s my best escape route / way in / way past?
• which enemy is most vulnerable to me?
• which enemy is the biggest threat?
• what should I be on the lookout for?
• what’s my enemy’s true position?
• who’s in control here?

READ A PERSON
When you *read a person* in a charged interaction, roll+sharp. On a 10+, hold 3. On a 7–9, hold 1. While you’re interacting with them, spend your hold to ask their player questions, 1 for 1:

• is your character telling the truth?
• what’s your character really feeling?
• what does your character intend to do?
• what does your character wish I’d do?
• how could I get your character to __?​
There's a higher degree of symmetry here than in D&D, I think, although it's not strict symmetry. And if the player succeeds on a check, the MC (= GM, for non-AW players who are following along) has less licence, I think, than in the D&D case, to describe the PC's actions (say in terms of moving his/her fingers, feeling things with them, pulling away just in time).

Whereas on a _failed_ check (= 6 or less, for non-AW players), the MC has much closer to carte blanche. Here's an example from the AW rulebook (pp 155-56):

“I *read the situation*. What’s my best escape route?” She rolls+sharp and . . . misses. “Oh no,” she says.

I can make as hard and direct a move as I like. . . .

“You’re looking out your (barred, 4th-story) window as though it were an escape route,” I say, “and they don’t chop your door all the way down, just through the top hinge, and then they lean on it to make a 6-inch space. The door’s creaking and snapping at the bottom hinge. And they put a grenade through like this—” I hold up my fist for the grenade and slap it with my other hand, like whacking a croquet ball.

“I dive for—”

Sorry, I’m still making my hard move. . . .

“Nope. They cooked it off and it goes off practically at your feet. Let’s see … 4-harm area messy, a grenade. You have armor?”​
I think a lot of D&D players would find this goes too far - the MC establishes _what it is that the PC is looking at_ (her window), _what she's thinking_ (that it might be an escape route), and then blocks an attempt to declare a dive for cover (which in D&D might be a saving throw if the action economy doesn't permit doing it as a DEX/Acro check or similar).

Not that you need to be told, but just to make it clear to readers of this post: this contrast between D&D and AW is an attempt to illustrate different ways in which true descriptions of PC actions can be established in RPGs.


----------



## Ovinomancer

pemerton said:


> Even here I think there are some interesting exceptions (or maybe they're borderline cases).
> 
> Eg the search example: suppose the GM has narrated a wall that has a ledge towards its top that is too high for the PCs to visually inspect even when they stand on tippy-toes, but that they can reach with outstretched arms. A player narrates _I reach up high and run my fingers along the ledge_. The GM replies _You run your fingers along the ledge and feel several bumps - one of them depresses as you brush your fingers over it - make a DEX saving throw!_. The player makes the roll, and succeeds. The GM continues _You pull your hand away as a blade springs up from inside the ledge! If you'd been slower it might have pierced your hand. _
> 
> That might be good play or bad play, depending on everything from table preferences to larger context in which the episode is located to the dramatic tone of the GM's narration. But as far as the content of the narration is concerned, I don't think it's that remarkable from a D&D perspective.
> 
> Even though in giving this example I'm contradicting what you said, that's not my real point - I don't think you were trying to state a general law which I've now punctured with my one counterexample!
> 
> I'm more trying to point out that a lot of actual RPGing practice departs from some fairly common descriptions that are given of how it works - even in descriptions found in widely-read rulebooks! Rather than the sort of high-level normative definition-and-description advocacy that we're seeing from some posters, the idea of this thread is to try to hone in on the actualities of play and have a look at what's going on and why.
> 
> For instance, I think D&D permits the sort of example I just gave, but is less permissive to the GM when - in the fiction - what is going on is not inspecting an architectural feature but trying to understand a social situation.  Is that just legacy? Does it tell us something about the game's focus?
> 
> We could compare that to the "perception" moves in Apocalypse World (p 87 of the rulebook):
> 
> READ A SITCH
> When you *read a charged situation*, roll+sharp. On a hit, you can ask the MC questions. Whenever you act on one of the MC’s answers, take +1. On a 10+, ask 3. On a 7–9, ask 1:
> 
> • where’s my best escape route / way in / way past?
> • which enemy is most vulnerable to me?
> • which enemy is the biggest threat?
> • what should I be on the lookout for?
> • what’s my enemy’s true position?
> • who’s in control here?
> 
> READ A PERSON
> When you *read a person* in a charged interaction, roll+sharp. On a 10+, hold 3. On a 7–9, hold 1. While you’re interacting with them, spend your hold to ask their player questions, 1 for 1:
> 
> • is your character telling the truth?
> • what’s your character really feeling?
> • what does your character intend to do?
> • what does your character wish I’d do?
> • how could I get your character to __?​
> There's a higher degree of symmetry here than in D&D, I think, although it's not strict symmetry. And if the player succeeds on a check, the MC (= GM, for non-AW players who are following along) has less licence, I think, than in the D&D case, to describe the PC's actions (say in terms of moving his/her fingers, feeling things with them, pulling away just in time).
> 
> Whereas on a _failed_ check (= 6 or less, for non-AW players), the MC has much closer to carte blanche. Here's an example from the AW rulebook (pp 155-56):
> 
> “I *read the situation*. What’s my best escape route?” She rolls+sharp and . . . misses. “Oh no,” she says.
> 
> I can make as hard and direct a move as I like. . . .
> 
> “You’re looking out your (barred, 4th-story) window as though it were an escape route,” I say, “and they don’t chop your door all the way down, just through the top hinge, and then they lean on it to make a 6-inch space. The door’s creaking and snapping at the bottom hinge. And they put a grenade through like this—” I hold up my fist for the grenade and slap it with my other hand, like whacking a croquet ball.
> 
> “I dive for—”
> 
> Sorry, I’m still making my hard move. . . .
> 
> “Nope. They cooked it off and it goes off practically at your feet. Let’s see … 4-harm area messy, a grenade. You have armor?”​
> I think a lot of D&D players would find this goes too far - the MC establishes _what it is that the PC is looking at_ (her window), _what she's thinking_ (that it might be an escape route), and then blocks an attempt to declare a dive for cover (which in D&D might be a saving throw if the action economy doesn't permit doing it as a DEX/Acro check or similar).
> 
> Not that you need to be told, but just to make it clear to readers of this post: this contrast between D&D and AW is an attempt to illustrate different ways in which true descriptions of PC actions can be established in RPGs.




We're not in disagreement at all.  I said that in 5e players have authority to make their own thin declarations, except in some specific circumstances.  While my preference wouldn't be what you presented, it's not an uncommon example of play.

And, your AW example is dead on what I've been saying about DM directing PC action on a failure in some games.

So, nope, not much, if any, disagreement here at all.


----------



## Guest 6801328

The irony, for me, is that FrogReaver has taken what for me is a strong personal preference about roleplaying...that you and only you control your character, "unless magic"...and has tried to claim it as the definition of roleplaying.  Even I don't go that far.

And, really, by "unless magic" I mean explicit rules in a given system that define the times a player loses control, preferably with the results pretty narrowly defined. Insanity in CoC, Shadow in The One Ring, etc.  The thing I object to is the GM (or another player) dictating what a PC things/does/feels just because that's how they think the story should unfold.


----------



## Maxperson

Aldarc said:


> I kinda think that you're "Saelorning" on this issue right now. If you are arguing something that causes the likes of Pemerton, Tony Vargas, Elfcrusher, Maxperson, Ovinomancer, and hawkeyefan to collectively unite in their disagreement with you, then you have to wonder how badly you screwed up if the Justice League and the Legion of Doom have teamed-up against you. (I'll let them fight it out who belongs to which team in this scenario. It doesn't matter.)




Dibs on Superman and Lex Luthor, depending on which group I get.


----------



## Maxperson

Elfcrusher said:


> The irony, for me, is that FrogReaver has taken what for me is a strong personal preference about roleplaying...that you and only you control your character, "unless magic"...and has tried to claim it as the definition of roleplaying.  Even I don't go that far.




I don't, either.  That definition kinda sorta fits for D&D standard, but certainly isn't the only way you can play D&D.  Nor is it specific enough, since there are different ways you can roleplay within that personal preference.


----------



## Nagol

Aldarc said:


> <snip>
> 
> I think that it has more to do with the growing recognition among even roleplayers that human beings are irrational, biological creatures who are psychologically pushed and pulled in ways beyond even what they can rationally act upon. Roleplaying games are also about emulating certain facets of the human experience, including such things. As  [MENTION=23935]Nagol[/MENTION] said, our impulses and our ideals do not necessarily match. The roleplaying is not necessarily about choosing whether or not we have these impulses but what we do when faced with them.




I'm not sure it's a growing recognition.  All of the games I listed are from the 1980s.  Outside of more fringe indie games, the '90s and '00s seemed to have a strong pushback against mechanics that would take control away from the player even in more egregious circumstances.  Even NPC reaction, which most games had more rules moved much more firmly under GM fiat rather than tests (morale and loyalty checks mostly vanished, for example).  Part of the movement seemed driven by having the PCs actions always meet player visualization (in a way entirely opposite to how other mechanics constrain PC ability regardless of player conception) and part driven by believing the GM would know best how to make the situations interesting and checks and tests simply impeded flow.


----------



## Aldarc

Maxperson said:


> Dibs on Superman and Lex Luthor, depending on which group I get.



Why settle for either/or? You could always go with their "son" Superboy?


----------



## Maxperson

Aldarc said:


> Why settle for either/or? You could always go with their "son" Superboy?




Look.  As long as I don't get one of the Wonder Twins or Solomon Grundy, I'm good.


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## lowkey13

*Deleted by user*


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## Zhaleskra

I'm Gyro, Shiro's twin brother!


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## Guest 6801328

lowkey13 said:


> Player: Ima Paladin.
> 
> DM: You feel bad.
> 
> Not so objectionable now, is it?




Sounds to me like you're trying to impose your own preferences on the rest of us.  If you don't like paladins you don't have to play one.  If one is in your group you could just refluff it in your head as a Dwarf Fighter-Cleric dual-wielding very well-balanced battleaxes with pointy spikes on the ends.  You absurd ragequitting jerk.

EDIT: Sorry, trying to _spitefully_ impose your preferences.


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## lowkey13

*Deleted by user*


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## hawkeyefan

pemerton said:


> @_*hawkeyefan*_ - there's more than one thing going on in your post but I thought I'd start with this one, as it speaks directly to the OP:
> 
> The OP, following in the lead of Donald Davidson, is really asserting that "do" and "accomplish" are synonyms.
> 
> So _opening the safe_ is something that the PC does. And _finding X in the safe_ (or not, as the case may be) is also something that the PC does. And _nimbly moving his/her fingers while listening to the fall of the tumblers_ is also something that the PC does. And these are all _the same thing_, although under different descriptions - just as _moving my finger_, _flicking on the light switch_, _illuminating the room and alerting the prowler that I've come home are all descriptions - different descriptions - of the one action.
> 
> Building on this point, the OP is asking about who, at the table, gets to decide what descriptions are true and is pushing for answers to this - which of course might be different for different systems, different contexts of play, different preferences, etc - which go beyond the player decides what the PC does. Because once we recognise that what the PC does is something amenable to multiple descriptions, at varying levels of "thinness"/"thickness", some of which are intended and some of which - like the alerting of the prowler - might be inadvertent - then we can see that it doesn't take us very far to say that someone gets to decide what the PC does. Because we need to know what sorts of descriptions is that person entitled to make true.
> _



_

Yeah, I follow what you're saying. I think that "do" and "accomplish" generally are synonyms, although in the context of many RPGs, one is something that has no risk of failure, and the other invovles risk of failure that will usually result in some kind of action roll or equivalent. I don't think this distinction is necessary, but I do believe that it exists in many games, or in many approaches to RPGing. 

I think of it more in terms of "depth" than "thickness". For many games, turning on the light switch is what the player can declare for his character.....anything further upstream is the purview of the GM. So what is found once the room is lit, who may notice or react to the light coming on....all of that is the GM's call. Other games may allow the player some amount of control over what is revealed when the switch is thrown. And still other games may allow the player to introduce a complication such as the prowler noticing the light. 

So the question is how far do these toppling dominoes go? 

If the prowler reacts by killing the person who's turned on the light....would it be accurate to say that the player got his character killed? He flipped the switch and died as a result. 

Where is the line drawn? It's an interesting question, and depending on the game, the answer will vary. I expect most people and most games will assume a line very close to the initial action taken by the character, and very likely limit it to that specific action only, and then any resulting action based on mechanics will be determined by the GM.



pemerton said:



			One issue this raises is - what is the connection between player desire about the outcome of an action, PC hope/intention in performing an action (which may be the same as what the player desires, but perhaps not always), and true descriptions of the action?

In fairly traditional D&D action declarations which have no very rich intention behind them - say, I open the safe to see what's inside it - are fairly common. And the GM has a correspondingly very extensive licence to settle true descriptions of those actions- You open the safe and see nothing, or maybe You open the safe only to realise it's a gateway - your mind is blasted as you look on the face of Demogorgon at the other end of the interplaner portal!" Of course there are various principles that are expected to govern the formulation of those descriptions - including (say) fidelity to pre-written notes; cognisance of both PC level and dungeon level; not adopting such a "gotcha" appoach that skilled play becomes impossible, etc. But player desire and PC intention don't play a huge role.

Conversely, in BW an action declaration without some fairly rich specification of an intention or a hope isn't really well-formed. Which then has a big effect on how true descriptions are established: if the check succeeds, then we know that, in the fiction, there is a true description of the action which is the PC getting what s/he wanted. The rule book even describes this as "sacrosanct".

Does the above help make clearer what I'm trying to get at and ask about in the OP?


Click to expand...




My experience with Burning Wheel consists almost entirely of reading posts of yours, and a quick glance at bits of the rulebook, so I'm limited in that regard. However, I generally understand your point. Blades in the Dark expects that the player states the intended outcome of the action they're going to take. Something like the below:

Player: I want to kill this guard.
GM: How do you want to do that?
Player: I'll sneak up behind him, and then clap a hand over his mouth with one hand, while I stab him in the back with the other.
GM: Okay. What kind of action do you think that is?
Player: Well, I don't think it's a Skirmish since we're not engaged in fighting. So I think it's probably a Prowl check. 
GM: Sounds good. I'd say that your Position is Controlled since it's a boring old night and he's not particularly alert, and you can have Standard Effect.

I like the way that this game handles it. It clearly establishes the goal, the stakes, what action is required, and the potential outcome. And then of course the player has resources that they can apply to try and improve their odds of success, or the degree of their success. Whether the player's desires and that of the character are in line with one another can vary a bit....the player can certainly want things to be complicated for his character because that makes the game interesting. Certainly the character wants to succeed in killing the guard. But this is likely true of most games, to some extent, even if such an idea might be met with resistance.

I'm not sure how far "upstream" you'd consider this to be. If the player rolls well, or applies the necessary resources, then essentially the player has determined that his character has sneaked up on the guard and quietly killed him without alerting anyone else. Given the mechanics of BitD, the player can specifically declare that this is what has happened._


----------



## hawkeyefan

pemerton said:


> I think that there are two things that are  central to RPGs and distinguish them from games in the same general  neighbourhood such as shared storytelling games, wargames and the like,  all of which tend to involve a shared fiction:
> * In a RPG, most if not all of the  participants engage the game primarily through a particular person  within the shared fiction - their moves primarily consist of  descriptions of things that their corresponding person does or attempts  to do in the fiction;
> 
> * In a RPG, the fiction matters to resolution of moves.​
> The second point is what distinguishes a RPG from a boardgame and at  least some wargaming. The first point is what distinguishes RPGing from  most wargaming, and I think is a more precise take on what @_*hawkeyefan*_  means by "taking on the roles of characters". Also note that, by my  account of RPGing, players in a single-figure wargame where the fiction  matters to resolution are playing a RPG - which I think is the right  outcome, given that that's pretty much a description of the basics of  Arneson's Blackmoor game as I understand it.
> 
> The issue of whether the moves are "free-form" or prescribed is, I  think, secondary. Much more important, I think, is that the fiction  matters to resolution.




Not that I really disagree with you, but I didn't limit my  definition to a player adopting the role of only one character because  of games where the player adopts more than one character. And also  because of the role of GM typically being required to have more than one  character who he must portray. 

I don't know if I'd go as far as to say that a player only playing a particular character in the fiction is a requirement.


----------



## hawkeyefan

Aldarc said:


> I kinda think that you're "Saelorning" on this issue right now. If you are arguing something that causes the likes of Pemerton, Tony Vargas, Elfcrusher, Maxperson, Ovinomancer, and hawkeyefan to collectively unite in their disagreement with you, then you have to wonder how badly you screwed up if the Justice League and the Legion of Doom have teamed-up against you. (I'll let them fight it out who belongs to which team in this scenario. It doesn't matter.)




I find this analogy....off-putting. 

Clearly it's an Avengers and Masters of Evil dynamic. Duh.


----------



## pemerton

hawkeyefan said:


> Not that I really disagree with you, but I didn't limit my  definition to a player adopting the role of only one character because  of games where the player adopts more than one character. And also  because of the role of GM typically being required to have more than one  character who he must portray.
> 
> I don't know if I'd go as far as to say that a player only playing a particular character in the fiction is a requirement.



I certainly think that the character played/portrayed can change from moment to moment of engagement - but I do think that in a RPG at any given moment of engagement (for a participant in the "player" = non-"GM" role) there is some particular character you are being.

The contrast is with (say) unit-level control in a wargame, or enterprise-level control in a tycoon-type game, and similar.

No doubt there are borderline cases, like in AW when you declare an action that uses your gang as the "gear" through which you carry it out. That said, the way that AW handles this - it's still based on the PC stats, and the gang really is a type of gear albeit with its own sentience and pesonality - tells us something about it approach to protagonists vs bit parts!


----------



## FrogReaver

hawkeyefan said:


> Yup. It will indeed mean different things to different people.
> 
> For me, taking on a role most often means a role in a story....a persona, a specific character...and I play the game essentially advocating for that character within the story.




That's just the same sound good phrase you said before that still has no meaning because you refuse to assign it any.  



> I do think role playing is that simple. If I sit down to play chess with you, and every turn I have my King issue orders to the piece I move, and then I have that piece respond in kind...I’m roleplaying. But since chess doesn’t require that in order to function, I’m not playing a roleplaying game.




So now a roleplaying game is not only a game where you can roleplay but a game that requires roleplaying to function.  That get's us halfway there.  The other half is - what is roleplaying - what is taking on the role of a character/persona/etc?


----------



## Lanefan

hawkeyefan said:


> I think it may be so, depending on the game in question. It depends on the mechanics of the game.
> 
> Beside that, though, more broadly I think that most games tend to make a distinction between PCs and NPCs. Here you describe the NPC as belonging to the GM, almost like the NPC is the PC for the GM, which I don't think is the common take on NPCs.
> 
> I know you hold a very specific "the PCs are no one special" kind of approach, and while I get that from an aesthetic point in the sense that they are no one special in their world, most games have different rules for PCs and NPCs, so in that sense, there are things that make the PCs different. Even most versions of D&D treat NPCs differently than PCs in many ways.



Yep, and it's a design-level mistake.

In the fiction, people don't walk down the street with little 'PC' or 'NPC' stickers on their foreheads - they're just people.


----------



## FrogReaver

Elfcrusher said:


> The irony, for me, is that FrogReaver has taken what for me is a strong personal preference about roleplaying...that you and only you control your character, "unless magic"...and has tried to claim it as the definition of roleplaying.  Even I don't go that far.




Repeatedly saying this doesn't make it true.  Trying to attack my character instead of attacking my argument is a problem.  So please stop doing that.

You see, for what you are saying to be true, I would have to have some personal investment in defining roleplaying a certain way.  I have no such preference.  D&D could be called a fantasy hero game and never a roleplaying game and it wouldn't hurt my feelings any.  I would think that's a much poorer term for it than a role playing game, and i'm not really sure what the term roleplaying game would be reserved for in this situation but I'd be fine with that.  Not a big deal.

What I'm not fine with is taking any game with roleplaying elements and assuming that all mechanics in it are roleplaying mechanics.  That's what this thread is doing.  When a roleplaying game is mentioned about doing something xyz way, no one but me is stepping back to say, wait a minute, is xyz even a roleplaying mechanic to begin with.  Everyone is just taking forgranted that it is a roleplaying mechanic because it came from a roleplaying game.


----------



## Lanefan

GrahamWills said:


> Well, for a start, most games treat PCs differently from NPCs. So there is no more reason why an NPC should have the same agency as a PC does. Second, why should it not be exactly the same?
> 
> Player: "I winks at the maiden and soften her heart"
> GM: "OK, she smiles at you"
> 
> Player: "I winks at the maiden and soften her heart"
> GM: "Actually, she's not that into you. You'll need to test Flirting"
> 
> GM: "The maiden winks at you and softens your heart"
> Player: "OK, I smile at her"
> 
> GM: "The maiden winks at you and softens your heart"
> Player: "Actually, I'm not into her. I'll resist"
> 
> I'm not sure I'd characterize the last one  as "(justifiable) cries of bloody blue murder" -- I think I'd call it "pretty normal for a Tuesday game"



1 and 2 above carry an implied "try to" in there somewhere, as all player action declarations are in effect attempts to do or change something in the fiction.

3 and 4, however, don't carry that same "try to" vibe with them.  Why?  Because the GM's word is law, and if you've just been told your heart's been softened then softened it is - you don't get a chance to resist.  Bloody blue murder! 

Now if the GM had put it as "The maiden winks at you and *tries to* soften your heart" then both 3 and 4 become perfectly valid reflections of how a player might choose to have her PC respond.


----------



## FrogReaver

Lanefan said:


> Yep, and it's a design-level mistake.
> 
> In the fiction, people don't walk down the street with little 'PC' or 'NPC' stickers on their foreheads - they're just people.




An RPG isn't about the mechanics that describe the NPC's or the PC's.  It's about the roleplaying.  If mechanics that favor PC's over NPC's also favor the roleplaying then those mechanics should be used.  So no, its not a design level mistake - it's just a design level decision that doesn't match your preference.  No mistake there.


----------



## Lanefan

Nagol said:


> There are many games where no magic is involved and the GM is not only expected to inform PC response, but is required to do so.
> 
> _Pendragon_ has a major portion of a character definition be the PC's relationship with a set of paired virtues and vices.  The PC is exposed to tests of a virtue or vice and the GM is expected to have the PC react according to how well or poorly the test has handled:
> 
> 
> 
> _Fantasy Wargaming_ is another RPG with a series of personality tests designed to represent temptation, loyalty, and social pecking order in an adventuring group.
> 
> Other games have morale rules which may dictate how the PCs act under duress.



All of these are well and good, but all share one key element: they invoke game mechanics in order to force the reaction.

"The maiden winks at you and softens your heart" invokes no mechanics at all - the GM has just flat-out told you how your character reacts.  See the difference?


----------



## Lanefan

hawkeyefan said:


> Yup. It will indeed mean different things to different people.
> 
> For me, taking on a role most often means a role in a story....a persona, a specific character...and I play the game essentially advocating for that character within the story.



This bginrs up a good point.

In a typical RPG you're not just playing the role of your character, you're also advocating for it against opposing forces provided by the game and-or setting and-or GM (and-or other players, sometimes).  This differentiates our type of RPGs from, say, improv theater games; where you're just as much playing a role but the whole advocacy point is largely missing or irrelevant.


----------



## Lanefan

FrogReaver said:


> An RPG isn't about the mechanics that describe the NPC's or the PC's.  It's about the roleplaying.



Er...almost.

The RP part is the roleplaying (and advocacy).

The G part is the mechanics.

Without the advocacy and the 'G' you've got a tent big enough to include storytelling games, improv theater, even some non-improv theater any time someone ad-libs a line, and maybe even some types of therapy session.


----------



## FrogReaver

Lanefan said:


> Er...almost.
> 
> The RP part is the roleplaying (and advocacy).
> 
> The G part is the mechanics.
> 
> Without the advocacy and the 'G' you've got a tent big enough to include storytelling games, improv theater, even some non-improv theater any time someone ad-libs a line, and maybe even some types of therapy session.




As you've noted in other comments - you can have that advocacy aspect without resulting to any mechanical tools.

The game could simply be.  Imagine a character.  Tell the DM a bit about him.  Now play that character while the DM places interesting NPC's and obstacles in your way - where any uncertainty he determines gets resolved in the method of the DM's choosing.

The above example is certainly not storytelling or improv theater or ad-libs.  It's a roleplaying game devoid of basically all mechanics.


----------



## Tony Vargas

Lanefan said:


> In the fiction, people don't walk down the street with little 'PC' or 'NPC' stickers on their foreheads - they're just people.



In actual fiction, not the poor modeling job most TTRPGs do of fiction - it's pretty evident who's a main character, who's supporting cast, and who's an extra.


----------



## Tony Vargas

Lanefan said:


> Er...almost.
> The RP part is the roleplaying (and advocacy).
> The G part is the mechanics.



And they're not really separable.  In an RPG, you are both playing a role, and playing a game.  If you're every doing just one or the other, you've jumped off the tracks.

Thing is, you very rarely end up doing just one or the other, but people /talk/ like you do, all the time.  They say "how'd you handle that impossible encounter in that terrible module?" "Oh, we just RP'd through it" like it stopped being a game.  Nope, you used speaking in character as a resolution system, you were still playing a game.



> Without the advocacy and the 'G' you've got a tent big enough to include storytelling games, improv theater, even some non-improv theater any time someone ad-libs a line, and maybe even some types of therapy session.



Those are indeed all examples of roleplaying.  
And, I think the label storytelling /game/, alone, makes it clear that's also an RPG.  Maybe not a TTRPG, since the mechanics it might use could be quite different from those familiar to TT gaming.


----------



## hawkeyefan

FrogReaver said:


> That's just the same sound good phrase you said before that still has no meaning because you refuse to assign it any.




That’s because we’re talking broadly, about any RPG. I can’t really get more specific than that unless we narrow things down a bit and talk about a specific example of a specific game.

How I play D&D is different than how I play Blades in the Dark is different from how I play Microscope is different from how I play Dungeon World. And so on.




FrogReaver said:


> So now a roleplaying game is not only a game where you can roleplay but a game that requires roleplaying to function.  That get's us halfway there.  The other half is - what is roleplaying - what is taking on the role of a character/persona/etc?




I thought that was self evident. 

What is roleplaying? I think I’ve already answered that. “Adopting a role” is probably the broadest definition.


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## Fenris-77

I think there are enough examples that we might not need to drill all the way down to a scientific definition of 'role playing' assuming that such a thing even exists (probably not). The key is defining what happens when you set the term _game_ next to the term _role playing_ and then play portmanteau. You certainly do have roleplaying to the left and games to the right, but we are, I think, interested in both of those things at the same time.

Roleplaying in general shouldn't be too hard to get a broad fix on, issues in this thread non-withstanding. You adopt the persona of a particular person or type of person for the purposes of acting out that persona in the context of a conversation and/or activity imagined or otherwise. That's the whole range between just talking and performing physical actions. This covers everything from therapy sessions to improv to exciting bedroom sports. The game part is when you use rules and possibly randomization of some kind to stand in for actual physical action and to describe the stakes and consequences of those actions. Also generally part of a broad definition of game is the idea of teleos, of a starting point and an ending point, and possibly a winner and a loser - a characteristic also shared by most RPGs.

So, adopting a persona and using a set of rules and randomization to describe and measure actions and consequences along some sort of sequence of (generally) imaginary connected events.

I know that some posters who already have issues _vis a vis_ definitions aren't going to be happy with my broad strokes answer. I'm not that concerned about the nuances of definition though, so I'm happy to go with what sounds broadly correct and has a certain occam's razor type of usefulness in describing the things I like to do as a hobby. I'm not 100% happy with the above, but it gets pretty close for my purposes.


----------



## Ovinomancer

Ovinomancer said:


> Roleplaying is simply taking on an imaginary role in a shared fiction.  There are a number of ways of doing this, including acting, therapy, and playing games.
> 
> A roleplaying gane is one where the players roleplay a character(s) in the game and where the player is expected to advocate for their character.
> 
> None of this is impacted by a GM being able to declare actions for a PC in some situations, especially if the action declaration is due to a failed attempt at action by the player.
> 
> This varues by game.  In 5e, the expectation is that players have absolute authority to declare thin actions, except in specific cases, usually magic.  But, in other games, where players often have much more control over the scene in general, this is countered by tge GM having control of PC actions in failure conditions.  This does not reduce the roleplaying in these games.




I'll leave this here again for [MENTION=6795602]FrogReaver[/MENTION], as he seems to have missed it on his last pass.


----------



## dragoner

pemerton said:


> What do others think about who does, or should, get to establish the truth of descriptions of PC actions, and how?




Honestly I see it both ways depending on the importance of the situation. I mean if it's for them to decide the outcome, I can use that to give them a bit of information. Otherwise, it's a challenge, time to roll some bones and let chance have it's way with them. For example, both of those types of players exist in my Traveller game right now: those that want the deep role playing, and those that hunger to dice out a battle. This does challenge me as GM to provide both experiences.


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## FrogReaver

Ovinomancer said:


> Roleplaying is simply taking on an imaginary role in a shared fiction.  There are a number of ways of doing this, including acting, therapy, and playing games.




Hopefully this explains why this part is so important to me.  

What does it mean to take on an imaginary role in a shared fiction?  That's the crux of the matter.  Doesn't a player who takes on an imaginary role of a specific character in a shared fiction of an RPG by necessity determine what actions said imaginary character is taking?  That's what is actually meant roleplay in this context right?

If that's correct, then isn't your definition actually the same as mine?  That a player determines the actions of the character he is portraying in the shared fiction?

(I suppose by actions, it's best I clarify as being attempted actions for precisions sake - I say attempted because there is often a disconnect between the players fiction and the DM's fiction which can result in a player stating his character does something that doesn't actually make sense - so the process is to then reconcile the fictions and move on with play - which can be done in a variety of ways).  



> A roleplaying gane is one where the players roleplay a character(s) in the game and where the player is expected to advocate for their character.




What begs the question - what does it mean to roleplay an imaginary character in a fictional world.  I say it means that you determine the characters actions in that world.  



> None of this is impacted by a GM being able to declare actions for a PC in some situations, especially if the action declaration is due to a failed attempt at action by the player.




There's no way that the GM declaring actions for the PC doesn't impact what we are talking about above.  It may have a minimal effect, but an effect it does have.  - And more importantly, if I am right about what it means to take on an imaginary role in a fictional world, it by definition precludes the player from doing that for the period of time the GM is controlling their PC's actions.



> This varues by game.  In 5e, the expectation is that players have absolute authority to declare thin actions, except in specific cases, usually magic.  But, in other games, where players often have much more control over the scene in general, this is countered by tge GM having control of PC actions in failure conditions.




I'm not sure what you mean by control of PC actions in failure conditions.  Maybe you can elaborate.



> This does not reduce the roleplaying in these games.




If your definition of taking on an imaginary role in a shared fiction is as I elaborated on above then it most definitely does impact their ability to take on an imaginary role in a shared fiction.


----------



## hawkeyefan

Lanefan said:


> 1 and 2 above carry an implied "try to" in there somewhere, as all player action declarations are in effect attempts to do or change something in the fiction.
> 
> 3 and 4, however, don't carry that same "try to" vibe with them.  Why?  Because the GM's word is law, and if you've just been told your heart's been softened then softened it is - you don't get a chance to resist.  Bloody blue murder!
> 
> Now if the GM had put it as "The maiden winks at you and *tries to* soften your heart" then both 3 and 4 become perfectly valid reflections of how a player might choose to have her PC respond.





That 4th example that made you cry Bloody Blue Murder is exactly how things can play out in Blades in the Dark. Sometimes, the GM will narrate a consequence. “You attempt to kill the Red Sash Swordsman with your knives, but he manages to draw his sword, parry your attacks, and run you through. You feel his sword slide into your gut and scrape alongside your spine. You take Fatal Harm.”

At that point, the character is dead, unless the player chooses to resist the Harm. He makes a Resistance Roll which determines how much Stress it costs him (6 minus his highest d6 roll). The Harm becomes Level 3 and the character is merely incapacitated.

I only bring this up because it shows how different games can function, and how they give different power to the players to influence the fiction.


----------



## aramis erak

FrogReaver said:


> An RPG isn't about the mechanics that describe the NPC's or the PC's.  It's about the roleplaying.  If mechanics that favor PC's over NPC's also favor the roleplaying then those mechanics should be used.  So no, its not a design level mistake - it's just a design level decision that doesn't match your preference.  No mistake there.




For me, *it is about the rules*, and how they shape the story.


----------



## FrogReaver

aramis erak said:


> For me, *it is about the rules*, and how they shape the story.




Of course!  But if you are replying to me like that's a rebuttal of what i said then I'm not sure you understood my comment.


----------



## aramis erak

Maxperson said:


> [/FONT][/FONT][/COLOR]Those games function by having players be GMs(even if they don't call them GMs specifically). The players step out of the duties that players have in RPGs and assume the duties that GMs have in RPGS when needed, effectively making people both a GM and a player, depending on what they are doing at the time.
> 
> They aren't really games with no GM.




Not entirely true.

There are GM-less story games. I don't consider Fiasco a Roleplaying game... but it definitely is a story game, and it's NOT shared/rotating GMing; the mechanics are not action centric, but scene centric.

Likewise, Once Upon A Time is a storygame, but even further further from RPGing than Fiasco - no character ownership, all about narrative control so that you can win by emptying your hand. No one even has a GMing equivalent. Either you're narrating, or the group is voting, or someone plays a card that you narrated... it's a game, it results in a story, and it's multiplayer, but it's also got no character sheets, no dice rolls, no mechanics to resolve actions, only wresting control by having a card that fits their narration.

And, another fringe case: games that use RPG mechanics, but are actually just board games.... WotC did a bunch using a lite version of 4E D&D...


----------



## Tony Vargas

FrogReaver said:


> Hopefully this explains why this part is so important to me.
> 
> What does it mean to take on an imaginary role in a shared fiction?



 Well, it means that you are assuming some correspondence between yourself and that role, and that it is /imaginary/ - it's not real, it can't be checked against to see if you're doing it "right."  And that the fiction is /shared/ means that, though each person could imagine each element of that fiction differently, there need to be ways to create a consensus version of those imaginings that can be shared among them with some acceptable degree of confidence.



> Doesn't a player who takes on an imaginary role of a specific character in a shared fiction of an RPG by necessity determine what actions said imaginary character is taking?



 Not necessarily.  He might imagine it flying, for instance, but the agreed upon consensus may not allow that.  Or it /might/ if he has some way of influencing the consensus.  Or, he might imagine it doing something very foolish, destructive to narrative of the shared fiction, or contrary to the way other aspects of the fiction have been imagined - then some negotiation would have to happen.

That's still a very murky, broad sense of RPG, though.

Now, a TTRPG is a narrower thing to consider, because it brings in the conventions & tools of TT gaming:  rules, turns, dice, cards, tokens, pawns, play surfaces, keeping score, competitive vs cooperative, victory conditions...


----------



## FrogReaver

Tony Vargas said:


> And that the fiction is /shared/ means that, though each person could imagine each element of that fiction differently, there need to be ways to create a consensus version of those imaginings that can be shared among them with some acceptable degree of confidence.




Yep.  It just needs to be acknowledged that the act of determining which particular version of the shared fiction to use is itself not a roleplaing action.  



> Not necessarily.  He might imagine it flying, for instance, but the agreed upon consensus may not allow that.




If you state you fly in a roleplaying game where the shared fiction is that you cannot then the DM's job is to remind you of the fact that the shared fiction doesn't allow for you to fly.  Some may do that jokingly by saying your character flaps his arms but nothing happens - done solely as a form of comic relief and not to take away your actual control of your character.  But regardless of what the DM does to remind you of the proper shared fiction, the end result is that you choose some other course of action for your PC.  Ultimately that means there is no impact to roleplaying there.



> Or it /might/ if he has some way of influencing the consensus.​




Which is not playing a role - The act of determining which version of the shared fiction is real is not roleplaying.  The act of inserting some truth into the shared fiction is not roleplaying.  Roleplaying does involve inserting some truths into the shared fiction but it does so solely through the character.


----------



## Tony Vargas

FrogReaver said:


> Yep.  It just needs to be acknowledged that the act of determining which particular version of the shared fiction to use is itself not a roleplaing action.  .



 The whole activity is role-playing.  

Without the other players and the shared fiction, you're just acting in front of a mirror or having a daydream or something.


----------



## Nagol

Lanefan said:


> All of these are well and good, but all share one key element: they invoke game mechanics in order to force the reaction.
> 
> "The maiden winks at you and softens your heart" invokes no mechanics at all - the GM has just flat-out told you how your character reacts.  See the difference?




Absolutely!  And much like the player's version is assuming facts not in evidence, so is the GM!  Perhaps she isn't the right type, right gender, or right species!  Perhaps the PC has a one true love and will not be swayed, perhaps... so many possibilities.  I have trained my players well enough that if I were to make such a statement, the player would clarify that I didn't misspeak and there is in fact some subtle effect forcing him to feel this way.


----------



## Ovinomancer

FrogReaver said:


> Hopefully this explains why this part is so important to me.
> 
> What does it mean to take on an imaginary role in a shared fiction?  That's the crux of the matter.  Doesn't a player who takes on an imaginary role of a specific character in a shared fiction of an RPG by necessity determine what actions said imaginary character is taking?  That's what is actually meant roleplay in this context right?



It means that you take the one the role, as in you think about how to interact with the shared fiction as if you were that character within it.  

No, they do not, by necessity, always determine what actions said imaginary character is taking.  So long as when they have the option to make a choice they do so from within the role, this is roleplaying.  When and how they get choices has nothing to do with roleplaying.

No, it is not what is actually meant [by] roleplay in this context.



> If that's correct, then isn't your definition actually the same as mine?  That a player determines the actions of the character he is portraying in the shared fiction?
> 
> (I suppose by actions, it's best I clarify as being attempted actions for precisions sake - I say attempted because there is often a disconnect between the players fiction and the DM's fiction which can result in a player stating his character does something that doesn't actually make sense - so the process is to then reconcile the fictions and move on with play - which can be done in a variety of ways).



Your parenthetical is an extremely narrow view of how actions can be adjudicated.  This thread was started to look at multiple ways actions can be adjudicated, but here you are limiting your understanding by retaining only one of those ways -- the thin declaration.




> What begs the question - what does it mean to roleplay an imaginary character in a fictional world.  I say it means that you determine the characters actions in that world.




That's not what begs the question means.  I say it means that, when you have the option to make choices, you do so from the role you have assumed.  You're assigning a separate axis here -- what limitations exist on choice -- to roleplaying.  It doesn't belong there.  This is, again, your preference for how to play the game leaking into definitions that have nothing to do with that preference.



> There's no way that the GM declaring actions for the PC doesn't impact what we are talking about above.  It may have a minimal effect, but an effect it does have.  - And more importantly, if I am right about what it means to take on an imaginary role in a fictional world, it by definition precludes the player from doing that for the period of time the GM is controlling their PC's actions.



You are not right, this is what pretty much everyone in this thread is contesting with you.  Maybe pick up on that?

But, as an example, the play that [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] gave for AW -- in the fail state, the GM has carte blanche to dictate actions for the PC. This doesn't reduce the roleplaying occurring, it limits when the player can make choices.  Orthogonal to roleplaying.



> I'm not sure what you mean by control of PC actions in failure conditions.  Maybe you can elaborate.



Sigh, it's been mentioned a number of times in this thread.  If you're only going to read/engage with posts aimed at you, then I'm not going to bother to try to restate those posts you've skipped.



> If your definition of taking on an imaginary role in a shared fiction is as I elaborated on above then it most definitely does impact their ability to take on an imaginary role in a shared fiction.



Don't see it.  I'm still roleplaying that character just as much as I was -- I'm still representing that role within the shared fiction when I have a choice to make.

Frankly, your argument is steeped in a single-point-of-view of how RPGs are played.  It shows a lack of understanding of the broader context of RPGs and the varied playstyles.  It relies on a one-true-way of playing, at least if you want to be able to claim you're still roleplaying.  It fails to be a practically applicable definition -- it doesn't even work within the game you prefer without using special pleading for mechanics that subvert it (ie, "magic").


----------



## Guest 6801328

[MENTION=6795602]FrogReaver[/MENTION]: is a first person shooter not a first person shooter when you aren’t actually firing a weapon?


----------



## Ovinomancer

Nagol said:


> Absolutely!  And much like the player's version is assuming facts not in evidence, so is the GM!  Perhaps she isn't the right type, right gender, or right species!  Perhaps the PC has a one true love and will not be swayed, perhaps... so many possibilities.  I have trained my players well enough that if I were to make such a statement, the player would clarify that I didn't misspeak and there is in fact some subtle effect forcing him to feel this way.




This misses that, in games where this method is used, your objections don't matter.  This outcome is the truth, and the players and GM have to figure out how it can be the truth, not look for ways for it to not be the truth of the game.  If you're looking for procedural truth generation -- where every prerequisite is met prior to establishing the fictional truth -- then this is going to be very confusing and hard to grasp.  It is, instead, a product of a fluid set of events where you can determine the outcome and then go back to set up the prerequisite truths.  The only constraint is that you can't overrule previously established truths (without good cause, at least) or genre expectations.

So, in this case, when the maiden softens your heart, then she is the right type, the right gender, and the right species because _your heart is softened_.  Your job as a player now is to play with this new truth about yourself and find out where it goes.  Perhaps this is a good thing.  Perhaps it's a major problem (this maiden is the daughter of your hated rival, for instance), but, whatever it is, your heart is softened. Play on!


----------



## FrogReaver

Elfcrusher said:


> @_*FrogReaver*_: is a first person shooter not a first person shooter when you aren’t actually firing a weapon?




If that's what you think I'm saying then you are totally misunderstanding me.


----------



## Nagol

Ovinomancer said:


> This misses that, in games where this method is used, your objections don't matter.  This outcome is the truth, and the players and GM have to figure out how it can be the truth, not look for ways for it to not be the truth of the game.  If you're looking for procedural truth generation -- where every prerequisite is met prior to establishing the fictional truth -- then this is going to be very confusing and hard to grasp.  It is, instead, a product of a fluid set of events where you can determine the outcome and then go back to set up the prerequisite truths.  The only constraint is that you can't overrule previously established truths (without good cause, at least) or genre expectations.
> 
> So, in this case, when the maiden softens your heart, then she is the right type, the right gender, and the right species because _your heart is softened_.  Your job as a player now is to play with this new truth about yourself and find out where it goes.  Perhaps this is a good thing.  Perhaps it's a major problem (this maiden is the daughter of your hated rival, for instance), but, whatever it is, your heart is softened. Play on!




Or the player interprets heart softening in a non-romantic way and leaves a bigger than normal tip.

But I'm not running those games right now and they aren't generally in my top tier of picks. Should I choose to run one in the future, I'll have to retrain/replace the players.


----------



## FrogReaver

Ovinomancer said:


> Frankly, your argument is steeped in a single-point-of-view of how RPGs are played.  It shows a lack of understanding of the broader context of RPGs and the varied playstyles.  It relies on a one-true-way of playing, at least if you want to be able to claim you're still roleplaying.  It fails to be a practically applicable definition -- it doesn't even work within the game you prefer without using special pleading for mechanics that subvert it (ie, "magic").




Since you keep bringing magic up let's take a moment and go more in depth on that topic.  Let's take a dominate person like effect - that is a share fiction wherein the PC must obey the commands of an NPC.

It's very easy to roleplay a PC that is under seem mind altering affect that makes him obey the commands of another in fiction character.  That is roleplaying!  in fact, that may be the easiest roleplaying any one has ever done...

Contrast this with an out of fiction DM stating what your character must do.  Having your PC do whatever the DM says isn't roleplay.  Having your PC do what some other NPC says that has dominated him is roleplay.

Notice the difference?


----------



## Ratskinner

pemerton said:


> This example shows how it is possible (i) for it to be true that _the players choose what their PCs do_ - under a certain, fairly thin or confined sort of description - and (ii) for there to be fudge-free checks and yet (iii) for it also to be the case that _the GM decides everything significant that happens_ - ie it is the GM who gets to establish the richer, wider, consequence-laden descriptions of what the PCs do.
> 
> I think that a failure to recognise this point makes a lot of discussions of railroading, "player agency" less productive or insightful than they might be.
> 
> What do others think about who does, or should, get to establish the truth of descriptions of PC actions, and how?




I think that all rpgs need to adopt some form of "goal setting" mechanic. (This can look like a lot of different things: clocks or countdowns are popular nowadays.) This needs to be out in the open. Because there are two rules about action narration that play off of these goals:
1) _Not Yet - _you cannot narrate an action that would effectively resolve a goal until (whatever pacing mechanics) are satisfied.
2) _And Then_ - when you narrate an action that doesn't resolve a goal (either through failure or pacing mechanics), the GM (or possibly another player) may add to your narration describing the new state of the world.

There probably also needs to be an "objection" mechanic for narrative counter to established fiction.


----------



## Fenris-77

I feel like a lot of the issues in this thread could be fixed by people just reading other good games, not even playing them, just reading. Mechanics are easy to port over, even from systems that don't share the d20. The issues 5E has with the second and third pillars are not insurmountable, and can mostly be fixed for a campaign in need with a quick patch and little maths.


----------



## pemerton

[MENTION=6795602]FrogReaver[/MENTION] - I pretty much agree with [MENTION=16814]Ovinomancer[/MENTION]'s most recent post about what roleplaying is (post 139 on my count).

If I'm told to play an angry person, I can do that. If I'm told to play a person who is pulling the trigger to assassinate the duke, I can do that. If I'm told to play a person whose heart has just been melted by a wink, well I can do that to.

Being told "The magician has ensorcelled you - play that" is no different from being told "The maiden's wink has softened your heart - play that." In some ways the latter is actually easier, I think, because it's closer to a genuine human experience! (Unless you've spent a lot of time in the company of Svengali!)

I also want to go back to the Apocalypse World example that I posted and that Ovinomancer mentioned. The player establilshes that her PC is looking for an escape route. She makes her check and fails. So the GM narrates that she is looking at her barred window, thinking about how maybe she might be able to escape through it, as her enemies attack her with a grenade.

The GM isn't _contradicting _the player's account of her PC's action. The GM is adding further true descriptions of it, which obviously are adverse to the PC. (It's a failure, after all.)

There's nothing there that contraverts the idea that the player is playing his/her PC.


----------



## pemerton

Ratskinner said:


> I think that all rpgs need to adopt some form of "goal setting" mechanic. (This can look like a lot of different things: clocks or countdowns are popular nowadays.) This needs to be out in the open. Because there are two rules about action narration that play off of these goals:
> 1) _Not Yet - _you cannot narrate an action that would effectively resolve a goal until (whatever pacing mechanics) are satisfied.
> 2) _And Then_ - when you narrate an action that doesn't resolve a goal (either through failure or pacing mechanics), the GM (or possibly another player) may add to your narration describing the new state of the world.



The lack of this for onworld exploration in Classic Traveller is the biggest problem I've had with that system in my recent campaign.


----------



## Aldarc

FrogReaver said:


> It's very easy to roleplay a PC that is under seem mind altering affect that makes him obey the commands of another in fiction character.  That is roleplaying!  in fact, that may be the easiest roleplaying any one has ever done...



I don't think that your first case is a good example of roleplaying. In most games, there is little roleplaying that transpires at these points, because the character often is effectively handing their character over to the DM as a result of the magic. It's essentially the TTRPG equivalent of "skip a turn" in a board or card game, usually IME resulting in player disengagement with their character. Because the player is usually thinking, "Cool. Just let me know when I have control over my character again and its my turn."


----------



## Fenris-77

If the DM hands me a slip of paper that says: "As a result of your capture last night at the Wizard's manse you are now under mind control. Your personality will not change, but your primary goal is to lure the rest of the party to a meeting at the docks tonight at 11th bell. Your character will explain everything away with a tale of near capture and last minute escape and wlll not mention his capture or the mind control under any kind of duress." 

So, mind control, ok. There are lots of campaigns where I would definitely still RP this, even D&D campaigns. But somehow because the DM was giving the instructions without the gossamer thin difference of NPC voice I'm somehow not roleplaying? I don't follow. The DM said it, I'm doing it, it's roleplaying. Maybe that doesn't satisfy your definition of "whatever the DM says"? IDK ...


----------



## FrogReaver

pemerton said:


> @_*FrogReaver*_ - I pretty much agree with @_*Ovinomancer*_'s most recent post about what roleplaying is (post 139 on my count).
> 
> If I'm told to play an angry person, I can do that. If I'm told to play a person who is pulling the trigger to assassinate the duke, I can do that. If I'm told to play a person whose heart has just been melted by a wink, well I can do that to.




Sure.  Anyone can.  The Question I'm raising isn't about after you are told to do something by an out of fiction source = can you then roleplay it.  The question I'm raising is whether an out of fiction source telling you to do something removes your ability to roleplay for that moment.

That's why I've been careful to categorize games that use such mechanics as primarily roleplaying games while still having some non-roleplaying mechanics.  That distinction seems to get lost by the anti-one-true-wayers - not because I'm proposing a one-true-wayism but because they mistakenly believe I am doing so.





> Being told "The magician has ensorcelled you - play that" is no different from being told "The maiden's wink has softened your heart - play that." In some ways the latter is actually easier, I think, because it's closer to a genuine human experience! (Unless you've spent a lot of time in the company of Svengali!)




My point is that it is different.  In one case the magician - has an in-fiction method of making your PC obey his commands.  A maiden's wink (unless it's a wink with supernatural powers) doesn't have an in-fiction method of making a PC do anything.  That's the difference and the disconnect between the supernatural example and the mundane one. 



> I also want to go back to the Apocalypse World example that I posted and that Ovinomancer mentioned. The player establilshes that her PC is looking for an escape route. She makes her check and fails. So the GM narrates that she is looking at her barred window, thinking about how maybe she might be able to escape through it, as her enemies attack her with a grenade.




The player described an attempted action and the DM described the result (in a comic relief sort of way).  The basic process is fine but it's the details that matter in this example.  In this example - it's the DM that is roleplaying the character as she stares at the bars thinking maybe she could escape through it.  

Now you may enjoy such a style where the DM assumes control over PC's on failed checks and can insert some comic relief or whatever into the mood they desire, and such mechanics are compatible with roleplaying games - BUT the mechanic itself is a anti-roleplaying mechanic because it takes away from the player the opportunity to roleplay his character.




> The GM isn't _contradicting _the player's account of her PC's action. The GM is adding further true descriptions of it, which obviously are adverse to the PC. (It's a failure, after all.)




Yes.  The moment that additional description is about the PC doing something additional than what the player said then it's the DM assuming roleplaying responsibilities for that PC for that moment.  That those responsibilities are quickly and seamlessly transferred back to the player after the fact doesn't have any impact on what's going on that the moment the DM assumes roleplaying control over a PC.



> There's nothing there that contraverts the idea that the player is playing his/her PC.




yes there is.  See above.


----------



## Ovinomancer

FrogReaver said:


> Since you keep bringing magic up let's take a moment and go more in depth on that topic.  Let's take a dominate person like effect - that is a share fiction wherein the PC must obey the commands of an NPC.
> 
> It's very easy to roleplay a PC that is under seem mind altering affect that makes him obey the commands of another in fiction character.  That is roleplaying!  in fact, that may be the easiest roleplaying any one has ever done...
> 
> Contrast this with an out of fiction DM stating what your character must do.  Having your PC do whatever the DM says isn't roleplay.  Having your PC do what some other NPC says that has dominated him is roleplay.
> 
> Notice the difference?




Let me give you another version of this:



OTHERFrogReaver said:


> Since you keep bringing Bob Says up let's take a moment and go more in depth on that topic.  Let's take a Bob Tells You To like effect - that is a share fiction wherein the PC must obey the commands of Bob.
> 
> It's very easy to roleplay a PC that is under seeming Bob Says affect that makes him obey the commands of Bob.  That is roleplaying!  in fact, that may be the easiest roleplaying any one has ever done...
> 
> Contrast this with Not Bob stating what your character must do.  Having your PC do whatever Not Bob says isn't roleplay.  Having your PC do what Bob says that has used Bob Says to him is roleplay.
> 
> Notice the difference?




No, I don't.  You're reifying magic when it's just another mechanic through which the GM, in this case, is acting.  There is no 'other character' in the fiction -- they don't do anything in the fiction without a player directing them, so trying to say that because the GM is telling you what to do but using a fictional cover for the mechanic isn't functionally any different from the GM telling you what to do.  If the maiden softens your heart, this is the same thing.  You're confusing a magic for something special and unique -- it's just another mechanic.


----------



## FrogReaver

Fenris-77 said:


> If the DM hands me a slip of paper that says: "As a result of your capture last night at the Wizard's manse you are now under mind control. Your personality will not change, but your primary goal is to lure the rest of the party to a meeting at the docks tonight at 11th bell. Your character will explain everything away with a tale of near capture and last minute escape and wlll not mention his capture or the mind control under any kind of duress."
> 
> So, mind control, ok. There are lots of campaigns where I would definitely still RP this, even D&D campaigns. But somehow because the DM was giving the instructions without the gossamer thin difference of NPC voice I'm somehow not roleplaying? I don't follow. The DM said it, I'm doing it, it's roleplaying. Maybe that doesn't satisfy your definition of "whatever the DM says"? IDK ...




Stop misconstruing my position.  I never said it had to be in NPC voice.

The difference is an in-fiction source for the control vs an out-of-fiction source for the control.  Whether you've roleplayed it out or not, the DM provided you an in-fiction source for the control and thus you can 100% wholly and completely roleplay that scenario.


----------



## FrogReaver

Ovinomancer said:


> Let me give you another version of this:




It all depends on if Bob is an in-fiction character and not-Bob is an out of fiction character.  I see you dropped that distinction from your other version...



> No, I don't.  You're reifying magic when it's just another mechanic through which the GM, in this case, is acting.  There is no 'other character' in the fiction -- they don't do anything in the fiction without a player directing them, so trying to say that because the GM is telling you what to do but using a fictional cover for the mechanic isn't functionally any different from the GM telling you what to do.  If the maiden softens your heart, this is the same thing.  You're confusing a magic for something special and unique -- it's just another mechanic.




I'm reifying in-fiction.


----------



## Maxperson

pemerton said:


> @_*FrogReaver*_ - I pretty much agree with @_*Ovinomancer*_'s most recent post about what roleplaying is (post 139 on my count).
> 
> If I'm told to play an angry person, I can do that. If I'm told to play a person who is pulling the trigger to assassinate the duke, I can do that. If I'm told to play a person whose heart has just been melted by a wink, well I can do that to.
> 
> Being told "The magician has ensorcelled you - play that" is no different from being told "The maiden's wink has softened your heart - play that." In some ways the latter is actually easier, I think, because it's closer to a genuine human experience! (Unless you've spent a lot of time in the company of Svengali!)
> 
> I also want to go back to the Apocalypse World example that I posted and that Ovinomancer mentioned. The player establilshes that her PC is looking for an escape route. She makes her check and fails. So the GM narrates that she is looking at her barred window, thinking about how maybe she might be able to escape through it, as her enemies attack her with a grenade.
> 
> The GM isn't _contradicting _the player's account of her PC's action. The GM is adding further true descriptions of it, which obviously are adverse to the PC. (It's a failure, after all.)
> 
> There's nothing there that contraverts the idea that the player is playing his/her PC.




It might be easier to play the DM forcing you to respond a certain way due to a wink, but for many of us it is far more distasteful than being ensorcelled.  I get that some rule systems are designed to allow the DM to control a PC in that manner, but due to how distasteful such acts are to me, those are systems that I would not want to play.


----------



## Bobble

pemerton said:


> The function of players in RPGing is often described as _deciding what their PCs do_. But this can be quite ambiguous.




ambiguous: doubtful or uncertain especially from obscurity or indistinctness.

NO it is NOT ambiguous at all.  That is how it is mostly done in RPGs.  The player decides  describes what his character is doing or trying to do. THEN the GM takes over and describes the results.


----------



## Ovinomancer

Maxperson said:


> It might be easier to play the DM forcing you to respond a certain way due to a wink, but for many of us it is far more distasteful than being ensorcelled.  I get that some rule systems are designed to allow the DM to control a PC in that manner, but due to how distasteful such acts are to me, those are systems that I would not want to play.




I can understand that.  I feel the same way in D&D ganes, but that's becayse the only authority I have in D&D is to make thin declarations -- the DM has authority over everything.  So, when the DM intrudes into my very limited authority in game, it's a massive imposition.  In other games, though, I have a lot more authority as a player.  Many aspects if the game are my call, from foundational themes to scene elements to even the results -- I get to tell the GM what happens.  In that case, having the GM direct my character sometimes is much less of an imposition, especially since I can impose back.

If you look at this issue only from the point of view of D&D, then you're missing the forest for the tree.  Especially since you actually give up far more authority in D&D since everything happens at the permission of the GM.  D&D strongly relies on principled play by the GM to protect the limited authority of the players and this principled play is not explicit and often assumed by veterens of play to be understood. At least, their understanding of it us assumed, which is the primary cause of many disagreements on this board.


----------



## FrogReaver

Ovinomancer said:


> I can understand that.  I feel the same way in D&D ganes, but that's becayse the only authority I have in D&D is to make thin declarations -- the DM has authority over everything.  So, when the DM intrudes into my very limited authority in game, it's a massive imposition.  In other games, though, I have a lot more authority as a player.  Many aspects if the game are my call, from foundational themes to scene elements to even the results -- I get to tell the GM what happens.  In that case, having the GM direct my character sometimes is much less of an imposition, especially since I can impose back.




Choosing a foundational theme or scene elements or even results of your actions - all of those things are not-roleplaying - per your own definition roleplaying is about taking on a role in a shared fiction - none of those things involve taking on a role in a shared fiction.

(Well, I suppose you could be roleplaying a DM but that's not really what we are talking about here...)


----------



## Maxperson

Ovinomancer said:


> I can understand that.  I feel the same way in D&D ganes, but that's becayse the only authority I have in D&D is to make thin declarations -- the DM has authority over everything.  So, when the DM intrudes into my very limited authority in game, it's a massive imposition.  In other games, though, I have a lot more authority as a player.  Many aspects if the game are my call, from foundational themes to scene elements to even the results -- I get to tell the GM what happens.  In that case, having the GM direct my character sometimes is much less of an imposition, especially since I can impose back.




For me it's not about how much authority I have, though.  I could have more authority over other aspects of the game and I would feel the same way.  For me it's about the PC being mine.  I'm the only one, barring some sort of mechanical means like charm, who gets to control what he feels and does.



> If you look at this issue only from the point of view of D&D, then you're missing the forest for the tree.  Especially since you actually give up far more authority in D&D since everything happens at the permission of the GM.  D&D strongly relies on principled play by the GM to protect the limited authority of the players and this principled play is not explicit and often assumed by veterens of play to be understood. At least, their understanding of it us assumed, which is the primary cause of many disagreements on this board.




I understand that.  While I haven't played as many different games you or [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] has, I have played other RPGs and experienced differences.  I'm not saying the games that allow others to assert control over PCs are bad.  They just aren't for me.


----------



## Guest 6801328

pemerton said:


> @<em><strong><u><a href="https://www.enworld.org/forum/member.php?u=6795602" target="_blank">FrogReaver</a></u></strong></em> - I pretty much agree with @<em><strong><u><a href="https://www.enworld.org/forum/member.php?u=16814" target="_blank">Ovinomancer</a></u></strong></em>'s most recent post about what roleplaying is (post 139 on my count).<br>
> <br>
> If I'm told to play an angry person, I can do that. If I'm told to play a person who is pulling the trigger to assassinate the duke, I can do that. If I'm told to play a person whose heart has just been melted by a wink, well I can do that to.<br>
> <br>
> Being told "The magician has ensorcelled you - play that" is no different from being told "The maiden's wink has softened your heart - play that." In some ways the latter is actually easier, I think, because it's closer to a genuine human experience! (Unless you've spent a lot of time in the company of Svengali!)<br>
> <br>
> I also want to go back to the Apocalypse World example that I posted and that Ovinomancer mentioned. The player establilshes that her PC is looking for an escape route. She makes her check and fails. So the GM narrates that she is looking at her barred window, thinking about how maybe she might be able to escape through it, as her enemies attack her with a grenade.<br>
> <br>
> The GM isn't <em>contradicting </em>the player's account of her PC's action. The GM is adding further true descriptions of it, which obviously are adverse to the PC. (It's a failure, after all.)<br>
> <br>
> There's nothing there that contraverts the idea that the player is playing his/her PC.



<br><br>Great post.<br><br>What I find particularly noteworthy is that I can both deeply resent the notion that a GM can dictate how I should roleplay my character <em>and</em> acknowledge that the result is still roleplaying.<br>
<br>


----------



## FrogReaver

Elfcrusher said:


> <br><br>Great post.<br><br>What I find particularly noteworthy is that I can both deeply resent the notion that a GM can dictate how I should roleplay my character <em>and</em> acknowledge that the result is still roleplaying.<br>
> <br>




When the DM declares your character does X, how exactly at that moment are you taking on the role of that character in the fiction?  It seems to me the DM is the one taking on the role of your character in the fiction at that moment...


----------



## Guest 6801328

FrogReaver said:


> When the DM declares your character does X, how exactly at that moment are you taking on the role of that character in the fiction?  It seems to me the DM is the one taking on the role of your character in the fiction at that moment...




You are either playing a pointless semantic game, or my joke about the first person shooter was spot on.

But I'll give you credit.  This is _how_ many threads where pretty much the whole gaming community gangs up to disagree with you? And yet you don't back off one bit.  Points for perseverance.

"And still he persists."


----------



## FrogReaver

Elfcrusher said:


> You are either playing a pointless semantic game, or my joke about the first person shooter was spot on.
> 
> But I'll give you credit.  This is _how_ many threads where pretty much the whole gaming community gangs up to disagree with you? And yet you don't back off one bit.  Points for perseverance.
> 
> "And still he persists."




Nice question dodge.  Any other takers?


----------



## Guest 6801328

FrogReaver said:


> When the DM declares your character does X, how exactly at that moment are you taking on the role of that character in the fiction?  It seems to me the DM is the one taking on the role of your character in the fiction at that moment...




Wait, that wasn't fair.  I at least owe you the courtesy of a response.

No, for that moment where the DM is telling me how to roleplay my character (note that the DM isn't actually "taking on the role of my character" unless, well, unless he/she is taking on the role of my character), in that moment I am not roleplaying.  Then, when the DM stops talking and its my turn again, I'm roleplaying.  

It's kind of like David Mermin's famous first sentence in a physics paper, "We now know with certainty that the moon does not exist when nobody is looking at it."  When I'm not actually roleplaying, it's true that I'm not actually roleplaying.

Here are other moments when I'm not roleplaying:
1) When I stop to take a gulp of Mountain Dew
2) When I make a joke about Gazebos
3) When I roll dice
4) When I say, "Hold on, I need to look up _color spray_...."
5) When ask the DM to describe what the NPC looks like
6) Etc., etc. etc.

And yet, somehow I am still playing a roleplaying game.


----------



## Ovinomancer

FrogReaver said:


> Choosing a foundational theme or scene elements or even results of your actions - all of those things are not-roleplaying - per your own definition roleplaying is about taking on a role in a shared fiction - none of those things involve taking on a role in a shared fiction.
> 
> (Well, I suppose you could be roleplaying a DM but that's not really what we are talking about here...)




Right, because determining elements of the fiction that you're playing a role in has absolutely nothing to do with playing the role.  Wait, what?  Nope, it _totally _does.

But, this is a very nice rhetorical trick where you take me talking about play preferences and pretend it's a post about the definition of roleplaying.


----------



## FrogReaver

Elfcrusher said:


> Wait, that wasn't fair.  I at least owe you the courtesy of a response.
> 
> No, for that moment where the DM is telling me how to roleplay my character (note that the DM isn't actually "taking on the role of my character" unless, well, unless he/she is taking on the role of my character), in that moment I am not roleplaying.  Then, when the DM stops talking and its my turn again, I'm roleplaying.
> 
> It's kind of like David Mermin's famous first sentence in a physics paper, "We now know with certainty that the moon does not exist when nobody is looking at it."  When I'm not actually roleplaying, it's true that I'm not actually roleplaying.
> 
> Here are other moments when I'm not roleplaying:
> 1) When I stop to take a gulp of Mountain Dew
> 2) When I make a joke about Gazebos
> 3) When I roll dice
> 4) When I say, "Hold on, I need to look up _color spray_...."
> 5) When ask the DM to describe what the NPC looks like
> 6) Etc., etc. etc.
> 
> And yet, somehow I am still playing a roleplaying game.




That's exactly what I've been saying this whole time.  You do get it!!!


----------



## Umbran

FrogReaver said:


> That's exactly what I've been saying this whole time.  You do get it!!!





In the moment that an actor is told by the director to do something, they are not acting.  But then, they roll cameras, and the actor does do the acting - they then play the role.

Even with very, very heavy direction, even when someone else has outright written the lines and done the blocking, you can still then play the role.


----------



## pemerton

Fenris-77 said:


> If the DM hands me a slip of paper that says: "As a result of your capture last night at the Wizard's manse you are now under mind control. Your personality will not change, but your primary goal is to lure the rest of the party to a meeting at the docks tonight at 11th bell. Your character will explain everything away with a tale of near capture and last minute escape and wlll not mention his capture or the mind control under any kind of duress."
> 
> So, mind control, ok. There are lots of campaigns where I would definitely still RP this, even D&D campaigns. But somehow because the DM was giving the instructions without the gossamer thin difference of NPC voice I'm somehow not roleplaying? I don't follow. The DM said it, I'm doing it, it's roleplaying. Maybe that doesn't satisfy your definition of "whatever the DM says"? IDK ...



This makes sense.

In my Burning Wheel game one of the PCs was subjected to Force of Will by a dark naga. I told the player that he had to write a Beilef reflecting this, and the two of us hammered that out over the course of a few minutes. Then the player just went on playing his PC.


----------



## FrogReaver

Umbran said:


> In the moment that an actor is told by the director to do something, they are not acting.  But then, they roll cameras, and the actor does do the acting - they then play the role.
> 
> Even with very, very heavy direction, even when someone else has outright written the lines and done the blocking, you can still then play the role.




You get it too!  Now why do you think this is an important point to bring up and have acknowledged on a thread about RPG action resolution mechanics?


----------



## pemerton

FrogReaver said:


> In one case the magician - has an in-fiction method of making your PC obey his commands.  A maiden's wink (unless it's a wink with supernatural powers) doesn't have an in-fiction method of making a PC do anything.



Two things in reply:

(1) I reiterate what [MENTION=16814]Ovinomancer[/MENTION] says about Bob. Whether or not it can be roleplayed, and counts as roleplaying, has nothing do with the stuff the GM (or other player) is imagining as s/he tells you what has changed about your PC's mental states.

(2) You seem to be pre-supposing that the only way that human beings can influence one another's mental states is by way of magic. I see human influence one another's mental states all the time, and I've never seen a human use magic. So I don't agree with yur presuppsition.



FrogReaver said:


> The moment that additional description is about the PC doing something additional than what the player said then it's the DM assuming roleplaying responsibilities for that PC for that moment.



And one thing here, which goes back to the OP: the player has established that her PC is looking for an escape route. The GM isn't having the player do something _additional_. The GM is establishing further true descriptoins of what the player has had her PC do - _you look at your barred window, thinking it might be an escape route_. Of course these are descriptions that the player wouldn't choose if she had her way - that's because she failed her check!

But the additional description isn't of an additional action. It's additional description of the same action (_looking for an escape route_).


----------



## pemerton

Maxperson said:


> It might be easier to play the DM forcing you to respond a certain way due to a wink, but for many of us it is far more distasteful than being ensorcelled.  I get that some rule systems are designed to allow the DM to control a PC in that manner, but due to how distasteful such acts are to me, those are systems that I would not want to play.



Sure. I'm not disputing or even commenting on your preferences. I'm commenting on whether or not something is RPGing.



Elfcrusher said:


> <br><br>Great post.<br><br>What I find particularly noteworthy is that I can both deeply resent the notion that a GM can dictate how I should roleplay my character <em>and</em> acknowledge that the result is still roleplaying.<br><br>



Thanks (taking this at face value and not as ironic/sarcasm). But what's happened to your tags?


----------



## FrogReaver

pemerton said:


> Two things in reply:
> 
> (1) I reiterate what @_*Ovinomancer*_ says about Bob. Whether or not it can be roleplayed, and counts as roleplaying, has nothing do with the stuff the GM (or other player) is imagining as s/he tells you what has changed about your PC's mental states.




No idea what you are saying here.  I've read it 3 times and still am drawing a blank.  



> (2) You seem to be pre-supposing that the only way that human beings can influence one another's mental states is by way of magic. I see human influence one another's mental states all the time, and I've never seen a human use magic. So I don't agree with yur presuppsition.




You act like I deny this?  Of course human's influence each other.  

Yet when it comes to roleplay - any moment you take away from the player and force his character (via out of fiction means) to perform some action or behave some way - that's depriving your player of a moment in which he can roleplay.  You're depriving him of a moment in which he can really make his vision of his character come to life.

It causes his PC to feel ever so slightly less like his and sometimes times can even cause a total disconnect from the character he's been envisioning as roleplaying and the one he is now being forced to roleplay.  

So in your example of the maiden melting the PC's heart.  The player can definitely roleplay with that truth in mind after you've established it.  But establishing that truth deprived the player of a potentially meaningful opportunity to roleplay his character and bring the character he envisions his PC to be to life - as opposed to the character the DM is dictating him to be.



> And one thing here, which goes back to the OP: the player has established that her PC is looking for an escape route. The GM isn't having the player do something _additional_. The GM is establishing further true descriptoins of what the player has had her PC do - _you look at your barred window, thinking it might be an escape route_. Of course these are descriptions that the player wouldn't choose if she had her way - that's because she failed her check!
> 
> But the additional description isn't of an additional action. It's additional description of the same action (_looking for an escape route_).




If the player says I look around the room for an escape route and you add "you stare at the window wishing you could escape through it" then you've subtley changed the players stated course of action.  Is what you have changed compatible with the original stated action yes.  But it's still not what the player originally stated.  This kind of stuff is done all the time, mostly for comic relief.  But, it's still having the PC do something additional that the player didn't state, especially considering there are numerous ways the PC could have looked for an escape route without stopping at the window to day-dream about escaping through it.  Thus, it is an additional action.


----------



## Ovinomancer

Maxperson said:


> For me it's not about how much authority I have, though.  I could have more authority over other aspects of the game and I would feel the same way.  For me it's about the PC being mine.  I'm the only one, barring some sort of mechanical means like charm, who gets to control what he feels and does.



Right, the mechanical means in most other games is that you fail a check.  If you insist it must be a save against magic before you're comfortable, that seems like an overly specific exception that really isn't -- it's just an exception you've internalized as okay and so you wave it away when it comes up.  Charm Person is actually far more invasive a mechanic into player authorities than most of the games others are talking about where the DM gets to say things about your character.

This is what I meant by missing the forest for the tree -- D&D has some very strong DM authorities that often run roughshod over the very limited player authorities.  Those that are steeped in this have a really hard time seeing other play structures because they automatically try to orient everything to their understanding of D&D.  Here, you reject the idea of the DM having control over your character unless it's one of those D&D ways, where the DM gets a huge amount of control over your character -- then it's fine.  I fail to understand why you make this exception but hold out fiercely against much more minor transgressions in other games where the player has much more authority over the game in general than in D&D.

I mean, preference is preference, and other play structures aren't better objectively, but this now seems like an odd hill to defend -- that's it's okay for the DM to take away your player authority to be the sole declarer of actions for your PC if magic (which is no different than Bob Says).


----------



## Guest 6801328

FrogReaver said:


> That's exactly what I've been saying this whole time.  You do get it!!!




I'm disappointed.  I was hoping there would be some sort of interesting or profound twist.


----------



## Maxperson

Ovinomancer said:


> Right, the mechanical means in most other games is that you fail a check.  If you insist it must be a save against magic before you're comfortable, that seems like an overly specific exception that really isn't -- it's just an exception you've internalized as okay and so you wave it away when it comes up.  Charm Person is actually far more invasive a mechanic into player authorities than most of the games others are talking about where the DM gets to say things about your character.




This is wrong.  It's not more invasive to my authority for charm to work.  It's far less invasive.  Since there is an in game mechanic for the control, it's just another non-invasive thing.  Only control where this is no in game reason for it to exist is invasive, because it takes away control that I should have.  Charm does not take away control that I should have, because I shouldn't have it.



> This is what I meant by missing the forest for the tree -- D&D has some very strong DM authorities that often run roughshod over the very limited player authorities.  Those that are steeped in this have a really hard time seeing other play structures because they automatically try to orient everything to their understanding of D&D.




D&D, Middle Earth, Marvel Superheroes(the 80's version), I.C.E., World of Darkness, Gama World and more.  This isn't even close to being something that I've encountered in D&D alone.



> I mean, preference is preference, and other play structures aren't better objectively, but this now seems like an odd hill to defend -- that's it's okay for the DM to take away your player authority to be the sole declarer of actions for your PC if magic (which is no different than Bob Says).




If by no different, you in fact mean very different, then I agree with you.  Having an in game reason for taking control is very different than not having it.


----------



## Maxperson

FrogReaver said:


> When the DM declares your character does X, how exactly at that moment are you taking on the role of that character in the fiction?  It seems to me the DM is the one taking on the role of your character in the fiction at that moment...




If I have taken on the role of a barbarian with X background, then whatever happens in game is a part of that role.  If the DM cast charm person on me and I have to treat the caster as my good friend, I get to determine the actions of my character under that restriction.  I am now roleplaying a barbarian with X background that is charmed by Y wizard.  The DM does not get to dictate to me how my PC reacts, only the limitations of what I am roleplaying.  Even with more restrictive spells like dominate, I still have the ability to embellish however I see fit, so long as I don't take an action outside that is not allowed to me(assuming the caster is using the more restrictive aspect), so I can still roleplay my PC.



> That's exactly what I've been saying this whole time. You do get it!!!





I look at it a bit more holistically.  When someone asks me how long I worked today, I tell them 8.75 hours.  Now, I do get 2 ten minute breaks, and sometimes I stop and tell a coworker a joke for a minute or two, and technically I'm not working then.  That still doesn't change that I worked an 8.75 hour day.  I've never stopped and said, "Well, 8.75 hours, minute 20 minutes, minus 2.4 minutes for a joke, minus 3 minutes for a bathroom run..."  I've never heard anyone else do that, either.  

Roleplaying is no different.  While there are times like running to the bathroom, listening to a DM description, food breaks, etc., a 4 hour game session is still a 4 hour block where I'm roleplaying.  I can understand your point about the times where you technically aren't roleplaying in that moment, but I don't stop to break the game session down like that when talking about it to someone else, and I haven't anyone else break theirs down like that for me.


----------



## Maxperson

Nevermind.  Misread your response.


----------



## GrahamWills

Lanefan said:


> 3 and 4, however, don't carry that same "try to" vibe with them.  Why?  Because the GM's word is law, and if you've just been told your heart's been softened then softened it is - you don't get a chance to resist.  Bloody blue murder! .




If you want to play in a game where the GM's word is incontestable law, go for it, I guess. I haven't played or run in such a game for 20 years. I don't think most people play in games where no one questions the GM ever, but maybe I'm wrong. 

Maybe that's the confusion in the thread -- some people play games where it is always wrong to challenge the GM and for them, absolutely, the GM should say "try" or whatever words permit the players to summon up the courage to oppose their word. It's just way outside my experience. I am too fallible as a GM ever to try that line of running a game. If a player says to me "actually, that's not what I'd do" I don't say "my word is law --  you don't get a chance to resist!" as apparently happens in your games, I tend to say "Oh, all right, would would they do?"


----------



## pemerton

double post deleted


----------



## pemerton

FrogReaver said:


> If the player says I look around the room for an escape route and you add "you stare at the window wishing you could escape through it" then you've subtley changed the players stated course of action. Is what you have changed compatible with the original stated action yes. But it's still not what the player originally stated. This kind of stuff is done all the time, mostly for comic relief. But, it's still having the PC do something additional that the player didn't state, especially considering there are numerous ways the PC could have looked for an escape route without stopping at the window to day-dream about escaping through it. Thus, it is an additional action.



Re-read the example. You're interpolating things (eg "day-dreaming") that aren't there. From Apocalypse World, pp 155-56:

“I *read the situation*. What’s my best escape route?” She rolls+sharp and . . . misses. “Oh no,” she says.

I can make as hard and direct a move as I like. . . .

“You’re looking out your (barred, 4th-story) window as though it were an escape route,” I say, “and they don’t chop your door all the way down, just through the top hinge, and then they lean on it to make a 6-inch space. The door’s creaking and snapping at the bottom hinge. And they put a grenade through like this—” I hold up my fist for the grenade and slap it with my other hand, like whacking a croquet ball.

“I dive for—”

Sorry, I’m still making my hard move. . . . “Nope. They cooked it off and it goes off practically at your feet. Let’s see … 4-harm area messy, a grenade. You have armor?”​
Of course the GM's descriptions _aren't the same as what the player stated_. (1) No one declares an action from the point of view of failing it. (2) If the GM could never do anything but restate what the player said, it would be a boring and somewhat repetitive game.

But the GM is not having the character perform a different action. The GM is just providing additional descriptions of the player's stated action of _reading the situation to identify her best escape route_.



FrogReaver said:


> when it comes to roleplay - any moment you take away from the player and force his character (via out of fiction means) to perform some action or behave some way - that's depriving your player of a moment in which he can roleplay.  You're depriving him of a moment in which he can really make his vision of his character come to life.



If you tell the player _You're paralysed. I'll tell you when you can act again._ or _You're charmed. You think Orcus is your best friend_ you're also depriving the player of a moment in which s/he can really make his/her vision of the character come to life.

The fact that the infiction reason for the PC doing such-and-such is ensorcellment has no bearing on the real-world reality that you are pointing to.

Whether _roleplaying_ = _make my vision of the character come alive_ is a further question. This is the first post where you've suggested that particular definition. It obviously differs from other definitions that have been put forward, such as _portraying a particular character in an imagined world_ by imposing an authorship constraint on what counts as roleplaying.



FrogReaver said:


> pemerton said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> I reiterate what [MENTION=16814]Ovinomancer[/MENTION] says about Bob. Whether or not it can be roleplayed, and counts as roleplaying, has nothing do with the stuff the GM (or other player) is imagining as s/he tells you what has changed about your PC's mental states.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> No idea what you are saying here.  I've read it 3 times and still am drawing a blank.
Click to expand...


Whether the GM, when s/he tells you what has changed about your PC's mental states, is imagining _a winking maiden_ or _a might sorcerer_ or _Ovinomancer's Bob_ or _the Orcus of my earlier paragraph_ makes no difference to whether or not you, as a player carrying out the GM's directions, are playing a role. Maybe you are. Maybe you aren't. That depends on what it means to _play a role_. But whatever _playing a role_ means, it is not affected by what is happening in the imagination of the GM when s/he tells you what your player should do now.

For instance, if _playing a role_ includes the authorship constraint you have stated, whether or not that constraint is honoured doesn't change because the GM imagines magical pixies rather than subtle maidens when s/he tells you that your PC's heart is softened.



Maxperson said:


> It's not more invasive to my authority for charm to work.  It's far less invasive.  Since there is an in game mechanic for the control, it's just another non-invasive thing.  Only control where this is no in game reason for it to exist is invasive, because it takes away control that I should have.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> Having an in game reason for taking control is very different than not having it.



I don't think this refutes anything [MENTION=16814]Ovinomancer[/MENTION] said. Rather, it confirms it!

First, but somewhat tangentially, when the maiden winks at you and melts your heart, there is an ingame reason why your heart is melted - namely, the maiden's wink!

Second, the idea that you _should_ have control over your PC _except_ when an ingame magical enchantment effect occurs, is just reiterating the D&D categories that Ovinomancer said you were not seeing beyond. It's not stating a reason. It implies, for instance, that a fantasy game in which players spend about half the time playing their PCs as charmed is less "invasive" than a modern-day game in which players, for a few minutes each session, find the GM adding descriptions to what their players do, triggered by failed checks and with the purpose of reflecting things going wrong. But what is there about the logic of RPGing that explains this classification? Nothing that I can see. The activity is neutral vis-a-vis the fiction it engages with.

If the half-the-session charmed game is OK and fun, and a fine example of RPGing, then it doesn't make any sense for it suddenly to become an example of _not_-RPGing because we relabel all the fiction (so the charms become eg cute winks and charming voices). That would be a change in aesthetic, but not a fundamental change in the activity.


----------



## aramis erak

Maxperson said:


> For me it's not about how much authority I have, though.  I could have more authority over other aspects of the game and I would feel the same way.  For me it's about the PC being mine.  I'm the only one, barring some sort of mechanical means like charm, who gets to control what he feels and does.
> 
> 
> 
> I understand that.  While I haven't played as many different games you or [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] has, I have played other RPGs and experienced differences.  I'm not saying the games that allow others to assert control over PCs are bad.  They just aren't for me.




But you don't control the actions completely - only the attempts. Whomever sets difficulties and calls for rolls controls the outcome in most games.

The nearly universal pattern is...
Player states action attempt
GM either calls for a roll, states something in response, or indicates continuance (silently or not)
The player steps out of character mode into game mode, makes the roll
The GM takes the result of the roll and narrates the outcome of the action.
Repeat.

Exceptions are notable for being such: 
Burning Wheel, both sides have to agree to the stakes, or the player has to abandon the action. 
Brute squad has the order different (state attempt; roll dice; GM indicates success or failure; player narrates result. Repeat)
Mouse Guard also plays with player autonomy heavily... reducing it a lot.


----------



## aramis erak

FrogReaver said:


> When the DM declares your character does X, how exactly at that moment are you taking on the role of that character in the fiction?  It seems to me the DM is the one taking on the role of your character in the fiction at that moment...



In some cases yes, but in many, no... they're just resolving the inherent uncertainty of player narration in a strong-GM game.

I don't need to get into your character to determine if you missed your attack. I just need to describe (preferably plausibly) how it failed to inflict harm. (Potentially including narrating it skipping off and not doing any harm, but still connecting.)


----------



## hawkeyefan

Reading over the comments here, and two things come to mind.

First, in the real world, it’s often true that we lose control of ourselves. We get angry at others, we act foolishly due to lust or love. We get influenced by others and act irrationally based on that influence. You see this kind of stuff all the time. People act without thinking things through. People make bad decisions all the time. We don’t actually have total control of ourselves. 

Why shouldn’t a game have mechanics that can simulate this in some way? 

Second, we all seem to agree that the game world is a shared fiction. Based on that, I’m not sure I understand folks balking at sharing some level of control over their character with the GM or others. Especially when it seems they’re fine with some examples of such.


----------



## Maxperson

pemerton said:


> First, but somewhat tangentially, when the maiden winks at you and melts your heart, there is an ingame reason why your heart is melted - namely, the maiden's wink!




An in game reason that allows the DM to control my PC?  Hardly.  Absent some sort of mind control, I get to decide if the maiden's wink melts my heart.  



> It implies, for instance, that a fantasy game in which players spend about half the time playing their PCs as charmed is less "invasive" than a modern-day game in which players, for a few minutes each session, find the GM adding descriptions to what their players do, triggered by failed checks and with the purpose of reflecting things going wrong. But what is there about the logic of RPGing that explains this classification? Nothing that I can see. The activity is neutral vis-a-vis the fiction it engages with.
> 
> If the half-the-session charmed game is OK and fun, and a fine example of RPGing, then it doesn't make any sense for it suddenly to become an example of _not_-RPGing because we relabel all the fiction (so the charms become eg cute winks and charming voices). That would be a change in aesthetic, but not a fundamental change in the activity.




A different reason for something happening completely alters the event.  It's the difference between being shot in the head as a hostage to show the police that the hostage takers are serious, and being shot and killed while saving the rest of the hostages.  The activity is being shot and killed.  The reason behind it alters everything, though.


----------



## Maxperson

aramis erak said:


> But you don't control the actions completely - only the attempts. Whomever sets difficulties and calls for rolls controls the outcome in most games.
> 
> The nearly universal pattern is...
> Player states action attempt
> GM either calls for a roll, states something in response, or indicates continuance (silently or not)
> The player steps out of character mode into game mode, makes the roll
> The GM takes the result of the roll and narrates the outcome of the action.
> Repeat.




So what.  Word games like this don't alter my point.  Absent some sort of magic, mental control, truth serum or whatever, I still have total authority over my PCs decisions and feelings.


----------



## Maxperson

hawkeyefan said:


> Reading over the comments here, and two things come to mind.
> 
> First, in the real world, it’s often true that we lose control of ourselves. We get angry at others, we act foolishly due to lust or love. We get influenced by others and act irrationally based on that influence. You see this kind of stuff all the time. People act without thinking things through. People make bad decisions all the time. We don’t actually have total control of ourselves.
> 
> Why shouldn’t a game have mechanics that can simulate this in some way?




Because it's unnecessary.  I am fully capable of deciding if my PC gets angry at something he wouldn't normally get angry at or if uncontrolled lust strikes him.  I don't need a DM to force that on me.


----------



## FrogReaver

hawkeyefan said:


> Reading over the comments here, and two things come to mind.
> 
> First, in the real world, it’s often true that we lose control of ourselves. We get angry at others, we act foolishly due to lust or love. We get influenced by others and act irrationally based on that influence. You see this kind of stuff all the time. People act without thinking things through. People make bad decisions all the time. We don’t actually have total control of ourselves.
> 
> Why shouldn’t a game have mechanics that can simulate this in some way?




Because roleplaying already allows for that
Because adding in such mechanics takes away moments where a player could be roleplaying
Because roleplaying games are inherently about having a character you can call your own - that you take on the role of in the shared fiction.  Mechanics that usurp control of the character you call your own via whatever simulationist justification you want to come up with always ends up resulting in a character that's different than how you previously imagined.  

When a character you are attempting to take on the role of in the shared fiction repeatedly changes from how you are imagining him that impacts your ability to take on that role (to roleplay him).  I mean how could it not?

But more importantly if you enjoy those style of mechanics you should have them.  It's just you should also be aware of what they are actually doing to the game you are playing.



> Second, we all seem to agree that the game world is a shared fiction. Based on that, I’m not sure I understand folks balking at sharing some level of control over their character with the GM or others. Especially when it seems they’re fine with some examples of such.




In fiction control vs out of fiction control.  I keep telling you all the difference.  You all keep ignoring it.


----------



## FrogReaver

Maxperson said:


> So what.  Word games like this don't alter my point.  Absent some sort of magic, mental control, truth serum or whatever, I still have total authority over my PCs decisions and feelings.




Yep.  In fiction means of controlling a PC are inherently different than out-of fiction means of controlling one.


----------



## FrogReaver

Elfcrusher said:


> I'm disappointed.  I was hoping there would be some sort of interesting or profound twist.




There is a point behind it all.  But right now I'm basking in not having the whole thread bash me.


----------



## hawkeyefan

Maxperson said:


> Because it's unnecessary.  I am fully capable of deciding if my PC gets angry at something he wouldn't normally get angry at or if uncontrolled lust strikes him.  I don't need a DM to force that on me.




Do you view an attack from an opponent that does damage to your PC as something the “DM forces on you”? Or the aforementioned Charm spell....you fail the save, is the DM forcing the charm effect on you? 

If there are mechanics in place, then it’s not a case of the DM forcing anything. This is my point.


----------



## FrogReaver

hawkeyefan said:


> If there are mechanics in place, then it’s not a case of the DM forcing anything. This is my point.




Replace DM with mechanic.  Same thing different face.



> Do you view an attack from an opponent that does damage to your PC as something the “DM forces on you”? Or the aforementioned Charm spell....you fail the save, is the DM forcing the charm effect on you? ​



​In fiction is fine.  Out of fiction is not fine.  All you mentioned above are in fiction acts.  Those are all fine.

Now if the DM said for no in-fiction reason you lose 50 hp - we would all be up in arms...


----------



## FrogReaver

In fact let's flip the tables.

Should a DM ever have a PC lose 50 hp without having an in-fiction cause for the loss in hp?

What about, the maiden winks at you- you lose 50 hp.  (no it wasn't magical, it was just a mundane wink)

This should be as acceptable as the maiden winks at you and melts your heart right?

If not, why not?


----------



## Maxperson

hawkeyefan said:


> Do you view an attack from an opponent that does damage to your PC as something the “DM forces on you”? Or the aforementioned Charm spell....you fail the save, is the DM forcing the charm effect on you?




No, because charm is an accepted part of the game.  I know going into the game that there are in-fiction mechanics such as charm, dominate, command, etc., to assert control over my PC.  A wink is not one of those and shouldn't be.



> If there are mechanics in place, then it’s not a case of the DM forcing anything. This is my point.




I already said that there are some games with out of fiction mechanics, that allows the DM to assert control over my PC via something a wink, and that I wouldn't want to play one of those.


----------



## FrogReaver

Maxperson said:


> No, because charm is an accepted part of the game.  I know going into the game that there are in-fiction mechanics such as charm, dominate, command, etc., to assert control over my PC.  A wink is not one of those and shouldn't be.
> 
> 
> 
> I already said that there are some games with out of fiction mechanics, that allows the DM to assert control over my PC via something a wink, and that I wouldn't want to play one of those.




I think what hawkeye is trying to ask is what for you is the difference between 

an in fiction charm person spell exerting control over your PC and an in fiction wink exerting control over your PC.  

I know what my answer is to that (magic can do anything it says it does, normal person to person interactions don't exert explicit control over a person)

 I think that's the point he's driving on about (and the answer should be so obvious he didn't even need to ask but apparently isn't so)


----------



## Maxperson

FrogReaver said:


> I think what hawkeye is trying to ask is what for you is the difference between
> 
> an in fiction charm person spell exerting control over your PC and an in fiction wink exerting control over your PC.




An in fiction wink has no ability to override a PC's normal reaction.  Speaking personally, winks do absolutely nothing for me.  Even coming from someone like Scarlett Johansson, who I consider one of the most beautiful women in the world, a wink wouldn't add anything more than if it came from Honey Booboo's mom.  A charm spell on the other hand has the capability to have a PC act in a way he ordinarily would not.



> I know what my answer is to that (magic can do anything it says it does, normal person to person interactions don't exert explicit control over a person)
> 
> I think that's the point he's driving on about (and the answer should be so obvious he didn't even need to ask but apparently isn't so)




Agreed.


----------



## pemerton

FrogReaver said:


> In fiction is fine.  Out of fiction is not fine.  All you mentioned above are in fiction acts.  Those are all fine.



But having someone wink at you is also an infiction act. I don't understand what distiinction you think you're pointing to here.



Maxperson said:


> An in game reason that allows the DM to control my PC?  Hardly.  Absent some sort of mind control, I get to decide if the maiden's wink melts my heart.





Maxperson said:


> No, because charm is an accepted part of the game.  I know going into the game that there are in-fiction mechanics such as charm, dominate, command, etc., to assert control over my PC.  A wink is not one of those and shouldn't be.



These are just bare assertions of preference. As  [MENTION=16814]Ovinomancer[/MENTION] already noted.



Maxperson said:


> I already said that there are some games with out of fiction mechanics, that allows the DM to assert control over my PC via something a wink, and that I wouldn't want to play one of those.



It's not "out of fiction". The wink occurs in the fiction. The melting of your PC's heart happens in the fiction. No difference from a spell.

And the rule that explains how winking works is something written down in a book. Just like the rules for "an accepted part of the game" that  "know going into the game."



Maxperson said:


> An in fiction wink has no ability to override a PC's normal reaction.  Speaking personally, winks do absolutely nothing for me.



Mere assertion.

As many have pointed out - George Orwell probably most famously in relatively contemporary literature - everyone has their breaking point.

It also suggests significant ignorance of the variety of RPG designs out there. For instance, if you really want your PC never to be influenced by another PC's friendly behaviour, you can choose to play a game which allows that particular sort of immunity to be built into the PC.

And this also brings us back to the assumption that both you and [MENTION=6795602]FrogReaver[/MENTION] seem to be making but have not explicitly acknowledged let alone explained: what is the connection between _playing a character_ and _getting to decide whether or not that character is the sort of person who might be moved by a wink from another_?



FrogReaver said:


> magic can do anything it says it does, normal person to person interactions don't exert explicit control over a person



This is just more assertion. In real life people influence one another all the time - eg someone calls out to you to stop, and you do; someone goes to shake your hand, and you respond; someone shows you a shocking image and it stuns you; someone you thought you hated smiles at you and offers you a cupcake that they brought into work from their birthday party on the weekend, and now you think you might have misjudged them.

In the context of a RPG, these are all infiction events that might occur, just like being ensorcelled.

Just as a game system might not always let the player choose whether or not the magic ensorcels his/her PC, so it might not always let the player choose whether or not the generous behaviour softens his/her PC's heart. The issues here go to aesthetics and the subject matter of the game, not to deep questions about "what is a RPG?"


----------



## Maxperson

pemerton said:


> It's not "out of fiction". The wink occurs in the fiction. The melting of your PC's heart happens in the fiction. No difference from a spell.




This is just flat out wrong.  There is no power inherent to a wink that allows the wink to override the PC.  None.  Nil.  Nyet.  Zero.  Zilch. Nada.  They are very different.


----------



## hawkeyefan

FrogReaver said:


> Because roleplaying already allows for that




So? There are plenty of things that roleplaying allows for which can either be determined by player decision or by mechanical resolution, depending on the circumstances. 



FrogReaver said:


> Because adding in such mechanics takes away moments where a player could be roleplaying




That’s odd. I would actually argue the opposite. It offers opportunities for roleplaying. 

Unless you feel that roleplaying means you always get to decide exactly how your character acts at all times. But of so, then why bother with any mechanics at all? 



FrogReaver said:


> Because roleplaying games are inherently about having a character you can call your own - that you take on the role of in the shared fiction.  Mechanics that usurp control of the character you call your own via whatever simulationist justification you want to come up with always ends up resulting in a character that's different than how you previously imagined.




Sure. Characters change and grow based on what happens to them. Seems fine to me, unless one would prefer some kind of unchanging archetype of a character. Which in and of itself is fine....but then I have yo scratch my head about the importance of character in such a game.



FrogReaver said:


> When a character you are attempting to take on the role of in the shared fiction repeatedly changes from how you are imagining him that impacts your ability to take on that role (to roleplay him).  I mean how could it not?




I suppose this could be true. But I don’t think it’s necessary. I’d expect most players would be quite capable of handling the winking maiden’s impact on their PC without the character being ruined.

Also, no matter what, most games do have limits on what you may want for or think about your character. You may want to play a character who is never swayed by others except when he chooses to be. This doesn't seem any more valid than my desire to play a character who never loses at swordplay. I can certainly have that character concept going into the game...but the rules are going to show me otherwise.



FrogReaver said:


> But more importantly if you enjoy those style of mechanics you should have them.  It's just you should also be aware of what they are actually doing to the game you are playing.




Yeah, I’m aware of how they impact my game. It’s not by removing “true roleplaying”. 



FrogReaver said:


> In fiction control vs out of fiction control.  I keep telling you all the difference.  You all keep ignoring it.




What out of fiction control? No one’s cited any examples that don’t take place within the fiction, at least not that I’ve seen.


----------



## hawkeyefan

FrogReaver said:


> Replace DM with mechanic.  Same thing different face.
> 
> In fiction is fine.  Out of fiction is not fine.  All you mentioned above are in fiction acts.  Those are all fine.
> 
> Now if the DM said for no in-fiction reason you lose 50 hp - we would all be up in arms...




I don’t see what connection you’re making here. What out of fiction reason are you citing? Why would a DM ever say “you lose 50 HP for no reason muhuhahahah!”?

I don’t think anyone here is advocating for anything so absurd. I know I’m not.


----------



## Maxperson

hawkeyefan said:


> That’s odd. I would actually argue the opposite. It offers opportunities for roleplaying.




No it doesn't.  Without it I have the opportunity to roleplay the wink as not affecting my PC or as melting his heart.  I have two opportunities on how to roleplay(more than two really).  With the wink forcing my PC to act a certain way, it removes every other way to roleplay and only offers up one opportunity, instead of many.  It takes away opportunities.



> Unless you feel that roleplaying means you always get to decide exactly how your character acts at all times. But of so, then why bother with any mechanics at all?{/quote]
> 
> To resolve things that are in doubt.


----------



## Tony Vargas

Maxperson said:


> This is just flat out wrong.  There is no power inherent to a wink that allows the wink to override the PC.  None.  Nil.  Nyet.  Zero.  Zilch. Nada.  They are very different.




The difference between subtle social queues overriding judgement & rational decision making and magic doing so, is that magic doesn't exist.

We've all experienced doing things we knew were bad ideas at the time and later regretted bitterly, because we were manipulated into it, or psychologically vulnerable in some way.

It's just part of being human.

In fantasy magic does exist, can seize control over a mind- and is often overcome by more powerful forces, like courage, faith, or love.




hawkeyefan said:


> Why would a DM ever say “you lose 50 HP for no reason muhuhahahah!”?
> .



 I think the villain laugh is your answer.

Seriously though, hp loss can be used, arbitrarily, by the DM as a stick to shove a misbehaving player back in line, or punish inappropriate RP.  It's crude code for "I'll throw you out of the game," but I've seen it done - back in the day - and even seen it work.  By the same token there are RP carrots DMs can arbitrarily give out as rewards.  There are even formal systems for them, like 5e inspiration.

Besides, hps can include factors like luck,  fate, divine favor or the like that the DM could claim control over.


----------



## Satyrn

Maxperson said:


> No it doesn't.  Without it I have the opportunity to roleplay the wink as not affecting my PC or as melting his heart.  I have two opportunities on how to roleplay(more than two really).  With the wink forcing my PC to act a certain way, it removes every other way to roleplay and only offers up one opportunity, instead of many.  It takes away opportunities.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Unless you feel that roleplaying means you always get to decide exactly how your character acts at all times. But of so, then why bother with any mechanics at all?
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> To resolve things that are in doubt.
Click to expand...



Aye. I do not want my DM telling me my PC is smitten by the maiden's wink. It's my character, my decision whether that's the case. Ideally the DM should tell me that's the maiden's goal for the wink so I can be better informed and choose to buy in to what the DM is selling.

Also Aye: Playing D&D, the mechanics are there to resolve an action when the outcome is doubt. I might decide to ask the DM to roll some dice if I don't know how my character would respond to the wink, but if I do know then there are no mechanics to invoke. Just like a DM doesn't need to ask me to roll dice if he knows how the maiden respond to my wink.


Sure, other RPGs will work differently, but the way D&D 5e works is my preference. Specifically its basic play loop and its assumption that players control what their character thinks.


----------



## Ovinomancer

So, at this point, I see that the   [MENTION=23751]Maxperson[/MENTION],  [MENTION=6795602]FrogReaver[/MENTION],  [MENTION=6801204]Satyrn[/MENTION] nexus is doing the following:

1) assuming D&D in their arguments, and

2) confusing choice/authority with roleplaying (at least Max and Frog are).

No conversation is possible so long as these are the assumptions, as these are different from the assumption set of the other side, who is talking about all games, not just D&D and is also not confusing authority/choice with roleplaying -- in fact, this difference is the point of the OP, in part.


----------



## Umbran

Maxperson said:


> There is no power inherent to a wink that allows the wink to override the PC.  None.  Nil.  Nyet.  Zero.  Zilch. Nada.  They are very different.




Do you think that human beings are under their own conscious control at all times?  Were you under the impression that attraction to people is somehow governed by conscious will?  There is plenty of power in the simplest of human interactions.  If you really want to try to argue that, with someone who knows psychology, you probably lose.

That, however, isn't really the point, so you shouldn't argue on that basis.  There's a stronger argument:

There are agreed upon areas of agency.  This violates the agreement you have at your table.  Period.  Full stop.  Done.

This should not be a discussion about what forms of power are plausible.  This should be about which person at the table has agency to do what, and when.  This is about the social contract of play.  Keep it there, and you can't lose the argument.


----------



## Satyrn

Ovinomancer said:


> So, at this point, I see that the   @_*Maxperson*_,  @_*FrogReaver*_,  @_*Satyrn*_ nexus is doing the following:
> 
> 1) assuming D&D in their arguments, and
> 
> 2) confusing choice/authority with roleplaying (at least Max and Frog are).
> 
> *No conversation is possible* so long as these are the assumptions, as these are different from the assumption set of the other side, who is talking about all games, not just D&D and is also not confusing authority/choice with roleplaying -- in fact, this difference is the point of the OP, in part.



That's my first post in this thread and immediately you post this ugly comment without even trying to engage in conversation with me.

I was even directly answering the OP original question with my post: "What do others think about who does, or should, get to establish the truth of descriptions of PC actions, and how?" Well, not directly, but my answer is clearly there:  the way 5e is written with its basic play loop is my preference for who gets to establish such and how it's done.


----------



## hawkeyefan

Maxperson said:


> No, because charm is an accepted part of the game.  I know going into the game that there are in-fiction mechanics such as charm, dominate, command, etc., to assert control over my PC.  A wink is not one of those and shouldn't be.




While a wink may not be one of those for a given game (D&D), it may be for others. Should or should it not be is another question. Why not? Haven’t we all known people who don’t always act in their best interests because there’s a person who can always get under their skin, or because they’re a sucker for a pretty face, or any other number of things? 

Sure, these things can be roleplayed without mechanical rules in place to promote them, but having such rules doesn’t deny roleplaying. It promotes it.

I mean, take a character who is never swayed by anyone’s influence ever never unless there’s magic at play. Then take a character who may be influenced from time to time. 

Now tell me which character’s player will actually have to roleplay more often. 



Maxperson said:


> I already said that there are some games with out of fiction mechanics, that allows the DM to assert control over my PC via something a wink, and that I wouldn't want to play one of those.




Right. It pretty much always goes back to D&D and only D&D with you. It tends to make these discussions that are about RPGs in general a bit challenging.

You could add some social mechanics onto 5E relatively easily. The Traits, Bonds, ideals, and Flaws could be tweaked a bit so that in game events that pertained to them could pose more of a challenge. For example, a character could have a flaw of being greedy. So anytime a chance at an easy money grab comes up, the character could make a saving throw or similar roll to see if he gives in to his flaw. A character could have a bond with a specific town or organization. Learning of a threat to that town/organization maybe forces a roll or else the character’s obligation overrides his reasoning. 

Regardless of how the roll turns out, though, roleplaying is involved. If successful, the player can have the character rise above their flaw....on a failure, the player can have them give in to the flaw. This last bit seems relevant to [MENTION=6795602]FrogReaver[/MENTION]’s points.


----------



## Lanefan

Tony Vargas said:


> In actual fiction, not the poor modeling job most TTRPGs do of fiction - it's pretty evident who's a main character, who's supporting cast, and who's an extra.



In the fiction as viewed externally by real-world viewers, yes; because it's been set up that way.

But as viewed from the POV of a character within that fiction?  No.  That character would have no way of knowing any of this - it would just carry on living its life.  And it's that viewpoint that I use when looking at game/system/world design - does it end up producing something that is consistent within itself in the eyes of every sentient thing* within that setting.  If yes, good.  If no, there's a problem - I've done it wrong.

* - whether they ever enter play, or whether they are PCs or NPCs or whatever, is not relevant - it has to be consistent for all such that something happening *here* ('on camera', with a PC involved) can be safely and correctly assumed to turn out much the same as if that same thing had happpened *there* (somewhere five countries away where no PC has ever gone).

Minion rules are the absolute opposite of this.


----------



## hawkeyefan

Maxperson said:


> No it doesn't.  Without it I have the opportunity to roleplay the wink as not affecting my PC or as melting his heart.  I have two opportunities on how to roleplay(more than two really).  With the wink forcing my PC to act a certain way, it removes every other way to roleplay and only offers up one opportunity, instead of many.  It takes away opportunities.
> 
> Unless you feel that roleplaying means you always get to decide exactly how your character acts at all times. But of so, then why bother with any mechanics at all?{/quote]
> 
> To resolve things that are in doubt.




Right. And sometimes, how people will behave can be in doubt. 

As for taking away options, I don’t think that’s really the case, but that can also be remedied by allowing degrees of success.


----------



## Satyrn

Tony Vargas said:


> I think the villain laugh is your answer.
> 
> Seriously though, hp loss can be used, arbitrarily, by the DM as a stick to shove a misbehaving player back in line, or punish inappropriate RP.  It's crude code for "I'll throw you out of the game," but I've seen it done - back in the day - and even seen it work.  By the same token there are RP carrots DMs can arbitrarily give out as rewards.  There are even formal systems for them, like 5e inspiration.




Blue lightning. Just out of the, uh, blue. Whenever the players strayed. Or got uppity. I remember my DM using that long ago, when my buddies and I first started playing D&D. 

And then recently, thanks to that, uh, recent thread here about druids and metal armor and all its talk about how 1e handled that sort of thing, I cracked open my heritage cut off the AD&D DMG and there it was: Blue lightning. I had never realized it was official!


----------



## Lanefan

hawkeyefan said:


> That 4th example that made you cry Bloody Blue Murder is exactly how things can play out in Blades in the Dark. Sometimes, the GM will narrate a consequence. “You attempt to kill the Red Sash Swordsman with your knives, but he manages to draw his sword, parry your attacks, and run you through. You feel his sword slide into your gut and scrape alongside your spine. You take Fatal Harm.”



Question, as it's not noted in your example: is this narration coming out of the blue, or is there any sort of game mechanic backing it up (e.g. a missed attack roll, a successful defense roll, the Swordsman has some sort of magic bolstering his defense capability, etc.)?

If the narration is coming out of the blue i.e. the GM has arbitrarily decided that the PC's attack leads to this result then yeah, all the bad-GM red flags go up.

If the game mechanics back it up - e.g. the PC's attack roll was egregiously bad, or the Swordsman has supernatural defenses (that even if the PC/player doesn't know about now she's in process of learning, and the GM can if needed point to the descriptor in the NPC's write-up later to verify) - on the other hand, then we're good; or at least a lot closer to good.



> At that point, the character is dead, unless the player chooses to resist the Harm. He makes a Resistance Roll which determines how much Stress it costs him (6 minus his highest d6 roll). The Harm becomes Level 3 and the character is merely incapacitated.
> 
> I only bring this up because it shows how different games can function, and how they give different power to the players to influence the fiction.



OK, you've invoked player-side game mechanics  to resist; this at least is fine.

This example is also a little different than the winking-maid one in that here the GM isn't directly determining your PC's reaction to something, she's determining how her NPC reacts to being attacked and that said reaction is putting your PC in a world o' hurt.  This changes the question from one of whether the GM is allowed to simply narrate your PC's reaction (as in the maid example) to whether the GM is allowed to narrate your PC into such a mess without game mechanics to back her up on it.  Different question, and probably different discussion.


----------



## hawkeyefan

Maxperson said:


> This is just flat out wrong.  There is no power inherent to a wink that allows the wink to override the PC.  None.  Nil.  Nyet.  Zero.  Zilch. Nada.  They are very different.




What does “override the PC” mean? The PCs will? Their libido? The player’s desire to not face a specific kind of challenge? 

This is a genuine question. What is being “overridden”? Let’s assume some kind of mechanics are at play and it’s not a case of a GM dictating results, but let’s also assume it has nothing to do with magic in the fiction.


----------



## Lanefan

Ovinomancer said:


> This misses that, in games where this method is used, your objections don't matter.  This outcome is the truth, and the players and GM have to figure out how it can be the truth, not look for ways for it to not be the truth of the game.  If you're looking for procedural truth generation -- where every prerequisite is met prior to establishing the fictional truth -- then this is going to be very confusing and hard to grasp.  It is, instead, a product of a fluid set of events where you can determine the outcome and then go back to set up the prerequisite truths.  The only constraint is that you can't overrule previously established truths (without good cause, at least) or genre expectations.
> 
> So, in this case, when the maiden softens your heart, then she is the right type, the right gender, and the right species because _your heart is softened_.  Your job as a player now is to play with this new truth about yourself and find out where it goes.  Perhaps this is a good thing.  Perhaps it's a major problem (this maiden is the daughter of your hated rival, for instance), but, whatever it is, your heart is softened. Play on!



That's a level of GM control over PCs that I suspect would cause mutiny at most typical tables.

It also gets the whole idea of cause-and-effect backwards: you've got the effect retroactively forcing the cause(s) (which, by the way, isnt how things work!) rather than the cause(s) leading to an end effect.


----------



## Lanefan

pemerton said:


> [MENTION=6795602]If I'm told to play an angry person, I can do that. If I'm told to play a person who is pulling the trigger to assassinate the duke, I can do that. If I'm told to play a person whose heart has just been melted by a wink, well I can do that to.
> 
> Being told "The magician has ensorcelled you - play that" is no different from being told "The maiden's wink has softened your heart - play that." In some ways the latter is actually easier, I think, because it's closer to a genuine human experience! (Unless you've spent a lot of time in the company of Svengali!)



I'm quite surprised to see this coming from you, as you've otherwise consistently been one of the more strident voices in here regarding the sanctity of player agency.

Simply being told that the maiden melts your PC's heart with a wink - *without reference to any game mechanics* -  takes player agency and chucks it out the window.



> I also want to go back to the Apocalypse World example that I posted and that Ovinomancer mentioned. The player establilshes that her PC is looking for an escape route. *She makes her check and fails.* So the GM narrates that she is looking at her barred window, thinking about how maybe she might be able to escape through it, as her enemies attack her with a grenade.
> 
> The GM isn't _contradicting _the player's account of her PC's action. The GM is adding further true descriptions of it, which obviously are adverse to the PC. (It's a failure, after all.)
> 
> There's nothing there that contraverts the idea that the player is playing his/her PC.



I bolded the bit that matters - that there's a failed check means the GM's narration is backed up by game mechanics - the bad roll has given the GM license to throw in some narration regarding what the PC thinks/does to lead to the roll-given result. (that said, it's still not great; ideally the player should be giving enough detail of her PC's actions/thoughts that the GM's response can be reduced to merely narrating physical elements of and-or changes to the scene e.g. "You notice a few of the bars are loose" or "The bars are stuck and a grenade just came in the door")


----------



## Satyrn

Lanefan said:


> That's a level of GM control over PCs that I suspect would cause mutiny at most typical tables.
> 
> It also gets the whole idea of cause-and-effect backwards: you've got the effect retroactively forcing the cause(s) (which, by the way, isnt how things work!) rather than the cause(s) leading to an end effect.



If it causes mutiny, the table clearly picked the wrong game to play. I mean, Ovinomancer did start that post you quoted by assuming a game that involved that level of GM control.

Apparently _his_ assumptions aren't conversation killers . . . Oh. I see I'm still bitter about his last post.


----------



## Lanefan

pemerton said:


> (2) You seem to be pre-supposing that the only way that human beings can influence one another's mental states is by way of magic. I see human influence one another's mental states all the time, and I've never seen a human use magic.



The influence isn't direct, however.

Ideally it goes GM-at-table ==> _magic-in-fiction_ ==> PC-in-fiction ==> player-at-table.  (italics show where the legitimizing game mechanics come in)

Short-circuiting it straight to GM-at-table ==> player-at-table is simply the GM taking arbitrary control over what the player does with her PC.



> And one thing here, which goes back to the OP: the player has established that her PC is looking for an escape route. The GM isn't having the player do something _additional_. The GM is establishing further true descriptoins of what the player has had her PC do - _you look at your barred window, thinking it might be an escape route_. Of course these are descriptions that the player wouldn't choose if she had her way - that's because she failed her check!



The player can cut some of this off by giving more detail as to how-where she's searching before rolling any dice...



> But the additional description isn't of an additional action. It's additional description of the same action (_looking for an escape route_).



Yes, and here the GM is simply filling in some of what the player failed to provide - the blame's shared on this one: on the player for not giving enough detail and on the GM for not asking for it.

But go back to the example of the winking maiden.  When the GM tells the player her PC's heart has just been melted by said wink, what chance has the player had to give any input as to her PC's then-and-there reaction?  None.  This one's all on the GM: she's trampled all over player agency.


----------



## Lanefan

GrahamWills said:


> If you want to play in a game where the GM's word is incontestable law, go for it, I guess. I haven't played or run in such a game for 20 years. I don't think most people play in games where no one questions the GM ever, but maybe I'm wrong.



It's on the GM to say what she means and to use the right wording as far as possible, and there's a great big difference between the following:

"The maiden winks at you and melts your heart"
"The maiden winks at you and tries to melt your heart"

The first is an absolute - it's a done deal.  Your heart is melted.  And most players won't generally accept this or a GM who regularly does this sort of thing.
The second allows a chance to resist (or not - player's choice), and is the far more common and accepted way to go.

Now sometimes a GM will get the wording wrong and say something like in terms of an absolute where it wasn't supposed to be, and a player would ask whether that's what was really meant.  No problem there as long as the GM takes ownership of the error.



> Maybe that's the confusion in the thread -- some people play games where it is always wrong to challenge the GM and for them, absolutely, the GM should say "try" or whatever words permit the players to summon up the courage to oppose their word. It's just way outside my experience. I am too fallible as a GM ever to try that line of running a game. If a player says to me "actually, that's not what I'd do" I don't say "my word is law --  you don't get a chance to resist!" as apparently happens in your games, I tend to say "Oh, all right, would would they do?"



This would depend on whether I-as-GM intended to phrase it as an absolute or not.

I'm not perfect - nowhere close, really.  Most times if I said something like this the immediate and quite justified response would be "Don't I at least get a saving throw?" at which point I'd realize I'd said it wrong and rephrase (except for the very rare instance where I really did mean it as an absolute; and I'd be saying it out loud this way rather than passing a note as a cue that other PCs would notice the heart-melting and could then - if they wanted - act on it)


----------



## Lanefan

pemerton said:


> But having someone wink at you is also an infiction act.



Absolutely.  No controversy there. 



> I don't understand what distiinction you think you're pointing to here.



The "and melts your heart" bit, as that's where the controversy sits.  Not only does it make a pile of assumptions (starting with that the PC even noticed the wink in the first place), but it then forces the PC's reaction.  No die roll, no chance to resist, no way to avoid the effect.

And that forced-in-the-fiction reaction then forces the player at the table to do/say things she might otherwise not have wanted to, for no game-valid reason.

Yeah, that's not gonna fly. 



> These are just bare assertions of preference. As  [MENTION=16814]Ovinomancer[/MENTION] already noted.
> 
> It's not "out of fiction". The wink occurs in the fiction. The melting of your PC's heart happens in the fiction. No difference from a spell.



Er...well, yes there is: most if not all such spells give the target some sort of chance to resist.  That part seems to have been skipped here...



> And this also brings us back to the assumption that both you and [MENTION=6795602]FrogReaver[/MENTION] seem to be making but have not explicitly acknowledged let alone explained: what is the connection between _playing a character_ and _getting to decide whether or not that character is the sort of person who might be moved by a wink from another_?



Simple: the connection is player agency over his-her own PC.


----------



## Lanefan

hawkeyefan said:


> I don’t see what connection you’re making here. What out of fiction reason are you citing? Why would a DM ever say “you lose 50 HP for no reason muhuhahahah!”?
> 
> I don’t think anyone here is advocating for anything so absurd. I know I’m not.



Nor is anyone.  But it's still a useful example in that conceptually there's no difference between these two:

DM: "For no particular reason you lose 50 h.p."
DM: "For no particular reason your heart is melted by the maiden's wink."

The esoteric and bad-country-song questions of whether a melting heart really does or can cause 50 h.p. internal damage I'll leave to others to hash over.....


----------



## Maxperson

Satyrn said:


> Also Aye: Playing D&D, the mechanics are there to resolve an action when the outcome is doubt. I might decide to ask the DM to roll some dice if I don't know how my character would respond to the wink, but if I do know then there are no mechanics to invoke. Just like a DM doesn't need to ask me to roll dice if he knows how the maiden respond to my wink.




I rarely can't figure out how my PC will respond, but during those few times that I'm in that position, I can figure out the chances and roll my own dice between the possibilities that I come up with.  The DM never gets involved.


----------



## hawkeyefan

Lanefan said:


> Question, as it's not noted in your example: is this narration coming out of the blue, or is there any sort of game mechanic backing it up (e.g. a missed attack roll, a successful defense roll, the Swordsman has some sort of magic bolstering his defense capability, etc.)?
> 
> If the narration is coming out of the blue i.e. the GM has arbitrarily decided that the PC's attack leads to this result then yeah, all the bad-GM red flags go up.
> 
> If the game mechanics back it up - e.g. the PC's attack roll was egregiously bad, or the Swordsman has supernatural defenses (that even if the PC/player doesn't know about now she's in process of learning, and the GM can if needed point to the descriptor in the NPC's write-up later to verify) - on the other hand, then we're good; or at least a lot closer to good.
> 
> OK, you've invoked player-side game mechanics  to resist; this at least is fine.
> 
> This example is also a little different than the winking-maid one in that here the GM isn't directly determining your PC's reaction to something, she's determining how her NPC reacts to being attacked and that said reaction is putting your PC in a world o' hurt.  This changes the question from one of whether the GM is allowed to simply narrate your PC's reaction (as in the maid example) to whether the GM is allowed to narrate your PC into such a mess without game mechanics to back her up on it.  Different question, and probably different discussion.




For the Blades example, you had it right that this was the result of a poor roll on the player’s part. The GM narrated the severe consequences accordingly. Perhaps worth noting is that the player likely had a decent idea of how bad the consequences would be based on the Position stated by the GM prior to the roll.

I think that the example of the wink was given with the expectation that there would or could be such mechanics at play, depending on system.


----------



## Tony Vargas

Lanefan said:


> In the fiction as viewed externally by real-world viewers, yes; because it's been set up that way.



 And as viewed internally by the real-world creators and enactors of that fiction.


> But as viewed from the POV of a character within that fiction?  No.



 Well, of course not, their POV is dictated to them by those creating the fiction.  The villain or foil or extra will not behave as if they knew those were their roles, but they will behave in accord with them, none the less, because both their actions and their imagined perception & beliefs are imposed upon them by their creators.



> That character would have no way of knowing any of this - it would just carry on living its life.  And it's that viewpoint that I use when looking at game/system/world design



 Why, when no one will experience the game from that PoV?  

The players will know who is a PC, who an NPC, and often have a good idea of what sort by how the DM presents them. The DM of course, knows these things with greater certainty.
The characters in question are all-unknowing of their own role & nature, as they have no independent knowledge of, perception of nor control over their own being.  They will know, perceive, believe what they are imagined to.


----------



## Maxperson

Ovinomancer said:


> So, at this point, I see that the   @_*Maxperson*_,  @_*FrogReaver*_,  @_*Satyrn*_ nexus is doing the following:




Me in direct response to you: "D&D has nothing to do with this.  Here are at least a half dozen other RPGs that I've played that are the same way.

You and [MENTION=61721]Hawke[/MENTION]yfan: "So it's all D&D with you.''

C'mon guys, really?


----------



## Maxperson

Umbran said:


> Do you think that human beings are under their own conscious control at all times?  Were you under the impression that attraction to people is somehow governed by conscious will?  There is plenty of power in the simplest of human interactions.  If you really want to try to argue that, with someone who knows psychology, you probably lose.




Of course not, but I'm the only one qualified to make that determination for my PC on a case-by-case basis..  The DM doesn't have the inside track to my PC the way that I do.


----------



## Maxperson

hawkeyefan said:


> Should or should it not be is another question. Why not? Haven’t we all known people who don’t always act in their best interests because there’s a person who can always get under their skin, or because they’re a sucker for a pretty face, or any other number of things?




Sure, but if my PC is a sucker for a pretty face, then I've set that up in advance and let the DM and players know about it.  That sort of character flaw is up to me to decide on, not the DM.  And that goes for all of the other RPGs that I've played.   



> Sure, these things can be roleplayed without mechanical rules in place to promote them, but having such rules doesn’t deny roleplaying. It promotes it.





Without mechanics:  I have dozens(at least) of ways that I can choose to roleplay the situation.

With mechanics: I have one way that I can choose to roleplay the situation.

Mechanics like that stifle roleplay by highly limiting the multitude of roleplaying options down to a single one.



> Right. It pretty much always goes back to D&D and only D&D with you. It tends to make these discussions that are about RPGs in general a bit challenging.




Only not, as I spelled out multiple other games that I've played where my character was my own.


----------



## Maxperson

hawkeyefan said:


> This is a genuine question. What is being “overridden”? Let’s assume some kind of mechanics are at play and it’s not a case of a GM dictating results, but let’s also assume it has nothing to do with magic in the fiction.




As the player, I know how the PC will react to the wink.  I think about the situation, the immediate history between the winker and my PC.  I consider other factors like lack of sleep or other possible mitigating factors.  And then I come up with how my PC will react, and that is in fact how he will react.  If I think there are multiple valid ways that he could react, I will sometimes make a personal roll.

If the DM just flat out decides that my PCs heart is warmed by the wink, he has overridden the PCs proper reaction, unless of course I have also determined that to be the proper reaction and would have roleplayed that anyway.  The DM isn't in a position to know what the proper reaction for my PC is, so more often than not he will get it wrong.


----------



## Ovinomancer

Satyrn said:


> That's my first post in this thread and immediately you post this ugly comment without even trying to engage in conversation with me.
> 
> I was even directly answering the OP original question with my post: "What do others think about who does, or should, get to establish the truth of descriptions of PC actions, and how?" Well, not directly, but my answer is clearly there:  the way 5e is written with its basic play loop is my preference for who gets to establish such and how it's done.




Slow down.  It's not an insult.  It's a statement that no progress can be made while basic assumptions are so far apart. 

And, yes, I love 5e's play loop.  I'm a champion of it, when discussion how 5e plays.  But, if you assume that's how a game should be play, it will prevent discussion of other ways to play games so long as you don't look up from it.  You can prefer it, that's awesome!  Go for it.  But, if that's what you see when you discuss how authorities are assigned, then you'll not be able to discuss how those authorities can be assigned differently.  I'm not sure why this is so hostility inducing.


----------



## Ovinomancer

Maxperson said:


> Me in direct response to you: "D&D has nothing to do with this.  Here are at least a half dozen other RPGs that I've played that are the same way.
> 
> You and [MENTION=61721]Hawke[/MENTION]yfan: "So it's all D&D with you.''
> 
> C'mon guys, really?




Yup.  You're locked into a mindset that's best represented by D&D, even if you've played other games that support that same mindset (or, given some of the games on the list you presented, you've played those games and brought with you the D&D mindset and so didn't see a difference).

I mean, you're defending taking authority away from the player so long as the mechanic used has the word "magic" associated with it.  That's pretty locked in -- you can't even see that "magic" isn't doing any work there.  I get it, you've played the game so long and had that be part of it that you've built up a set of rationalizations to excuse it from examination.  It's just "magic," so of course it can take authority away from the player.  And, because it's "magic," it's different from any other thing that takes authority away from a player, even if the mechanics and result are similar.  A maiden cannot soften your PC's heart without "magic", even if the mechanics are you failing a check and being limited in how you can roleplay your character because of that.  To you, you've already excused "magic," so there's no need to examine it anymore.  But the maiden, well, that gets full scrutiny -- and disparate results.


----------



## Ovinomancer

Lanefan said:


> That's a level of GM control over PCs that I suspect would cause mutiny at most typical tables.
> 
> It also gets the whole idea of cause-and-effect backwards: you've got the effect retroactively forcing the cause(s) (which, by the way, isnt how things work!) rather than the cause(s) leading to an end effect.




I think it might get your table in mutiny, but most?  Doubtful.

As for cause and effect, well, don't look to closely at D&D, then.  You might notice that you determine the effect of an attack roll and then go back and determine the cause for the description.  Or, most any check, really.  Other games move the check even further in front of the resolution so as to be able to resolve an intent and then determine the action, but D&D does a decent bit of this as well, just a bit later in the chain.  Sure, to be able to attack with a sword, you have to already be within melee range and have a sword, so some 'causes' are established, but what happens with the attack is resolved by the roll and then backfilled with narration.  Other games might just take the intent to attack and roll and let that determine if you closed, or even had the sword in hand, or ended up with the same results as the D&D resolution.  I mean, to use the old saying, we've already agreed on a transaction, we're just haggling over the price.


----------



## Tony Vargas

Maxperson said:


> Of course not, but I'm the only one qualified to make that determination for my PC on a case-by-case basis..  The DM doesn't have the inside track to my PC the way that I do.



 OTOH, you may not fully apreciate what the NPC represents.
When there are conflicting visions of, or other sources of uncertainty about, the fiction, complete/functional games provide mechanics to resolve them.
D&D mostly does so for magic, and given it's history & place in the hobby,  that prejudice has become pervasive.
But, it's not absolute, and some games do try to deliver more functionality.
For instance, storyteller notoriously introduced a dramatic system (resolution mechanic) for seduction.
Hero Systems has a mind control power that needn't be supernatural in nature.  FATE certainly goes there. 
Etc...


----------



## Tony Vargas

pemerton said:


> The function of players in RPGing is often described as _deciding what their PCs do_. ...



 I'm sure I've caused enough trouble already, but this reminded me of something.
A while back there was a discussion of just how badly D&D did the S&S sub-genre, and it set me to thinking about other ways of handling magic...
...one idea that drifted by was the possibility of a game, the central focus of which was retaining control of the PC, with the 'price' of magic being increased danger of loss of that control: imperiling the soul, transforming into a monster,  giving into obsession, etc...


----------



## Maxperson

Tony Vargas said:


> OTOH, you may not fully apreciate what the NPC represents.




Frankly, it doesn't matter what the NPC fully represents.  The only part that matters is what my PC can perceive.  In this case a wink.  Everything else unknown to me is irrelevant unless it's magic, mind control or some other special power that could actually override what my PC is going to do.



> When there are conflicting visions of, or other sources of uncertainty about, the fiction, complete/functional games provide mechanics to resolve them.




When there are conflicting vision of how a PC reacts, the player wins(unless playing a game where that doesn't happen).  



> D&D mostly does so for magic, and given it's history & place in the hobby,  that prejudice has become pervasive.
> But, it's not absolute, and some games do try to deliver more functionality.




Not more functionality.  Different functionality.  Whether a system is more or less function will be determined by the individual and what he wants to get out of a system.  A system where the DM can override me and make my PC do something he wouldn't do is far less functional to me than a system that can't.


----------



## Tony Vargas

Maxperson said:


> Frankly, it doesn't matter what the NPC fully represents.  The only part that matters is what my PC can perceive.  In this case a wink.  Everything else unknown to me is irrelevant



 Your PC could hypothetically perceive more than the DMs description gets across to you. And there could be less perceptible,  less readily articulated, factors that go into influencing his emotional response.

I mean, we don't always understand the sources of our emotional responses, do we?  


> unless it's magic, mind control or some other special power that could actually override what my PC is going to do. When there are conflicting vision of how a PC reacts, the player wins(unless playing a game where that doesn't happen).



 Unless the game in question gives final authority to the player of the PC, it'll go to a resolution system, or, in the absence thereof, to the more usual final arbiter: the GM.



> Not more functionality.  Different functionality.



More. Scope if fairly quantifiable.



> Whether a system is more or less function will be determined by the individual and what he wants to get out of a system.



 Hypothetically, you might not use all a system's functiinality,  but that doesn't mean it doesn't exist.



> A system where the DM can override me and make my PC do something he wouldn't do is far less functional to me than a system that can't.



Any system that makes the GM final arbiter is such a system.  

For instance, in the 5e play loop, if you declare an action to interact with a certain preternaturally adorable maiden, you just might get your heart melted in the results the DM narrates.


----------



## hawkeyefan

Maxperson said:


> Sure, but if my PC is a sucker for a pretty face, then I've set that up in advance and let the DM and players know about it.  That sort of character flaw is up to me to decide on, not the DM.  And that goes for all of the other RPGs that I've played.




If you’ve set it up in advance and let the DM know about it, then why can’t he challenge the character with that flaw? I mean, it’s literally a part of the 5E character sheet. Same as Strength and Armor Class and all the other things you decide about your character. Yet the DM can challenge those things (meaning put the character into situations that test those traits) and no one thinks anything of it. 

But list an actual flaw on the character sheet and then expect that to only be introduced by the player? Or that only the player decides if this weakness matters?

It’s a missed opportunity on the part of 5E. Instead of doing something meaningful with the Traits/Ideals/Bonds/Flaws they tied it to Inspiration...the most ironically named game mechanic there is. 

Other games offer a deeper look at this area.




Maxperson said:


> Without mechanics:  I have dozens(at least) of ways that I can choose to roleplay the situation.
> 
> With mechanics: I have one way that I can choose to roleplay the situation.
> 
> Mechanics like that stifle roleplay by highly limiting the multitude of roleplaying options down to a single one.




How so? Can you give an example? 



Maxperson said:


> Only not, as I spelled out multiple other games that I've played where my character was my own.




Ah fair enough. I should have said “D&D and games that function exactly like it”.


----------



## hawkeyefan

Maxperson said:


> As the player, I know how the PC will react to the wink.  I think about the situation, the immediate history between the winker and my PC.  I consider other factors like lack of sleep or other possible mitigating factors.  And then I come up with how my PC will react, and that is in fact how he will react.  If I think there are multiple valid ways that he could react, I will sometimes make a personal roll.
> 
> If the DM just flat out decides that my PCs heart is warmed by the wink, he has overridden the PCs proper reaction, unless of course I have also determined that to be the proper reaction and would have roleplayed that anyway.  The DM isn't in a position to know what the proper reaction for my PC is, so more often than not he will get it wrong.




I said let’s say mechanics are involved, not that the GM just decides how the PC reacts. Maybe the maiden makes a Persuasion check or a Consort roll or a Diplomacy action....whatever mechanic may be relevant for the game. Let’s say the GM rolls well....or that the player rolls poorly on a save or whatever. 

Obviously, with 5E, this doesn’t really work because that’s not how the game is set up. But let’s imagine someone homebrewed some rules or that we’re playing a different game. The rules are disclosed ahead of time, so players realize this may happen. I think this can really add to a game.

But to keep it to 5E....let’s say the DM has the maiden wink at you. Under “Flaws” on your character sheet you’ve written “I am a sucker for a pretty face.” You ignore the wink and declare some other action, not being influenced by the maiden. In your opinion, would the DM be out of line to say “So you just ignore this pretty girl?”


----------



## Maxperson

Tony Vargas said:


> Your PC could hypothetically perceive more than the DMs description gets across to you. And there could be less perceptible,  less readily articulated, factors that go into influencing his emotional response.




Sure.  Misperception, both more and less than what is really there, is a common occurrence.  If I get it wrong based on misperception, that's a valid response to what is being perceived.



> I mean, we don't always understand the sources of our emotional responses, do we?




Not always, but it's rare that I don't.  Those times that I don't, some self-reflection usually sheds light on it.  I'm pretty in tune with myself.

For game purposes, it's up to me to decide whether or not my PC has an atypical emotional response.



> Hypothetically, you might not use all a system's functiinality,  but that doesn't mean it doesn't exist.




Sure, but to me that extra functionality is functionally useless, so to me the functionality is less than other games.



> For instance, in the 5e play loop, if you declare an action to interact with a certain preternaturally adorable maiden, you just might get your heart melted in the results the DM narrates.




This would be an abuse of DM authority in a game like 5e.  Unless spelled out in advance and accepted by the players, it's understood that this won't happen.


----------



## Maxperson

hawkeyefan said:


> If you’ve set it up in advance and let the DM know about it, then why can’t he challenge the character with that flaw? I mean, it’s literally a part of the 5E character sheet. Same as Strength and Armor Class and all the other things you decide about your character. Yet the DM can challenge those things (meaning put the character into situations that test those traits) and no one thinks anything of it.




Of course he can challenge it.  That's what, "She winks at you." is.  A challenge to that flaw.  Now it's up to me to roleplay how my PC engages that challenge via his flaw.



> But list an actual flaw on the character sheet and then expect that to only be introduced by the player? Or that only the player decides if this weakness matters?




Neither.  It's up to the player how to respond when it's introduced, though.  



> It’s a missed opportunity on the part of 5E. Instead of doing something meaningful with the Traits/Ideals/Bonds/Flaws they tied it to Inspiration...the most ironically named game mechanic there is.




I agree that they could have gone much further with this.  However, as it currently stands, it has as much meaning as you give it.  We often bring them up ourselves whenever we see moments that apply.  If I'm playing a short tempered barbarian, I'm going to roleplay the short temper on a regular basis.  We generally forget inspiration anyway, so these things are just roleplayed without any other reward than having fun roleplaying them.  As a DM, though, I do give extra RP for that sort of thing, and even more when the appropriate moment is detrimental to the PC/Party, as it's harder to play up those flaws at those moments.

Other games offer a deeper look at this area.




> How so? Can you give an example?




Sure.

Example 1: the wink does nothing.
Example 2: the wink warms my PC's heart.
Example 3: my PC thinks she's really into him and begins pursuing her affection in earnest.
Example 4: my PC think she's just being flirty and flirts back.
Example 5: My PC enjoys the wink as flattery, but it doesn't warm his heart.  Perhaps he flatters her back.

And so on.


----------



## Maxperson

hawkeyefan said:


> But to keep it to 5E....let’s say the DM has the maiden wink at you. Under “Flaws” on your character sheet you’ve written “I am a sucker for a pretty face.” You ignore the wink and declare some other action, not being influenced by the maiden. In your opinion, would the DM be out of line to say “So you just ignore this pretty girl?”




If my character is a sucker for a pretty face, I would ignore the wink and declare another action only if there were a valid reason for it.  Perhaps I found out during the course of play that 6 of her last 7 husbands died mysteriously and the 7th was never found.  If the DM doesn't have an idea on why I am not being influenced, then it's not out of line to question it that way.  At that point I'd let him know the reason why it's not having the effect it would ordinarily have.


----------



## Tony Vargas

Maxperson said:


> For game purposes, it's up to me to decide whether or not my PC has an atypical emotional response.



 Only if the game gives you that option instead of providing a resolution system (or as part of it.) 
For example, there was a resolution mechanic for seduction - and quite a lot of other things that might play on emotions (3 of 9 stats were social, one of those was Manipulation), but you could also take a Merit, Blaise, that immunized you from a lot of them, even supernatural ones.


> Sure, but to me that extra functionality is functionally useless,



 Irrelevant.  


> This would be an abuse of DM authority in a game like 5e



 No such thing, in a game like 5e: it simply has faith in the DM.  It might mean you're a bad fit for that hypothetical DMs hypothetical campaign, which is totally legit.


----------



## pemerton

Maxperson said:


> This is just flat out wrong.  There is no power inherent to a wink that allows the wink to override the PC.  None.  Nil.  Nyet.  Zero.  Zilch. Nada.  They are very different.



I don't even know what this means.

I'm talking about events in the fiction. In the fiction, there is no such thing as "overriding the PC". There is just one human affectig another. This is a real thing that happens in the real world all the time, so I have no trouble imagining a fantasy wold in which it happens.

Galadriel melts Gimli's heart. Aragorn melts Eomer's heart. Frodo almost melts Gollum's heart. Etc. This is a recurrent them in classic fantasy stories.


----------



## pemerton

Maxperson said:


> With the wink forcing my PC to act a certain way, it removes every other way to roleplay and only offers up one opportunity, instead of many.  It takes away opportunities.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Unless you feel that roleplaying means you always get to decide exactly how your character acts at all times. But of so, then why bother with any mechanics at all?
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> To resolve things that are in doubt.
Click to expand...


What's _in doubt_? That's not an a priori category. It's a function of genre conceits, table expectations, system design, probably other stuff too.

A RPG _could_ be designed where every time I get to decide whether or not the NPC influences me. Or not. It could be designed where every time I get to decide whether or not I dodge the bullets. Or not.

Just as D&D has an armour class, and RQ has a parry/dodge roll, so a system could have a "harden my heart" roll - The Dying Earth uses a version of this; so does Marvel Heroic RP/Cortex+ Heroic.

These design decisions go to the aesthetics of the play experience (eg a system in which a player can always choose not to be affected by emotions and social interaction generates a certain pressure for all ultimate resolution of conflicts to take place in other arenas). They don't tell us whether or not it is a RPG.


----------



## hawkeyefan

Maxperson said:


> Of course he can challenge it.  That's what, "She winks at you." is.  A challenge to that flaw.  Now it's up to me to roleplay how my PC engages that challenge via his flaw.
> 
> 
> Neither.  It's up to the player how to respond when it's introduced, though.




That's what I meant by it's up to the player if it matters. 



Maxperson said:


> I agree that they could have gone much further with this.  However, as it currently stands, it has as much meaning as you give it.  We often bring them up ourselves whenever we see moments that apply.  If I'm playing a short tempered barbarian, I'm going to roleplay the short temper on a regular basis.  We generally forget inspiration anyway, so these things are just roleplayed without any other reward than having fun roleplaying them.  As a DM, though, I do give extra RP for that sort of thing, and even more when the appropriate moment is detrimental to the PC/Party, as it's harder to play up those flaws at those moments.




I think Inspiration is forgotten by many groups, based on comments here. As you say, that whole aspect of the game has as much meaning as a group gives it. 

I just don't think that it's a bad thing in any way if a game actually makes rules about this stuff so that it inherently has meaning. 




Maxperson said:


> Sure.
> 
> Example 1: the wink does nothing.
> Example 2: the wink warms my PC's heart.
> Example 3: my PC thinks she's really into him and begins pursuing her affection in earnest.
> Example 4: my PC think she's just being flirty and flirts back.
> Example 5: My PC enjoys the wink as flattery, but it doesn't warm his heart.  Perhaps he flatters her back.
> 
> And so on.




I meant an example of how such mechanics force only one outcome. The list you provided doesn't seem any different than what I'd expect to see in a game that included mechanics of the kind we're talking about.


----------



## hawkeyefan

Maxperson said:


> If my character is a sucker for a pretty face, I would ignore the wink and declare another action only if there were a valid reason for it.  Perhaps I found out during the course of play that 6 of her last 7 husbands died mysteriously and the 7th was never found.  If the DM doesn't have an idea on why I am not being influenced, then it's not out of line to question it that way.  At that point I'd let him know the reason why it's not having the effect it would ordinarily have.




So would a valid reason never be "my character was able to overcome his urge to give in to the maiden"? I mean, that seems a more likely and potentially valid reason than the crazy example you've provided. 

If it's possible for the character to not give in, but it's entirely up to the player if they can do so, it seems a bit flawed.


----------



## pemerton

Lanefan said:


> Simply being told that the maiden melts your PC's heart with a wink - *without reference to any game mechanics* -  takes player agency and chucks it out the window.



Why are you assuming that there is no game system? I've posted many such examples in this thread: Prince Valian special effects; Marvel Heroic RP/Cortex+ Heroic emotional stress and complications; the example from AW; etc.

And in some systems, maybe the GM can narrate it by fiat if it follows naturally from what has gone before, just as in (say) Moldvay Basic the GM can narrate that the PC falls down a bit without calling for a roll if that is what follows naturally from what has gone before.

There are so many variations possible that I'm not going to list them all. I'm assuming that a reader can bring to bear his/her familiarity with the way various RPGs provide vaious ways for participants to establish true descriptions of various character's actions.



Lanefan said:


> The "and melts your heart" bit, as that's where the controversy sits.  Not only does it make a pile of assumptions (starting with that the PC even noticed the wink in the first place), but it then forces the PC's reaction.  No die roll, no chance to resist, no way to avoid the effect.



Maybe the player made a check and failed, and this is the narration of the failure by the GM.

Maybe the system is Dying Earth, and the player failed an appropriate resistance check for his/her PC.

That's the point of the OP, to invite reflection on the various sorts of descriptions of action that might be narrated, and the various ways in which this might be done.


----------



## pemerton

Lanefan said:


> In the fiction as viewed externally by real-world viewers, yes; because it's been set up that way.
> 
> But as viewed from the POV of a character within that fiction?  No.  That character would have no way of knowing any of this - it would just carry on living its life.  And it's that viewpoint that I use when looking at game/system/world design - does it end up producing something that is consistent within itself in the eyes of every sentient thing* within that setting.  If yes, good.  If no, there's a problem - I've done it wrong.
> 
> * - whether they ever enter play, or whether they are PCs or NPCs or whatever, is not relevant - it has to be consistent for all such that something happening *here* ('on camera', with a PC involved) can be safely and correctly assumed to turn out much the same as if that same thing had happpened *there* (somewhere five countries away where no PC has ever gone).
> 
> Minion rules are the absolute opposite of this.



With respect, this makes no sense.

From the POV of a character in the ficiton you can't tell the resolution mechanics (including minion mechanics) that resultedin a certain outcome. You just experience the fictional events - eg that Aragorn swung his sword and chopped off the orc's head.

Mechanical system - like minion rules, or rules that privilege PCs over NPCs (Apocalypse World has this at several points; in 4e skill challenges are by design focused around player action declarations for their PCs; etc) - are only visible in the real world.

But the real world is not something that is visible to the eyes of any sentient thing within the game setting.


----------



## Ovinomancer

Maxperson said:


> If my character is a sucker for a pretty face, I would ignore the wink and declare another action only if there were a valid reason for it.  Perhaps I found out during the course of play that 6 of her last 7 husbands died mysteriously and the 7th was never found.  If the DM doesn't have an idea on why I am not being influenced, then it's not out of line to question it that way.  At that point I'd let him know the reason why it's not having the effect it would ordinarily have.




So, not a flaw if it might hurt you.


----------



## Fenris-77

I'll be honest, the maiden's wink example rubs my rhubarb the wrong way. There aren't many game systems I can think of that would force a character to do X because they have the hots for the winky maiden. They might get the option to pursue that narrative strand, but it's not going to be mandatory. That outcome is pretty far into left field for even most experienced players, and I can't think of a system that works like that. Even with a check involved PCs aren't losing their volition because of a wink, that's just silly except for maybe a really small subset of fringe games that I'm pretty sure I wouldn't enjoy. I don't think it's a useful example.

That said, lets take Fate for a minute. If a PC had _sucker for a pretty face_ as an aspect, I would definitely have the occasional maiden wink at them and push a fate point into the middle of the table. That's not the same as what's being discussed above though. Can someone give me an actual example of a system where getting winked at is the equivalent of serious mind control hoodoo when it comes to player choice?


----------



## Tony Vargas

Fenris-77 said:


> . There aren't many game systems I can think of that would force a character to do X because they have the hots for the winky maiden.



 I don't recall anything in either the original or the inverted example about forcing an action - only /feeling/ something.


----------



## FrogReaver

At least no one can poke fun at me now because I'm the only person here taking my position.  So how about we have an actual discussion.

Question:  What is actually wrong with the maiden winking example?

Answer 1:  IMO.  It's an in-fiction act that produces a mandatory effect whereas for whatever source material you are basing your groups shared fiction upon - in that source material maidens winks don't force any character to do anything.

Rebuttal 2:  What is the anticipated counter-argument?  that the maiden's wink in the example isn't actually forcing the PC in question to do something, but rather that its a determination of what the PC's response would be and then locking the player into roleplaying for that reality.  

Answer 2:  I happen to think that's a solid argument.  So what is actually wrong with the Maiden winking example?  IMO.  It attempts to determine what the PC's response would be instead of simply allowing the player to roleplay their response.  

Rebuttal 3:  So what is the expected counter-argument to this.  That charm person effects exists and they also determine what the PC's response would be instead of simply allowing the player to roleplay their response.  

Answer 3:  My answer is that unlike the maidens wink - charm person isn't an effect that attempts to determine what my PC's response to an action would be.  Instead it's an in-fiction example of an ability that can actually force my PC to behave a certain way and that such an ability is a common in most all source material we might draw upon for our shared-fictional world.

So then we can set up a simple test for any given example for whether it will be acceptable or unacceptable - 

Test 1.  Does the action force a response in any of the source material for our shared-fictional-world.  If yes then it's acceptable (charm person effects fall here).  Does the action simply call for a determination of how the PC acted/will act as opposed to being a mind control style effect?  If yes then that's unacceptable because it truly is taking away a moment where you can roleplay your character.

Why is the last part so important - because what truly sets roleplaying games apart from other games is that in an RPG you the player are taking on the role of a character by making their decisions, declaring their actions, having the character behave as you envision etc.  So then anything that infringes upon your ability make character decisions, declare character actions, have the character behave as you envision etc - any of that also is infringing upon your ability to take on the role of a character in an RPG.


----------



## FrogReaver

Tony Vargas said:


> I don't recall anything in either the original or the inverted example about forcing an action - only /feeling/ something.




In case you missed it - the way we are using "action" - melting your heart does constitute an action.


----------



## Tony Vargas

FrogReaver said:


> In case you missed it - the way we are using "action" - melting your heart does constitute an action.




I definitely missed that.  I caught it as the result of an action, but not forcing an action, just evoking an emotion.



FrogReaver said:


> Question:  What is actually wrong with the maiden winking example?



 It paints the PC as a human being rather than a game piece? It doesn't involve magic?  It's icky mushy stuff?  It's a generic example so doesn't reference a resolution system?  It presumes the romantic orientation of the PC?  


> Answer 1:  IMO.  It's an in-fiction act that produces a mandatory effect



 We don't know if it's mandatory (automatic) or if there's a resolution system like a save or incentive like a compel being used (or if its a result if an action already having been resolved).


> whereas for whatever source material you are basing your groups shared fiction upon - in that source material maidens winks don't force any character to do anything.



 In the source material, people fall in love at first sight, and generally have all sorts of over the top emotional reactions.


> the maiden's wink in the example isn't actually forcing the PC in question to do something, but rather that its a determination of what the PC's response would be and then locking the player into roleplaying for that reality.



 Which needn't change his subsequent actions, just put a different shade of dramatic meaning on them.


> charm person it's an in-fiction example of an ability that can actually force my PC to behave a certain way and that such an ability is a common in most all source material we might draw upon for our shared-fictional world.



 Manipulation isn't common?
Characters in fiction are never manipulated into experiencing emotions they might rather not experience,  or might be inconvenienced by, without magical coercion?


----------



## Lanefan

hawkeyefan said:


> For the Blades example, you had it right that this was the result of a poor roll on the player’s part. The GM narrated the severe consequences accordingly. Perhaps worth noting is that the player likely had a decent idea of how bad the consequences would be based on the Position stated by the GM prior to the roll.



Backed by mechanics, then, and all is good.



> I think that the example of the wink was given with the expectation that there would or could be such mechanics at play, depending on system.



However this was not stated, only the narration without anything else to back it up - and around here I've learned to make no assumptions.


----------



## Lanefan

Tony Vargas said:


> And as viewed internally by the real-world creators and enactors of that fiction.
> Well, of course not, their POV is dictated to them by those creating the fiction.  The villain or foil or extra will not behave as if they knew those were their roles, but they will behave in accord with them, none the less, because both their actions and their imagined perception & beliefs are imposed upon them by their creators.
> 
> Why, when no one will experience the game from that PoV?



An immersion-oriented player is going to try his-her best to do exactly this, as that's the whole point of immersion: to perceive things as your PC would perceive them. 



> The players will know who is a PC, who an NPC, and often have a good idea of what sort by how the DM presents them. The DM of course, knows these things with greater certainty.



Obviously.  But that's just table knowledge.



> The characters in question are all-unknowing of their own role & nature, as they have no independent knowledge of, perception of nor control over their own being.  They will know, perceive, believe what they are imagined to.



No, but in theory they would have perceptions, knowledges and beliefs given that they are in theory sentient inhabitants of their setting; and those perceptions, knowledges and beliefs don't extend to seeing little tags on foreheads saying PC or NPC or BBEG or whatever.

Put another way: imagine these characters are real people within their setting and try looking at the game world through the eyes of one of them (not necessarily your PC).  What do you see?  Now jump to another game-world inhabitant and do the same thing.  What do you see?  Repeat, at different times and in different situations.

Now, is everything you just saw through all those characters' eyes consistent with itself no matter which set of eyes you happened to look through - whether it was a PC, an NPC, a commoner, a minion?  If yes, all is good.


----------



## Lanefan

pemerton said:


> Why are you assuming that there is no game system?



Because none was referenced in the example given.

Had a mechanic of some sort been referenced, from any system, I'd have had no problem with the example as given.  But as no mechanic of any kind was referenced to give context, the example as written is nothing more than a GM taking agency away from a player.



> Maybe the player made a check and failed, and this is the narration of the failure by the GM.



All we got to work with was a GM saying "The maiden winks at you and melts your heart", without context and without any mention of game mechanics backing this statement up in any way.  Taken at face value and without anything else to go on, what other conclusion can be drawn but that the GM overstepped the bounds?



> Maybe the system is Dying Earth, and the player failed an appropriate resistance check for his/her PC.



Fine, but if this (or something equivalent from another system) isn't mentioned as part of the original example we can't just assume it's there - in fact, the lack of any such mention tells us the opposite: to assume there are no mechanics involved.


----------



## Lanefan

pemerton said:


> With respect, this makes no sense.
> 
> From the POV of a character in the ficiton you can't tell the resolution mechanics (including minion mechanics) that resultedin a certain outcome. You just experience the fictional events - eg that Aragorn swung his sword and chopped off the orc's head.



With you so far - no disagreement yet.



> Mechanical system - like minion rules, ...



But here it falls apart.

I use the eyes of a game-world inhabitant - say an innocuous bartender - to look around.  I see the bar full of common working people who look ready to fight, and yep: there they go.  Fists flying, bottles smashing, a good old-fashioned donnybrook - black eyes all round and maybe a few broken bones, but in the end nobody dies and the bartender has a big mess to clean up.

A week later, most of those same people are back...with a few new friends to replace those with broken limbs...and sure enough, another fight breaks out just like last week.  This time, however, most of the people involved drop dead the first time they take a good hit from anything - including getting hit by the same guy that hit him last week - because one of the new people has a PC tag on its head and suddenly all these brawlers are panes of thin glass.

How in any way is this internally consistent?



> or rules that privilege PCs over NPCs (Apocalypse World has this at several points; in 4e skill challenges are by design focused around player action declarations for their PCs; etc) - are only visible in the real world.
> 
> But the real world is not something that is visible to the eyes of any sentient thing within the game setting.



Yes, the table-to-setting "visibility" is all one-way.  Within the setting, however, internal visibility is in theory as good as it is here in the real world...as should be internal consistency.


----------



## pemerton

Lanefan said:


> pemerton said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Why are you assuming that there is no game system?
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Because none was referenced in the example given.
Click to expand...




Lanefan said:


> There's a problem with the example "I wink at the maiden and soften her heart" that I think has thus far been overlooked here, which is this:
> 
> Flip it around.  If the GM says to you "The maiden winks at you and softens your heart" without invoking any game mechanics there'd be (justifiable) cries of bloody blue murder: the GM is dictating the PC's reaction to the wink.
> 
> So why isn't the GM given the same agency over how her NPCs react to the PCs' actions?



The example of a NPC maiden softening a PC's heart with a wink came from you. So what system did _you_ have in mind? I don't think the onus is on me to flesh out your example! If you think your example is underspecified then flesh it out yourself!



Fenris-77 said:


> I'll be honest, the maiden's wink example rubs my rhubarb the wrong way. There aren't many game systems I can think of that would force a character to do X because they have the hots for the winky maiden. They might get the option to pursue that narrative strand, but it's not going to be mandatory. That outcome is pretty far into left field for even most experienced players, and I can't think of a system that works like that. Even with a check involved PCs aren't losing their volition because of a wink, that's just silly except for maybe a really small subset of fringe games that I'm pretty sure I wouldn't enjoy. I don't think it's a useful example.
> 
> That said, lets take Fate for a minute. If a PC had _sucker for a pretty face_ as an aspect, I would definitely have the occasional maiden wink at them and push a fate point into the middle of the table. That's not the same as what's being discussed above though. Can someone give me an actual example of a system where getting winked at is the equivalent of serious mind control hoodoo when it comes to player choice?



In the OP I put forward, as a description a PC's action, _I soften the heart of the maiden with a wink_. Systems I can think of where that is a permissible action declaration include Prince Valiant (probably a check on Presence + Glamourie; it might also be done by using a Storyteller's Certificate to Incite Lust as a special effect), Marvel Heroic RP/Cortex+ Heroic (a check intended to inflict a Complication, or perhaps Emotional or Mental Stress, depending on context and further elaboration), Maelstrom Storytelling (I think I got the example from a rulebook example of a Quick Take), 4th ed D&D if the table is in the right mood (it would be a CHA check, or in the right context perhaps a Bluff or even a Diplomacy check - 4e is not super-prescriptive in respect of what skills can be used to do what), even Burning Wheel or Rolemaster if the setting/genre is not too grim (a Seduction check). I can't remember the scope of Seduction in The Dying Earth but I wouldn't be surprised if it covers this sort of thing also.

 [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION] was the one who started a conversation about the reverse scenario, of a maiden softening a PC's heart with a wink. He didn't suggest any particular X as an action to be performed by the PC. As [MENTION=996]Tony Vargas[/MENTION] correctly noted, he only suggested an emotional response - the PC's hear is softened - and didn't further explore what that might mean for play.

Systems I can think of where something like this is possible I think I already mentioned: Prince Valiant (especially if the GM uses an Incite Lust special effect against a player's character); Marvel Heroic/Cortex+ Heroic (the situation of the PC is quite symmetrical to the NPC, and the cost of not going along with the softened heart is that the complication/stress will figure in the opposing dice pool - this is the same mechanic the system uses to adjudicate psychic mind control); The Dying Earth; Burning Wheel (the rules for NPC social skill use outside the context of a Duel of Wits are a bit thin, but as best I can tell it's intended to be a permissible thing); maybe others.

In 4e D&D, in an appropriate context, I would regard it as a permissible complication in the narration of a skill challenge. Whether that's intended or not is hard to tell - despite many printed pages the 4e rulebooks are incredibly weak in their account of permissible complications in narrating skill challenges!

As a late addition, I also think it should be possible (both ways - PC to NPC or vice versa) in HeroWars/Quest.


----------



## pemerton

Lanefan said:


> I use the eyes of a game-world inhabitant - say an innocuous bartender - to look around.  I see the bar full of common working people who look ready to fight, and yep: there they go.  Fists flying, bottles smashing, a good old-fashioned donnybrook - black eyes all round and maybe a few broken bones, but in the end nobody dies and the bartender has a big mess to clean up.
> 
> A week later, most of those same people are back...with a few new friends to replace those with broken limbs...and sure enough, another fight breaks out just like last week.  This time, however, most of the people involved drop dead the first time they take a good hit from anything - including getting hit by the same guy that hit him last week - because one of the new people has a PC tag on its head and suddenly all these brawlers are panes of thin glass.
> 
> How in any way is this internally consistent?



I don't understand what your example has to do with minion rules.

Minion rules are a mechanical device in some systems (4e D&D perhaps most famously, but certainly not exclusively) for adjudicating declared actions (in 4e D&D, mostly fight-y actions) by players for their PCs. If your ingame inhabitant sees her doughty working people cut down with little trouble by Conan and friends, where is the inconsistency?

_Consistency_ is a property of, and often a virtue of, a fiction. *Minion rules* are a device for establishing the content of a shared RPG fiction in certain contexts. If you mis-use the rules you might get poor fiction. Likewise in Moldvay Basic if you misuse the rules for DEX checks - eg require a DEX check every 10' to avoid the PCs falling down like Charlie Chaplin on a bad day - you'll get stupid fiction. But everyone knows that that's not how you use DEX checks.

Mutatis mutandis for minion rules.


----------



## pemerton

FrogReaver said:


> At least no one can poke fun at me now because I'm the only person here taking my position.  So how about we have an actual discussion.
> 
> Question:  What is actually wrong with the maiden winking example?
> 
> Answer 1:  IMO.  It's an in-fiction act that produces a mandatory effect whereas for whatever source material you are basing your groups shared fiction upon - in that source material maidens winks don't force any character to do anything.



What mandatory effect are you referring to?

Can you describe a concrete example, with reference to a real or conjectured system, that explains what you've got in mind.

All I'm seeing so far is a conjecture of a system that, in some circumstances, permits a GM to tell a player _The maiden's wink softens your heart_. Until you tell me more about what you have in mind, that's not an example of anything _forcing_ anything beyond a  description of a somewhat commonplace cause and an effect.



FrogReaver said:


> Rebuttal 2:  What is the anticipated counter-argument?  that the maiden's wink in the example isn't actually forcing the PC in question to do something, but rather that its a determination of what the PC's response would be and then locking the player into roleplaying for that reality.
> 
> Answer 2:  I happen to think that's a solid argument.  So what is actually wrong with the Maiden winking example?  IMO.  It attempts to determine what the PC's response would be instead of simply allowing the player to roleplay their response.



I don't really follow the detail of this. My take away - drawing in part on your earlier posts - is that you don't like a system which permits some mechanism to establish a PC's emotion other than player decision, _unless_ that mechanism correlates to or gives expression to an in-fiction thing that bears the label _magic_.

I would therefore expect you to be fine with the 4e Deathlock Wight's ability to cause a PC to recoil in fear from its _horrific visage_ (mechanically, a fear effect that does some psychic damage and a push effect) but not with the 4e Fang Titan Drake's ability to cause PC's to freeze in terror at its _furious roar_ (mechanically, a fear effect that stuns, and then causes a to hit penalty as an aftereffect).



FrogReaver said:


> unlike the maidens wink - charm person isn't an effect that attempts to determine what my PC's response to an action would be.  Instead it's an in-fiction example of an ability that can actually force my PC to behave a certain way and that such an ability is a common in most all source material we might draw upon for our shared-fictional world.



Your assertion - that failing a save vs Charm Person doesn't reflect anything about the emotional/mental response of the PC - is contentious. Here's Gygax in his DMG (p 81) about the in-fiction meaning of saving throws:

A character under magical attack is in a stress situation, and his or her own will force reacts instinctively to protect the character by slightly altering the effects of the magical assault. This protection takes a slightly different form for each class of character. Magic-users understand spells, even on an unconscious level, and are able to slightly tamper with one so as to render it ineffective. Fighters withstand them through sheer defiance, while clerics create a small island of faith. Thieves find they are able to avoid a spell's full effects by quickness . . .​
So maybe if the MU fails a save that means s/he didn't really want to render it ineffective! If the cleric fails, perhaps that means his/her faith is not as profound as s/he believed it to be . . .

Now maybe the standard 5e interpretation is that all characters do what Gygax's fighters do - ie withstand magic through sheer defiance - but that's obviously not the sole approach even within the D&D tradition.

And if we look to the source material, the notion that being mind-controlled is a sign of secret desire (or at least uncertainty) can be seen in Star Wars, the X-Men, and Lord of the Rings, just to name a few classics of the genre.



FrogReaver said:


> Does the action force a response in any of the source material for our shared-fictional-world.  If yes then it's acceptable (charm person effects fall here).  Does the action simply call for a determination of how the PC acted/will act as opposed to being a mind control style effect?  If yes then that's unacceptable because it truly is taking away a moment where you can roleplay your character.
> 
> Why is the last part so important - because what truly sets roleplaying games apart from other games is that in an RPG you the player are taking on the role of a character by making their decisions, declaring their actions, *having the character behave as you envision* etc.



I've bolded the bit that you continue to take for granted but haven't actually articulated or defended. How does this _truly set RPGs apart from other games_?

And if this is so fundamental, why the obsession with a maiden's winking? If I envision my PC as a puissant warrior, but I keep being knocked unconscious in every fight, then my PC isn't behaving as I envision. Why is that acceptable? (NB: there are games which are able to make this aspect of the player's conception of his/her PC as central and sacrosanct as you want in respect of your PC's disposition to maidens.)


----------



## Fenris-77

The wink doesn't pose a problem for me as a PC action, although generally there would also be a mechanic involved there but there doesn't have to be. As an NPC action with a dictated result it's ... wacky. Even if you could find a system that supported it I'd still be against it. Obviously the extent of the forced action plays a big role too. If the forced action just consists of telling the player they get swollen love nodes, which is more an invitation to action than forced action anyway, I'm fine with it. But as soon as the DM says something like "she beckons you with a finger and follow her out the door" then I'm firmly against, and will reiterate my earlier contention that this doesn't happen in RPGs generally so is probably a silly example. I don't really feel the need to explain how monster abilities with mechanics are a different class of example.

The minion example is easier to deal with (I'm with [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] on this). The internal consistency of a lot of fantasy fiction fits (and RPGs) the minion example to a tee. Those randos at the bar are indeed panes of glass to the PC and not to each other,  and the fact that they are so is part of the unstated contract a player signs when they agree to play said RPG. Just like the fact that they aren't panes of glass in grittier RPGs is also understood by everyone involved at the outset of the game.


----------



## billd91

pemerton said:


> I don't even know what this means.
> 
> I'm talking about events in the fiction. In the fiction, there is no such thing as "overriding the PC". There is just one human affectig another. This is a real thing that happens in the real world all the time, so I have no trouble imagining a fantasy wold in which it happens.
> 
> Galadriel melts Gimli's heart. Aragorn melts Eomer's heart. Frodo almost melts Gollum's heart. Etc. This is a recurrent them in classic fantasy stories.




Now we get back to the age-old RPG discussion on how fiction written by a single author isn't like an RPG. In a novel, it's up to one person to determine if Galadriel connects with Gimli and how they do so. In an RPG, it's up to at least 2 people - the person playing Galadriel and the person playing Gimli. They don't have to agree on exactly what should happen and how. And so we need to have some kind of rules and/or etiquette to determine how to proceed when these situations arise.

For most RPGs, I'd advocate that the player controls the PC's reactions while the GM controls the NPCs' reactions barring some direct test (even in a game like Pendragon - which has certain behavioral expectations based on traits the PC possesses. Pendragon also, of course, has direct tests of those traits are evoked to take the character out of the player's control as well as rules for the consequences of acting against a famous trait). That's the general social contract I'd expect at a typical RPG table. That might be negotiable with a particularly trusted GM as seems to be the case with Matt Mercer and his players on Critical Role, but probably not at a convention table.


----------



## Maxperson

Tony Vargas said:


> No such thing, in a game like 5e: it simply has faith in the DM.  It might mean you're a bad fit for that hypothetical DMs hypothetical campaign, which is totally legit.



Yes.  Yes there is such a thing as abuse of DM authority in 5e.  Here are the roles of the DM from the 5e DMG.

"The Dungeon Master gets to wear many hats. As the architect of the campaign, the DM creates adventures by placing monster, traps and treasures for the other players' characters(the adventurers) to discover. As the storyteller, the DM helps the other players visualize what's happening around them, improvising when the adventurers do something or go somewhere unexpected. As an actor, the DM plays the roles of the monsters and supporting characters, breathing life into them.  And as a referee, the DM interprets the rules and decides when to abide by them and when to change them."

That's it.  He places stuff.  He gets to inform me of what my PC sees, such as room contents or if an NPC winks at my PC.  He gets to roleplay his monsters and NPCs, such as when an NPC winks at my PC.  And he gets to interpret the rules.  There is no rule that says the DM gets to run my PC for me.  Nor is that part of his roles.  

Within the above constraints, he gets to narrate the results of MY actions with regard to my PC, not his own, unless something like dominate is in effect.  The DM, unless he has a house rule or is abusing his authority cannot play my PC and tell me that my PC's heart warms to a wink.

The DMG section about social interaction is entirely about the DM and his NPCs, and how to change their attitude. At no point in the social interaction section where it describes social interaction between players and NPCs is there ANYTHING that enables the DM to force my PC to respond how HE wants to an NPCs wink.


----------



## pemerton

Fenris-77 said:


> The wink doesn't pose a problem for me as a PC action, although generally there would also be a mechanic involved there but there doesn't have to be. As an NPC action with a dictated result it's ... wacky. Even if you could find a system that supported it I'd still be against it. Obviously the extent of the forced action plays a big role too. If the forced action just consists of telling the player they get swollen love nodes, which is more an invitation to action than forced action anyway, I'm fine with it. But as soon as the DM says something like "she beckons you with a finger and follow her out the door" then I'm firmly against, and will reiterate my earlier contention that this doesn't happen in RPGs generally so is probably a silly example. I don't really feel the need to explain how monster abilities with mechanics are a different class of example.



I'm not sure what _monster abilities_ you've got in mind. In Prince Valiant, for instance, Incite Lust is more likely to be found on a maiden than a monster!

Because the NPC maiden melting a PC's heart with a wink is   [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION]'s example he'll have to tell you exactly what he had in mind. I've been thinking about the example as a placeholder for stuff in the same general neighbourhood in RPG systems I'm familiar with. For instance, just to pick one fairly well-known system, Marvel Heroic RP/Cortex+ Heroic doesn't have any problem with a NPC placing a Come Hither complication or a Melted Heart complication on a PC. And when the PC takes action that is at odds with that complication, the complication die figures in the opposed pool. That particular mechanical dynamic isn't wildly different from player-vs-player Seduce/Manipulate in AW, which can result in doing other than the requested thing requiring a successful check to "act under fire".

Prince Valiant says this about the Incite Lust special effect (p 46):

The current Storyteller will have to make a ruling as to how the lustful character behaves. If the lustful character is an Adventurer, the controlling player decides how lust affects his character. A Storyteller may veto the controlling player’s wishes only if the intended behavior is unrealistic.

If this Special Effect is used to permit one character to dominate another, common sense and logic should be used. The character will not jump off a cliff for the object of his lust, nor will he necessarily wish to marry her. This can be a cruel Special Effect to use, especially if the object of lust is unattainable.​
That's no more "intrusive" than a classic D&D charm effect.



billd91 said:


> In a novel, it's up to one person to determine if Galadriel connects with Gimli and how they do so. In an RPG, it's up to at least 2 people - the person playing Galadriel and the person playing Gimli. They don't have to agree on exactly what should happen and how. And so we need to have some kind of rules and/or etiquette to determine how to proceed when these situations arise.



Yes. I don't think that any of what you say here is unfamiliar or controversial. And it's not particular to winking and melting hearts. _I hit you_ - _No you don't, because I dodge_ is in structural terms exactly the same thing. Or the player saying _I climb the cliff_ while the GM says _I don't think so - they're known for being impossible to scale!_.



billd91 said:


> For most RPGs, I'd advocate that the player controls the PC's reactions while the GM controls the NPCs' reactions barring some direct test



I don't quite know what you mean by "direct test".

Here's the full text of the Seduce/Manipulate move in Apocalypse World (p 87), although with some paragraph breaks interpolated:

When you* try to seduce or manipulate someone*, tell them what you want and roll+hot.

For NPCs: on a hit, they ask you to promise something first, and do it if you promise. On a 10+, whether you keep your promise is up to you, later. On a 7–9, they need some concrete assurance right now.

For PCs: on a 10+, both. On a 7–9, choose 1:
• _if they do it, they mark experience_
• _if they refuse, it’s acting under fire_
What they do then is up to them.​
This is player vs player, not GM vs player, but I would assume that your principle is meant to generalise to that case too. The roll here is all on one side: with a successful check, I can bring it about that your PC is under a mechanical penalty ("acting under fire") if they don't do what I tell them I want them to do.

Does that satisfy your _direct test_ requirement?


----------



## Maxperson

hawkeyefan said:


> I just don't think that it's a bad thing in any way if a game actually makes rules about this stuff so that it inherently has meaning.




I'm okay with that, but only as long as the DM is not playing my PC at all.  The DM can never know my PC as well as I do, and I don't want the frustration of seeing him play my PC wrong time and time again, which is what will happen if he is allowed to play my PC.




> I meant an example of how such mechanics force only one outcome. The list you provided doesn't seem any different than what I'd expect to see in a game that included mechanics of the kind we're talking about.




The example being used is a good one.  "The woman winks at you and melts your heart" has just dictated exactly how the PC responds to the wink.


----------



## pemerton

Maxperson said:


> "The woman winks at you and melts your heart" has just dictated exactly how the PC responds to the wink.



Can you tell us more about exactly what the response is that is dictated?


----------



## Fenris-77

[MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] - the phrase monster abilities was more shorthand for mechanically supported game actions I guess. Obviously not too many flesh golems are dropping successful come hither winks in any system (although now that I've said that, it is going to come up in my game because it's awesome). I was more railing against impact by fiat rather than mechanic. Players agree to the mechanics in a game when they agree to play, and if the game they agreed to play happens to have seduction mechanics then fine, that's the game. I would propose however that there is a pretty vast gulf between the results you list, such as complication dice, or any other complicating modifier, and straight dictated action. I'm fine with the former but not the latter. My apologies if that wasn't as clear as it could have been.


----------



## FrogReaver

pemerton said:


> What mandatory effect are you referring to?




Melting the PC's heart...



> Can you describe a concrete example, with reference to a real or conjectured system, that explains what you've got in mind.




Any and every system that results in something other than the player declaring the maiden's wink melted the PC's heart.



> All I'm seeing so far is a conjecture of a system that, in some circumstances, permits a GM to tell a player _The maiden's wink softens your heart_.




Weird that 2 sentences later that you know exactly what mandantory effect I was referring to.  Why even ask your first question?



> Until you tell me more about what you have in mind, that's not an example of anything _forcing_ anything beyond a  description of a somewhat commonplace cause and an effect.




Strangely if you had read on through my post you'll see that I agree with this assessment and see the reason for why I agree with it.  



> _Rebuttal 2:  What is the anticipated counter-argument?  that the maiden's wink in the example isn't actually forcing the PC in question to do something, but rather that its a determination of what the PC's response would be and then locking the player into roleplaying for that reality.  _
> 
> _Answer 2:  I happen to think that's a solid argument.  So what is actually wrong with the Maiden winking example?  IMO.  It attempts to determine what the PC's response would be instead of simply allowing the player to roleplay their response._​







> I don't really follow the detail of this. My take away - drawing in part on your earlier posts - is that you don't like a system which permits some mechanism to establish a PC's emotion other than player decision, _unless_ that mechanism correlates to or gives expression to an in-fiction thing that bears the label _magic_.




My take away is that this is explained in this post.  Seriously try to take a post as a whole at some point instead of a line by line break down.  It's frustrating when most everything you are saying has already been addressed somewhere in the post your single line quote is coming from.



> I would therefore expect you to be fine with the 4e Deathlock Wight's ability to cause a PC to recoil in fear from its _horrific visage_ (mechanically, a fear effect that does some psychic damage and a push effect) but not with the 4e Fang Titan Drake's ability to cause PC's to freeze in terror at its _furious roar_ (mechanically, a fear effect that stuns, and then causes a to hit penalty as an aftereffect).




I'm fine with both abilities.  Now if you had tried to say, there was a lion and that the lions furious roar frightens you so badly that you are stunned and causes you a penalty to hit even after you've become unstunned…..  that example is n par with the maidens winking example. 

Apply the test I proposed at the end of this post to both examples and you'll get my exact thoughts on the matter.  



> Your assertion - that failing a save vs Charm Person doesn't reflect anything about the emotional/mental response of the PC - is contentious.




It could reflect something about the emotional/mental response of the PC, but it need not.  As such that aspect is for the player to determine.



> Here's Gygax in his DMG (p 81) about the in-fiction meaning of saving throws:
> A character under magical attack is in a stress situation, and his or her own will force reacts instinctively to protect the character by slightly altering the effects of the magical assault. This protection takes a slightly different form for each class of character. Magic-users understand spells, even on an unconscious level, and are able to slightly tamper with one so as to render it ineffective. Fighters withstand them through sheer defiance, while clerics create a small island of faith. Thieves find they are able to avoid a spell's full effects by quickness . . .​




Then I'd disagree with Gygax.  The in-fiction meaning of a saving through is simply that you were able to avoid an affect.  For any PC that could take on a variety of forms.  Speed, sheer defiance, faith etc.  You need not be a cleric to be shielded by faith.  You need not be a fighter to overcome by sheer defiance.  You need not be a thief to get out of the way fast enough.  



> So maybe if the MU fails a save that means s/he didn't really want to render it ineffective! If the cleric fails, perhaps that means his/her faith is not as profound as s/he believed it to be . . .




Sure, I already addressed that idea though...



> _Rebuttal 2:  What is the anticipated counter-argument?  that the maiden's wink in the example isn't actually forcing the PC in question to do something, but rather that its a determination of what the PC's response would be and then locking the player into roleplaying for that reality.  _
> 
> _Answer 2:  I happen to think that's a solid argument.  So what is actually wrong with the Maiden winking example?  IMO.  It attempts to determine what the PC's response would be instead of simply allowing the player to roleplay their response._​






> Now maybe the standard 5e interpretation is that all characters do what Gygax's fighters do - ie withstand magic through sheer defiance - but that's obviously not the sole approach even within the D&D tradition.




Or maybe it leaves it open for the player to roleplay how he avoided the magical effect...



> And if we look to the source material, the notion that being mind-controlled is a sign of secret desire (or at least uncertainty) can be seen in Star Wars, the X-Men, and Lord of the Rings, just to name a few classics of the genre.




I've never seen mind-control in any of those as a sign of secret desire.  Take starwars with obi wan and luke telling the guards "these are not the droids you are looking for".  No desire or anything else, just pure mind control.



> I've bolded the bit that you continue to take for granted but haven't actually articulated or defended. How does this _truly set RPGs apart from other games_?




Can't defend something from nothing.  Someone is going to have to step up and be the champion for "that's not what truly sets RPG's apart".



> And if this is so fundamental, why the obsession with a maiden's winking?




I answered that in my previous post...



> _Why is the last part so important - because what truly sets roleplaying games apart from other games is that in an RPG you the player are taking on the role of a character by making their decisions, declaring their actions, having the character you envision, _​*etc.​*




The maidens wink melting your heart takes away those things.



> If I envision my PC as a puissant warrior, but I keep being knocked unconscious in every fight, then my PC isn't behaving as I envision.




Sure he is.  Presumably you would just be a puissant warrior that keeps getting knocked unconscious every fight.  There's lots of explanations for how that can happen.  

If what you are trying to get at is, why can't I roleplay a character that never loses at combat then I'd say you can.  I would call that roleplaying but it wouldn't be an enjoyable game for me.  To elaborate a bit more - such a concept wouldn't be a valid character concept under most game systems out there today, so in that sense you couldn't create that character for any of those games.



> Why is that acceptable? (NB: there are games which are able to make this aspect of the player's conception of his/her PC as central and sacrosanct as you want in respect of your PC's disposition to maidens.)




I don't understand this last sentence.  It kind of runs together.  I think my previous point probably answers the intent though.


----------



## hawkeyefan

Maxperson said:


> I'm okay with that, but only as long as the DM is not playing my PC at all.  The DM can never know my PC as well as I do, and I don't want the frustration of seeing him play my PC wrong time and time again, which is what will happen if he is allowed to play my PC.




I don’t know if this requires the DM to “play your PC” so much as perhaps restrict some options depending on the mechanics at play. 

But either way, your preference is clear. I would expect that if a game with some different mechanics was actually played, perhaps you’d see some of the ways the mechanics empower players and you’d not feel the need to cling so tightly to your PC as the sole bastion of your input on the game. 

But that doesn’t seem likely. 




Maxperson said:


> The example being used is a good one.  "The woman winks at you and melts your heart" has just dictated exactly how the PC responds to the wink.




Ah....I’ll have to look up “Melted Heart” in the list of Conditions.


----------



## FrogReaver

One thing that is getting over looked is that addding a special ability to an NPC in D&D is tantamount to saying there is something extremely special about this NPC's ability.  That it has effects that other creatures that do similar things don't have when they do those things.  

So if there was a special maiden NPC and she was soo good at charming men that she had a nearly supernatural ability to do so then she would have a special ability: "Maiden's Wink" in her NPC description.  I would not be opposed to being charmed by her.  

But a regular ole maiden using a regular wink - No, just no.


----------



## hawkeyefan

FrogReaver said:


> One thing that is getting over looked is that addding a special ability to an NPC in D&D is tantamount to saying there is something extremely special about this NPC's ability.  That it has effects that other creatures that do similar things don't have when they do those things.
> 
> So if there was a special maiden NPC and she was soo good at charming men that she had a nearly supernatural ability to do so then she would have a special ability: "Maiden's Wink" in her NPC description.  I would not be opposed to being charmed by her.
> 
> But a regular ole maiden using a regular wink - No, just no.




I think it really depends on what the outcome is. Everyone seems to be leaping right to mind control much like the charm person spell. But it doesn’t need to be so invasive.

I would also expect that whatever it is the maiden is hoping to get would play a part as well. If she winks and then asks the PC to help her assassinate the king, I’d expect the wink to have much less impact. But of she winks and asks the PC to buy her a meal and a drink....seems pretty likely. 

It really boils down to the fictional situation and the system at play. 

I think that the reason this breaks down for those viewing through the lens of D&D is that the only thing there seems to be to compare it to is magical mind control of some kind. Most other similar mechanics are mostly gone, or were largely applicable only to NPCs, and therefore not a problem.


----------



## FrogReaver

hawkeyefan said:


> I think it really depends on what the outcome is. Everyone seems to be leaping right to mind control much like the charm person spell. But it doesn’t need to be so invasive.
> 
> I would also expect that whatever it is the maiden is hoping to get would play a part as well. If she winks and then asks the PC to help her assassinate the king, I’d expect the wink to have much less impact. But of she winks and asks the PC to buy her a meal and a drink....seems pretty likely.
> 
> It really boils down to the fictional situation and the system at play.
> 
> I think that the reason this breaks down for those viewing through the lens of D&D is that the only thing there seems to be to compare it to is magical mind control of some kind. Most other similar mechanics are mostly gone, or were largely applicable only to NPCs, and therefore not a problem.




Sigh, there comes the D&D only crap again...


----------



## Ovinomancer

FrogReaver said:


> Sigh, there comes the D&D only crap again...






FrogReaver said:


> One thing that is getting over looked is that addding a special ability to an NPC in D&D is tantamount to saying there is something extremely special about this NPC's ability.  That it has effects that other creatures that do similar things don't have when they do those things.
> 
> So if there was a special maiden NPC and she was soo good at charming men that she had a nearly supernatural ability to do so then she would have a special ability: "Maiden's Wink" in her NPC description.  I would not be opposed to being charmed by her.
> 
> But a regular ole maiden using a regular wink - No, just no.




You invited it.  Hard to complain about it when you just explicitly did it.


----------



## pemerton

Fenris-77 said:


> [MENTION=42582]I was more railing against impact by fiat rather than mechanic.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> I would propose however that there is a pretty vast gulf between the results you list, such as complication dice, or any other complicating modifier, and straight dictated action. I'm fine with the former but not the latter. My apologies if that wasn't as clear as it could have been.



I think _dictated action_, or _fiat_, or what Ron Edwards calls _drama resolution_, is interesting in this context.

I agree that it's not typical. In adjudicating a skill challenge I once narrated one of the PCs moving across the room - in the fiction, he was influenced by a Pact Hag; mechanically, this was setting up a complication (the Hag was going to pull a rope to open a pit); I can't recall now whether or not it immediately followed a failed check or not.

I do know that when I posted about it on these boards it aroused some controversy; but if a GM holds back from all narration like that in a skill challenge then it's hard to make it very dynamic.

I'm sure there are contexts in which sheer drama/fiat/dictation _melting-PC's-heart-by-winking_ would make sense, even though we're not thinking of one here-and-now.


----------



## hawkeyefan

FrogReaver said:


> Sigh, there comes the D&D only crap again...




Funny, that’s what I was thinking!

I have no problem with D&D. I love D&D....I play it all the time. But this is an area of play that doesn’t seem to be a focal point for D&D. A PC being influenced by an NPC in some mechanical way....are there any examples that don’t involve magic? I’m trying to come up with some, and the only thing I can think of is Surprise in combat, but nothing else. 

Generally speaking, in D&D and similar games, the player always decides how his character feels and how they act and react to the world around them. My understanding is this is your preferred approach to gaming. Am I wrong on either point? 

If you have another game in mind about all this, feel free to share. But so far, it seems that your stance is that any game that handles this differently than D&D does is not allowing “true roleplaying”. That any PC action or reaction must only come from the player and nowhere else, and that if it does, it’s not roleplaying. 

So....if I’ve misunderstood your stance or if you want to discuss how this pertains to other games, great.


----------



## pemerton

FrogReaver said:


> One thing that is getting over looked is that addding a special ability to an NPC in D&D is tantamount to saying there is something extremely special about this NPC's ability. That it has effects that other creatures that do similar things don't have when they do those things.
> 
> So if there was a special maiden NPC and she was soo good at charming men that she had a nearly supernatural ability to do so then she would have a special ability: "Maiden's Wink" in her NPC description.  I would not be opposed to being charmed by her.
> 
> But a regular ole maiden using a regular wink - No, just no.



The category of "special ability", like the category of "magic", only makes sense in some games or some contexts. Some systems don't really have "special abilities" at all in the D&D sense. And even where a system does feature special abilities, the fact that some statblock includes such a thing doesn't necessarily mean that the relevant infiction capability is gated behind such a mechanic.

In Prince Valiant one of my players used a Story Teller Certificate that he'd acquired through earlier play to Kill a Foe in Combat. This didn't create an effect that he didn't already have access to. But it did enable him to kill a knight in a joust whom otherwise he had no realistic mathematical chance of defeating. The player narrated it as his PC's lance splintering on the NPC knight's shield and a splinter of wood passing through the knight's visor and into his eye and brain.

Special abilities in 4e D&D are often like this: they don't make new things possible in the fiction, but they do change the mechanical likelihood of those things occurring.



FrogReaver said:


> If what you are trying to get at is, why can't I roleplay a character that never loses at combat then I'd say you can.  I would call that roleplaying but it wouldn't be an enjoyable game for me.  To elaborate a bit more - such a concept wouldn't be a valid character concept under most game systems out there today, so in that sense you couldn't create that character for any of those games.



Hang-on: so a game in which you character concept _resolute in the face of the most heart-melting winks_ is not sacrosanct is a game that threatens RPing; but one in which your character concept _puissant warrior who never gets KO-ed by mere orcs_ is not sacrosanct is not a valid character concept in most game systems?

What's the difference? Not from the point of view of aesthetic preference, but from the point of view of _what counts as playing the character I envision_?


----------



## Fenris-77

I think you'll find that you'll get very little opposition to a PC being Held and then Levitated (and then dropped into a pit I guess). People understand the mechanics and there were probably saves or something involved. But when there isn't that comfortable buffer of mechanics to fall back on people treat the whole thing very differently, which I also find very interesting, since the difference in actual effect is minimal to nonexistent (you get dropped in a pit either way and can't do anything about it once it's happening).

Say you did all the rolling behind a screen, all the saves and whatever, and then just narrated the effect. I suspect you'd get a ton of push back about it that you wouldn't get if the players rolled (and failed) the same saves and suffered the same effect. Maybe even as much push back as you'd get if they couldn't see the mechanic behind the curtain at all.

There's something in there that's key to the RPG experience but I can't quite put my finger on it.

As to the wink, I agree, there probably is a scenario where it makes sense, but it's going to be off the beaten track as far as systems go.


----------



## pemerton

hawkeyefan said:


> this is an area of play that doesn’t seem to be a focal point for D&D. A PC being influenced by an NPC in some mechanical way....are there any examples that don’t involve magic? I’m trying to come up with some, and the only thing I can think of is Surprise in combat, but nothing else.



Does D&D encompass non-5e versions?

In that case, I already posted the example of the Fang Tyrant Drake's furious roar (which paralyses with fear). In 4e there's no need to conceive of the fear caused by dragons as magical, either (which brings them closer to the Smaug-ish form of dragon terror).


----------



## hawkeyefan

pemerton said:


> Does D&D encompass non-5e versions?
> 
> In that case, I already posted the example of the Fang Tyrant Drake's furious roar (which paralyses with fear). In 4e there's no need to conceive of the fear caused by dragons as magical, either (which brings them closer to the Smaug-ish form of dragon terror).




I was speaking of 5E, but I think it’s largely applicable across editions. There are other ways for PC actions to be dictated by DM or by mechanics in different editions. 4E Probably has the most because it essentially shed the distinction of “because magic” and just had all kinds of abilities that could inflict a status on a character, whether the source was arcane or martial or divine, etc. didn’t matter all that much. So 4E allowed for more examples by basically treating more actions the same as magic. 

By comparison, 5E does have similar creature abilities, but without diving too deeply, all would mimic the effects of a spell and grant some kind of condition on the PC; frightened, charmed, paralyzed, blinded, etc. In that sense, they all likely fall safely under the “magic” umbrella.


----------



## Maxperson

hawkeyefan said:


> So would a valid reason never be "my character was able to overcome his urge to give in to the maiden"? I mean, that seems a more likely and potentially valid reason than the crazy example you've provided.




I didn't provide a crazy example, but to answer your question, it would be a valid reason and here's why.  Sometimes people who have flaws can just overcome those urges.  Now, if the player is doing it all the time and/or only at times when it would be detrimental to the PC/party, then he's abusing the system and would need to be talked to after the game.  If it's just once in a while, then it's fine.



> If it's possible for the character to not give in, but it's entirely up to the player if they can do so, it seems a bit flawed.




No, it's not flawed.  It just requires that the player not play in bad faith.


----------



## Umbran

Fenris-77 said:


> I think you'll find that you'll get very little opposition to a PC being Held and then Levitated (and then dropped into a pit I guess). People understand the mechanics and there were probably saves or something involved. *But when there isn't that comfortable buffer of mechanics to fall back on *people treat the whole thing very differently, ...




(emphasis mine)

This is the meat of it, really.  We are talking, in the end, about TRUST.

When there are mechanics that the table all agreed to use underlying narrated events, we generally extend trust to the result.  We typically see it as "fair", even if we are somewhat surprised by the result.

When we don't have the mechanics, the question of trust comes into play.  It also comes into play when there are actually mechanics, but we are not familiar with them - pemerton's story above sits as an example - in the game he was playing, narration of the character moving across the room to introduce a complication was *within mechaical bounds*.  Folks who play D&D, however, don't generally play under such mechanics, and they then fail to extend trust.

This is where a lot of conflict ton such issues arises - I've been working with my group for something like a decade.  They trust me not to screw them over on a whim.  Folks reading about my session on the message boards don't really know me from Adam, don't trust me, and worry that I might be screwing my players over on a whim.


----------



## Maxperson

pemerton said:


> Can you tell us more about exactly what the response is that is dictated?




Seriously?  You don't see that it's dictating the response of warming the heart?  That precludes greater and lesser responses that I might want to give for my PC.


----------



## Maxperson

hawkeyefan said:


> Ah....I’ll have to look up “Melted Heart” in the list of Conditions.




Why?


----------



## Maxperson

Umbran said:


> This is where a lot of conflict ton such issues arises - I've been working with my group for something like a decade.  They trust me not to screw them over on a whim.  Folks reading about my session on the message boards don't really know me from Adam, don't trust me, and worry that I might be screwing my players over on a whim.




Well, Adam IS the Antichrist.  If they don't know you from Adam, that might be where the trust issues come in.


----------



## Tony Vargas

Lanefan said:


> An immersion-oriented player is going to try his-her best to do exactly this, as that's the whole point of immersion: to perceive things as your PC would perceive them.



The PCs perceive exactly as the players & GM imagine they perceive, with the complication that they all need to be on the same page.

So, in one sense, perceiving as your character is easy (because their perceptions are under your conscious control), and, in another, impossible (because you can't un-know that). 

TTRPGs - as opposed, say, to LARPs - present tremendous barriers to immersion by their very nature, overcoming them seems to be a rarefied, fleeting, and intensely personal thing.



> Obviously.  But that's just table knowledge.



 So are the specifics of the system you're using.



> No, but in theory they would have perceptions, knowledges and beliefs given that they are in theory sentient inhabitants of their setting;



 Not on theory nor in fact, rather in our imaginations.


> and those perceptions, knowledges and beliefs don't extend to seeing little tags on foreheads saying PC or NPC or BBEG or whatever.



 Exactly. So, we don't (unless breaking the 4th wall) imagine that they're aware of their status within the game - even though you are necessarily aware of that status.



> Put another way: imagine these characters are real people



 That's redundant, they're necessarily imaginary people, by definition. 


> Now, is everything you just saw through all those characters' eyes consistent with itself no matter which set of eyes you happened to look through - whether it was a PC, an NPC, a commoner, a minion?



 If that's how you imagined it, yes.  If not, no.



> If yes, then all is good



 Then, if no, you gotta ask yourself: "Self,  why did you imagine it that way?"

But, if every persons perceptions of a hypothetical world were aligned and formed an internally consistent world, it'd be a very unrealistic setting. (Which is fine, fantasy should get a free pass on realism.) 



Lanefan said:


> bar full of common working people who look ready to fight, and yep: there they go.  Fists flying, bottles smashing, a good old-fashioned donnybrook - black eyes all round and maybe a few broken bones, but in the end nobody dies and the bartender has a big mess to clean up.



 Ok, so the bartender sees that as y'know, Friday.  We see it as establishing a little something about the setting & genre - violence in the setting is common, but not quite as dangerous or acrimonious as in reality.


> This time, however, most of the people involved drop dead the first time they take a good hit from anything - including getting hit by the same guy that hit him last week - because one of the new people has a PC tag on its head and suddenly all these brawlers are panes of thin glass.



I'm sorry, are you saying they see the tag, but, otherwise,  he's just another brawler?  Or that he, like the bartender is just watching the show?

Also, why has the lethality of violence shifted? Even in the presence of rules that speed up combat like that, non-lethal attacks presumably remain non-lethal, no?



> How in any way is this internally consistent?



It's not, nor is it consistent with the use of minion rules & the presence (or participation) of a PC that far above the level of the crowds regularly scheduled violence, that they need to be modeled as minions.

Rather, if the PC in question just watches the fight, nothing changes: it's narrated just like the one from last week.

Similarly, if he's incognito, and trying to stay that way, the resolution won't be a combat, he might make some checks (depending on the system) to conceal his prowess, just put in a good showing to fit in.

If he does wade in full-bore, though, things change.  There's a regular whirlwind of destruction all of a sudden, the new guy is knocking the toughest regulars cold as fast as they can come at him.  

What do the regulars do? Team up and all teach the new guy a lesson?   Or are they too preoccupied with their personal grudges and squabbles?

If the former, the whole fight gets played through and either the PC leaves the regulars unconscious or just plain given up (or fights his way out ofbthe place), or they bear him down by weight of numbers.

If the latter, the rest of the fight is just a backdrop, only the patrons that actually emerge from it to take on the PC get resolved under the minion rubric, the rest is narrated (and it doesn't matter if some of those who do take him on may already have battered in the narration of that backdrop of a barfight or not - not needing to track such things is part of the point, it speeds up the combat and reduces the bookkeeping burden on the DM, if it's also a little more abstract, well, the system it's appended too is likely pretty abstract, already).


----------



## Tony Vargas

Fenris-77 said:


> People understand the mechanics and there were probably saves or something involved. But when there isn't that comfortable buffer of mechanics to fall back on people treat the whole thing very differently, which I also find very interesting, since the difference in actual effect is minimal to nonexistent ...



You might also find there's resistance to adding mechanics to cover something of the sort, or even to applying existing mechanics.  

For instance,  if there's a mechanic to tell or detect lies, a player who invokes such a mechanic to confirm his suspicion an NPC is lying, and fails, may continue on the assumption of falsehood, because he failed. 


> Say you did all the rolling behind a screen, all the saves and whatever, and then just narrated the effect. I suspect you'd get a ton of push back about it that



 Depends on the expectations and conventions of the group. Back in the day, rolling a lot of stuff behind the screen, or calling for rolls without explaining what they were until the result was known (a 20? Ouch, that can't be under your DEX!  A 1? Ouch, failed that save!) was SOP.



> There's something in there that's key to the RPG experience but I can't quite put my finger on it.



 Good faith, maybe?




Maxperson said:


> I didn't provide a crazy example, but to answer your question, it would be a valid reason and here's why.  Sometimes people who have flaws can just overcome those urges.  Now, if the player is doing it all the time and/or only at times when it would be detrimental to the PC/party, then he's abusing the system



 Some systems are just open to abuse or limited in scope.  At that point, it's a matter of trust.

OTOH, some systems cover stuff like that.  For instance, if you decide to impose an RP limitation on your character on Hero, you get points back for defining it as a psychological limitation (which, ironically,  is not technically a limitation, but a disadvantage). Depending on how many points you take, you may be able to make a check to overcome your issues and act rationally in spite if them.  And, related mechanics can model outside influences, as well.



> No, it's not flawed. It just requires that the player not play in bad faith.



 Or, yes it is flawed, or just limited in scope, or running aground on expectations, but if you're all playing in good faith, you can still reach a reasonable resolution.


----------



## pemerton

hawkeyefan said:


> 4E Probably has the most because it essentially shed the distinction of “because magic” and just had all kinds of abilities that could inflict a status on a character, whether the source was arcane or martial or divine, etc. didn’t matter all that much. So 4E allowed for more examples by basically treating more actions the same as magic.



That second sentence has the potential to be controversial! I'd put it this way: the designers realised that the relationship between a certain sort of mechanical design, and the infiction category _magic_, is contingent and a matter of aesthetics.

So for a brief period D&D design caught up to Greg Stafford c 1989! (I'm referring there to Prince Valiant, of course - the most undeservedly neglected FRPG there is. I don't get the contrasting degree of widespread love for Pendragon.)


----------



## pemerton

Maxperson said:


> Seriously?  You don't see that it's dictating the response of warming the heart?  That precludes greater and lesser responses that I might want to give for my PC.





Maxperson said:


> Why?



I think you'll find that the answer to these two questions is the same!

 [MENTION=6785785]hawkeyefan[/MENTION] and I are wondering what you envisage _melting someone's heart_ as requiring or dictating.


----------



## Maxperson

Tony Vargas said:


> Some systems are just open to abuse or limited in scope.  At that point, it's a matter of trust.




All of them are.  Trust is necessary with any game.  I have yet to see a game where cheating can't happen.



> OTOH, some systems cover stuff like that.  For instance, if you decide to impose an RP limitation on your character on Hero, you get points back for defining it as a psychological limitation (which, ironically,  is not technically a limitation, but a disadvantage). Depending on how many points you take, you may be able to make a check to overcome your issues and act rationally in spite if them.  And, related mechanics can model outside influences, as well.




Which is fine.  I'm all for rewards and other encouragement to engage in that sort of roleplay.



> Or, yes it is flawed, or just limited in scope, or running aground on expectations, but if you're all playing in good faith, you can still reach a reasonable resolution.




If you're playing in good faith, it runs quite well and is not a flawed system.  If you have someone who is playing in bad faith, the system still is not flawed.  The person playing in bad faith is the flaw.


----------



## Maxperson

pemerton said:


> I think you'll find that the answer to these two questions is the same!




No.  I'm talking about having the PC engage in an action(not the mechanical term related to combat), which has absolutely nothing to do with conditions.  It was an absurd comment, as is your response here.



> @_*hawkeyefan*_ and I are wondering what you envisage _melting someone's heart_ as requiring or dictating.




So you guys have been saying that if the DM says, "The woman winks at you and melts your heart," I can just say, "No she doesn't, it has no effect on me at all?"  If that's the case, then I have no real objection. I just haven't seen any indication that the above is what you guys are saying.  You should be more clear.


----------



## Nagol

Maxperson said:


> I'm okay with that, but only as long as the DM is not playing my PC at all.  The DM can never know my PC as well as I do, and I don't want the frustration of seeing him play my PC wrong time and time again, which is what will happen if he is allowed to play my PC.
> 
> The example being used is a good one.  "The woman winks at you and melts your heart" has just dictated exactly how the PC responds to the wink.




I remember a Champions game I was a player in.  My PC had the Physical Limitation: Can't read.  Almost every session (until I stopped), the GM framed a scene with me reading a book or at the library helping another character research through texts etc.  He could not remember that the PC simply could not participate in that way.  And that was something not subtle nor general.  Of course GMs will get stuff 'wrong' about PC motivations, preferences, and expectations especially since many of the ideas may never have been discussed at all.


----------



## pemerton

Maxperson said:


> So you guys have been saying that if the DM says, "The woman winks at you and melts your heart," I can just say, "No she doesn't, it has no effect on me at all?"



No. We're asking you what action you think is required on your PC's part. At least I am. (And I'm pretty sure the same is true for [MENTION=6785785]hawkeyefan[/MENTION].)

_My heart being melted_ isn't an action. It's an emotional state. What action do you think is required/dictated by that state?


----------



## hawkeyefan

Maxperson said:


> I didn't provide a crazy example, but to answer your question, it would be a valid reason and here's why.  Sometimes people who have flaws can just overcome those urges.  Now, if the player is doing it all the time and/or only at times when it would be detrimental to the PC/party, then he's abusing the system and would need to be talked to after the game.  If it's just once in a while, then it's fine.




Sorry, the highly specific example of having found out in play that 6 of her 7 husbands had vanished seemed a bit unlikely as a reason why the wink would not affect your character as opposed to something more routine like the character resisting the urge to give in to a pretty face. That’s all I meant.

The latter part of your comment is what I’m getting at. This kind of stuff absolutely falls to the group’s shared expectations for the game and the like. And it may go perfectly fine that way. I think it’s more likely with a longstanding hroup of players who’ve established trust, as [MENTION=177]Umbran[/MENTION] mentioned. 

But, absent a group of players being together for years, such rules can replace that trust. They establish what can happen and when and how, and so in. They can provide a clear process for how such interactions are handled. 

Again, this all depends on the game and the mechanics, and with 5E D&D it’s left up to the group pretty much entirely.



Maxperson said:


> No, it's not flawed.  It just requires that the player not play in bad faith.




Semantics. It’s a weak point meaning it’s subject to abuse through bad faith play. It’s the same thing. 



Maxperson said:


> Why?




Because you claimed that a Melted Heart dictated exactly what happened. But since the phrase “melted heart” is kind of vague, I figure I’d check the Condition descriptions to see the exact effects.


----------



## hawkeyefan

Maxperson said:


> All of them are. Trust is necessary with any game. I have yet to see a game where cheating can't happen.
> 
> Which is fine. I'm all for rewards and other encouragement to engage in that sort of roleplay.
> 
> If you're playing in good faith, it runs quite well and is not a flawed system. If you have someone who is playing in bad faith, the system still is not flawed. The person playing in bad faith is the flaw.




Well all systems have flaws and are subject to abuse of one kind or another. My point is that the Flaws in 5E are flawed because it’s purely incentive based to have a player actually roleplay the Flaw in any meaningful way. If he does so, he gets Inspiration. That’s it. So no matter what else comes up, no matter how closely it may fit the character’s Flaw (or Traits, Bond, or Ideals, really) the player can always simply ignore it, and all that happens is he is not awarded Inspiration.

As a system designed to inspire roleplay, this seems very limited to me. Yes, some players will “play in good faith” as you describe it and they’ll embrace their Flaws and all the complications they may bring. Others won’t. Does that mean they’re “playing in bad faith”? I don’t know. It’s certainly not cheating given the rules as presented....but it seems a bit weaselly to me. “I’ll only acknowledge this drawback if I feel like it”....just doesn’t really do it for me. 




Maxperson said:


> No.  I'm talking about having the PC engage in an action(not the mechanical term related to combat), which has absolutely nothing to do with conditions.  It was an absurd comment, as is your response here.




I think I’ve clarified now....It was just a joke to prove my point. 



Maxperson said:


> So you guys have been saying that if the DM says, "The woman winks at you and melts your heart," I can just say, "No she doesn't, it has no effect on me at all?"  If that's the case, then I have no real objection. I just haven't seen any indication that the above is what you guys are saying.  You should be more clear.




Well the thing is the wink scenario was broadly presented, and with no specific system in mind. So I’ve been trying to discuss it in that broad kind of “any game” context, assuming relevant mechanics. The specific outcome was also not established, and I think that and other relevant fictional factors would have a part to play. 

I wouldn’t assume a wink would have the effect of a charm spell.....seems extreme. I think I gave an example not long ago of the winking maiden then asking the PC to help kill the king being unlikely, but to buy her a meal seems perfectly reasonable.

However, this would really all depend on the system in place.


----------



## pemerton

Upthread the notion of _roleplaying_ - what it is, what it isn't - was raised.

The closest to a consensus position that was put forward was that it involved _playing the role of a character in a fictional world_. In a RPG, there is an additional element of _advocacy _for the character on account of it being a _game_, where the participants therefore in some sense aspire to do well.

A number of posters - with [MENTION=6795602]FrogReaver[/MENTION] in the forefront - seem to take it that (at least in the context of RPGing) roleplaying also involves or requires _establishing and maintaining a conception of the character one is playing_.

I'm curious about this. Is this a particularly strong or focused version of _advocacy_? Something else?

And why are PC emotional states such a focus of discussion in relation to it? If my character is Conan the Barbarian, who - as we all know - "came . . . black-haired, sullen eyed, sword in hand, a thief, a reaver, a slayer, with gigantic melancholies and gigantic mirth, to tread the jeweled thrones of the Earth under his sandalled feet", then maybe being a throne-treader is more central to my character conception than exercising control over my character's melancholies and mirths (and lusts, for that matter).

And going back to advocacy - isn't one typical feature of RPG play to _test the player's conception of his/her PC_? Am I really as righteous as I think? As resistant to temptation? As capable of conquest?

There are any number of ways a game can test such things. But it's not clear why the arena for testing should, on some principled ground, exclude the emotional life of the PC but not his/her physical life.


----------



## Maxperson

hawkeyefan said:


> Sorry, the highly specific example of having found out in play that 6 of her 7 husbands had vanished seemed a bit unlikely as a reason why the wink would not affect your character as opposed to something more routine like the character resisting the urge to give in to a pretty face. That’s all I meant.




I read about that sort of thing happening on pretty much an annual basis, often multiple times.  Maybe not 7 times, but black widows aren't a crazy example.  There are also other things that can influence reactions.  I was working retail in a corporate store many years ago.  One of the models came down to the department I was working in and was flirting with me.  While the flirting was going on a kid who was maybe 4 walked by with his mother.  The model took note of them and said in a very serious tone, "I just hate kids.  When they bother me, it makes me want to drown them."  And just like that there was no attraction left whatsoever and pretty much nothing could have brought it back.  Deal breakers are very common and don't have to be major like a black widow.



> Because you claimed that a Melted Heart dictated exactly what happened. But since the phrase “melted heart” is kind of vague, I figure I’d check the Condition descriptions to see the exact effects.




Melted heart was actually a misstatement on my part.  I believe the example is warmed heart, which is not quite as extreme, yet still a bit vague.  What it does imply, though, is that my PC likes this woman to some degree, which is not necessarily where I would take my PC, and could in fact be where I don't want my PC to go.  The DM isn't in tune enough with a character to make that kind of decision for one.



> Well all systems have flaws and are subject to abuse of one kind or another. My point is that the Flaws in 5E are flawed because it’s purely incentive based to have a player actually roleplay the Flaw in any meaningful way. If he does so, he gets Inspiration. That’s it. So no matter what else comes up, no matter how closely it may fit the character’s Flaw (or Traits, Bond, or Ideals, really) the player can always simply ignore it, and all that happens is he is not awarded Inspiration.





Yes, all systems are flawed.  I didn't go there, because I figured that wouldn't be useful or clarifying, and figured that since you'd be aware of that, you probably meant serious or major flaws.  I don't see the 5e system as having serious or major flaws.  It may not go as far as I would prefer on encouraging this sort of roleplay, but that's a personal preference and not indicative of a flaw on 5e's part.

I look at 5e's system as being light so as to just kinds put into the minds of new players ideas on how to roleplay and create characters with flaws and personality traits.  I think it's deliberately weak in order to allow the game to work with various playstyles.  




> As a system designed to inspire roleplay, this seems very limited to me. Yes, some players will “play in good faith” as you describe it and they’ll embrace their Flaws and all the complications they may bring. Others won’t. Does that mean they’re “playing in bad faith”? I don’t know. It’s certainly not cheating given the rules as presented....but it seems a bit weaselly to me. “I’ll only acknowledge this drawback if I feel like it”....just doesn’t really do it for me.




I think that if the players are using the system and a player is always avoiding by virtue of "I just happen to resist this time." when the chips are down and it's tough to roleplay, that's acting in bad faith.  It depends on the group and what they decide to use.  Some won't use flaws and such at all.  Others will say use them if you want, when you want.  Others will have the expectation that these things will be roleplayed.  It's really the last group where the bad faith can rear up.


----------



## Lanefan

pemerton said:


> The example of a NPC maiden softening a PC's heart with a wink came from you. So what system did _you_ have in mind? I don't think the onus is on me to flesh out your example! If you think your example is underspecified then flesh it out yourself!
> 
> In the OP I put forward, as a description a PC's action, _I soften the heart of the maiden with a wink_.



And as that also has no context or mechanical references to back it up, neither - quite intentionally - does my reverse example.

In fact, that was my whole point in making that example: a player trying to affect an NPC should be bound by the same strictures as a GM trying to affect a PC in the same way.  In the original example, the PC declares both the action (the wink) and the outcome (the softened heart) without the NPC getting a chance to resist as a) no mechanics are referenced and b) the wording is phrased as a statement of fact rather than an attempt, or a question - it's a done deal.  

So why, I asked myself, is this sort of thing acceptable in one direction but not the reverse; and so I put the reverse example out there to bring this to light.



> Systems I can think of where that is a permissible action declaration include Prince Valiant (probably a check on Presence + Glamourie; it might also be done by using a Storyteller's Certificate to Incite Lust as a special effect), Marvel Heroic RP/Cortex+ Heroic (a check intended to inflict a Complication, or perhaps Emotional or Mental Stress, depending on context and further elaboration), Maelstrom Storytelling (I think I got the example from a rulebook example of a Quick Take), 4th ed D&D if the table is in the right mood (it would be a CHA check, or in the right context perhaps a Bluff or even a Diplomacy check - 4e is not super-prescriptive in respect of what skills can be used to do what), even Burning Wheel or Rolemaster if the setting/genre is not too grim (a Seduction check). I can't remember the scope of Seduction in The Dying Earth but I wouldn't be surprised if it covers this sort of thing also.



And every single one of those examples references a game mechanic that ends up determining whether the heart is in fact softened or not; and that's fine.

But the original example did not.  The NPC's reaction was simply narrated as a part of the action declaration, implying said reaction was a fait accompli and somehow bypassed game mechanics entirely.


----------



## Maxperson

pemerton said:


> Upthread the notion of _roleplaying_ - what it is, what it isn't - was raised.
> 
> The closest to a consensus position that was put forward was that it involved _playing the role of a character in a fictional world_. In a RPG, there is an additional element of _advocacy _for the character on account of it being a _game_, where the participants therefore in some sense aspire to do well.
> 
> A number of posters - with @_*FrogReaver*_ in the forefront - seem to take it that (at least in the context of RPGing) roleplaying also involves or requires _establishing and maintaining a conception of the character one is playing_.
> 
> I'm curious about this. Is this a particularly strong or focused version of _advocacy_? Something else?
> 
> And why are PC emotional states such a focus of discussion in relation to it? If my character is Conan the Barbarian, who - as we all know - "came . . . black-haired, sullen eyed, sword in hand, a thief, a reaver, a slayer, with gigantic melancholies and gigantic mirth, to tread the jeweled thrones of the Earth under his sandalled feet", then maybe being a throne-treader is more central to my character conception than exercising control over my character's melancholies and mirths (and lusts, for that matter).
> 
> And going back to advocacy - isn't one typical feature of RPG play to _test the player's conception of his/her PC_? Am I really as righteous as I think? As resistant to temptation? As capable of conquest?
> 
> There are any number of ways a game can test such things. But it's not clear why the arena for testing should, on some principled ground, exclude the emotional life of the PC but not his/her physical life.




Why do you think that people here are saying that emotional life of the PC should be excluded from testing?  I find such tests to often be more engaging than the physical ones.


----------



## Lanefan

pemerton said:


> I don't understand what your example has to do with minion rules.
> 
> Minion rules are a mechanical device in some systems (4e D&D perhaps most famously, but certainly not exclusively) for adjudicating declared actions (in 4e D&D, mostly fight-y actions) by players for their PCs. If your ingame inhabitant sees her doughty working people cut down with little trouble by Conan and friends, where is the inconsistency?
> 
> _Consistency_ is a property of, and often a virtue of, a fiction. *Minion rules* are a device for establishing the content of a shared RPG fiction in certain contexts. If you mis-use the rules you might get poor fiction. Likewise in Moldvay Basic if you misuse the rules for DEX checks - eg require a DEX check every 10' to avoid the PCs falling down like Charlie Chaplin on a bad day - you'll get stupid fiction. But everyone knows that that's not how you use DEX checks.
> 
> Mutatis mutandis for minion rules.



When a PC is around, minions have 1 h.p.  When there's no PC around, they have h.p. suitable to whatever creature type they are.

A bar full of minion brawlers can have an ordinary bar fight without a PC present, but once a PC shows up things get weird because the very presence of the PC changes the mechanics for all those minions.  Consistency, meanwhile, flies off across the lake...

In response to [MENTION=6795602]FrogReaver[/MENTION] you say:



> I don't really follow the detail of this. My take away - drawing in part on your earlier posts - is that you don't like a system which permits some mechanism to establish a PC's emotion other than player decision, unless that mechanism correlates to or gives expression to an in-fiction thing that bears the label magic.



For me at least, the point is not one of dislike of such effects where there's a mechanism, it's one of dislike of situations where the effects happen with NO mechanism.


----------



## Lanefan

hawkeyefan said:


> I have no problem with D&D. I love D&D....I play it all the time. But this is an area of play that doesn’t seem to be a focal point for D&D. A PC being influenced by an NPC in some mechanical way....are there any examples that don’t involve magic? I’m trying to come up with some, and the only thing I can think of is Surprise in combat, but nothing else.



The first one that leaps to my mind are 4e forced-movement (push-pull-slide) effects in combat; and trample/pushback rules in earlier editions.  And traps, where an NPC actually sets them off just at the right moment.  But those are physical effects, though still mechanical in nature.

A PC being mentally influenced without magic - Intimidate, Bluff, and Persuasion skills can try, if a DM has the stones to do it.  But after that, there's not much.


----------



## FrogReaver

pemerton said:


> No. We're asking you what action you think is required on your PC's part. At least I am. (And I'm pretty sure the same is true for @_*hawkeyefan*_.)
> 
> _My heart being melted_ isn't an action. It's an emotional state. What action do you think is required/dictated by that state?




Yes it is an action.


----------



## Lanefan

pemerton said:


> Upthread the notion of _roleplaying_ - what it is, what it isn't - was raised.
> 
> The closest to a consensus position that was put forward was that it involved _playing the role of a character in a fictional world_. In a RPG, there is an additional element of _advocacy _for the character on account of it being a _game_, where the participants therefore in some sense aspire to do well.
> 
> A number of posters - with [MENTION=6795602]FrogReaver[/MENTION] in the forefront - seem to take it that (at least in the context of RPGing) roleplaying also involves or requires _establishing and maintaining a conception of the character one is playing_.
> 
> I'm curious about this. Is this a particularly strong or focused version of _advocacy_? Something else?



Something else, I think: without a conception of the character one is trying to portray to base said portrayal on, one's portrayal risks being inconsistent and-or conflicted.  The advocacy then comes from the portrayal, as informed by the concept.



> And why are PC emotional states such a focus of discussion in relation to it? If my character is Conan the Barbarian, who - as we all know - "came . . . black-haired, sullen eyed, sword in hand, a thief, a reaver, a slayer, with gigantic melancholies and gigantic mirth, to tread the jeweled thrones of the Earth under his sandalled feet", then maybe being a throne-treader is more central to my character conception than exercising control over my character's melancholies and mirths (and lusts, for that matter).
> 
> And going back to advocacy - isn't one typical feature of RPG play to _test the player's conception of his/her PC_? Am I really as righteous as I think? As resistant to temptation? As capable of conquest?
> 
> There are any number of ways a game can test such things. But it's not clear why the arena for testing should, on some principled ground, exclude the emotional life of the PC but not his/her physical life.



Strange though it may sound, I agree with you here.  Character emotions very much should be fair game for testing.

But testing, not manipulating.

"The maiden winks at you and tries to melt your heart" is a test, and a perfectly valid one at that.
"The maiden winks at you and melts your heart" is a manipulation.  See the difference?


----------



## Lanefan

FrogReaver said:


> Yes it is an action.




To be fussy, it's a reaction; which may lead to or cause subsequent actions to come from you/the PC.


----------



## Nagol

Lanefan said:


> The first one that leaps to my mind are 4e forced-movement (push-pull-slide) effects in combat; and trample/pushback rules in earlier editions.  And traps, where an NPC actually sets them off just at the right moment.  But those are physical effects, though still mechanical in nature.
> 
> A PC being mentally influenced without magic - Intimidate, Bluff, and Persuasion skills can try, if a DM has the stones to do it.  But after that, there's not much.




1e has a bunch.  Loyalty of henchman has a variety of mechanical triggers a PC can manipulate.  Morale of opponents is often manipulated in games of 1e I run.  Reactions of NPCs can occasionally be twiddled with through circumstance and previous knowledge of the character and motivations of the NPC.


----------



## FrogReaver

Lanefan said:


> To be fussy, it's a reaction; which may lead to or cause subsequent actions to come from you/the PC.




every action is a reaction...


----------



## billd91

pemerton said:


> I don't quite know what you mean by "direct test".
> 
> Here's the full text of the Seduce/Manipulate move in Apocalypse World (p 87), although with some paragraph breaks interpolated:
> 
> When you* try to seduce or manipulate someone*, tell them what you want and roll+hot.
> 
> For NPCs: on a hit, they ask you to promise something first, and do it if you promise. On a 10+, whether you keep your promise is up to you, later. On a 7–9, they need some concrete assurance right now.
> 
> For PCs: on a 10+, both. On a 7–9, choose 1:
> • _if they do it, they mark experience_
> • _if they refuse, it’s acting under fire_
> What they do then is up to them.​
> This is player vs player, not GM vs player, but I would assume that your principle is meant to generalise to that case too. The roll here is all on one side: with a successful check, I can bring it about that your PC is under a mechanical penalty ("acting under fire") if they don't do what I tell them I want them to do.
> 
> Does that satisfy your _direct test_ requirement?




Yeah, I'd say so. Players/GM is directly testing that particular unknown (how the PC will react) with a defined way to make that decision.


----------



## Umbran

FrogReaver said:


> every action is a reaction...




No.  A character can and will on occasion take an action that is not in response to something that went before.  As an example, my sitting to look at EN World this evening was not a reaction to anything.  I just chose to do so at this time.


----------



## FrogReaver

Umbran said:


> No.  A character can and will on occasion take an action that is not in response to something that went before.  As an example, my sitting to look at EN World this evening was not a reaction to anything.  I just chose to do so at this time.




yes it was.  I cannot tell you of what, because I do not pretend to be omniscient.  but it was a reaction


----------



## Tony Vargas

Maxperson said:


> Yes there is such a thing as abuse of DM authority in 5e.  Here are the roles of the DM from the 5e DMG.
> 
> "...And as a referee, the DM interprets the rules and decides* when to abide by them and when to change them."*
> 
> There is no rule that says the DM gets to run my PC for me.  Nor is that part of his roles.



 You quoted it: the DM has carte blanche to change the rules.  He wants to "run your character" he can.

More to the point, as in the earlier examples of the OP, DMs have routinely, in describing the results of success or failure, filled in PC actions, reactions and responses.


----------



## Maxperson

Tony Vargas said:


> You quoted it: the DM has carte blanche to change the rules.  He wants to "run your character" he can.
> 
> More to the point, as in the earlier examples of the OP, DMs have routinely, in describing the results of success or failure, filled in PC actions, reactions and responses.




Soooo, that's not a rule that says the DM can run my character.  At all.  That's a rule that says that the DM can create house rules, and nobody is disputing that the DM can create house rules.  House rules, though, have no place in a discussion about rules, and there are no rules that say the DM can run my character.


----------



## FrogReaver

pemerton said:


> Upthread the notion of _roleplaying_ - what it is, what it isn't - was raised.
> 
> The closest to a consensus position that was put forward was that it involved _playing the role of a character in a fictional world_. In a RPG, there is an additional element of _advocacy _for the character on account of it being a _game_, where the participants therefore in some sense aspire to do well.
> 
> A number of posters - with @_*FrogReaver*_ in the forefront - seem to take it that (at least in the context of RPGing) roleplaying also involves or requires _establishing and maintaining a conception of the character one is playing_.




I think when you put it that way it's a fairly common view.  For many people that's precisely roleplaying in an RPG is all about.  They may not be able to put their view into words sufficiently well to answer all questions about it.  I couldn't at the start of this thread.  I am better at that now.



> I'm curious about this. Is this a particularly strong or focused version of _advocacy_? Something else?




Per your definition of advocacy above it's not about advocacy at all.  Establishing and maintaining a conception of the character I'm playing has nothing to do with aspiring for that character to do well.  

It's something else.  Something much deeper.  

Consider this, I have a character with 6 int.  I constantly am playing up that 6 int and putting my character in bad situations.  So while I advocate for the character, for example when presented with 2 courses of action I think are equally likely for my PC I will tend to pick either the one that will be more fun for the group or the one that will be better for him.  But barring that extreme case, the PC get's roleplayed in such a way that his flaws put him in bad situations without any need mechanics at all.

So getting back to the question, what is with the idea that Roleplaying in an RPG involves or requires maintaining character conception?  IMO that character conception is how I as a player know what I'm roleplaying.  That's not saying every detail of my character concept is worked out at the start of the game.  Some of my character conception is emergent and evolves with the game as well.  But without that character conception I have no idea what I'm actually trying to roleplay.  That's why it's so important to roleplaying in an RPG.

So if something forces my character to do something that doesn't line up with my conception, it ends up being a startling realization that the character concept that I was trying to roleplay doesn't actually exist in this game.



> And why are PC emotional states such a focus of discussion in relation to it? If my character is Conan the Barbarian, who - as we all know - "came . . . black-haired, sullen eyed, sword in hand, a thief, a reaver, a slayer, with gigantic melancholies and gigantic mirth, to tread the jeweled thrones of the Earth under his sandalled feet", then maybe being a throne-treader is more central to my character conception than exercising control over my character's melancholies and mirths (and lusts, for that matter).




In Conan's case both things would be intergral to the Conan character concept.  If the GM managed to force Conan to do something that the player envisioned the Conan character wouldn't do then the GM just broke that player's character concept - which brings with it a startling realization that the character you thought you were playing doesn't actually exist.



> And going back to advocacy - isn't one typical feature of RPG play to _test the player's conception of his/her PC_? Am I really as righteous as I think? As resistant to temptation? As capable of conquest?




I don't think so.  RPG mechanics exist for a few reasons (of which testing a player's conception of his/her PC isn't one).  The closest reason to your suggested feature is to resolve uncertainty - which is not directly related to testing the player's conception of his/her PC.  



> There are any number of ways a game can test such things. But it's not clear why the arena for testing should, on some principled ground, exclude the emotional life of the PC but not his/her physical life.




If the goal isn't to test a players concept of their PC (as I believe that would make a strange reason for a mechanic in an RPG) but rather to resolve uncertainty then the principled ground is: "there is no uncertainty in how my PC reacts to the maidens wink, he ignores her because a woman that easy isn't worth his time".


----------



## Umbran

FrogReaver said:


> yes it was.  I cannot tell you of what, because I do not pretend to be omniscient.  but it was a reaction




Dude, repeating the assertion without support does not make me (or, I expect, most of this audience) more likely to accept it.  Nor does it make it true.  You should either back it up with some reasoning, or abandon it.

Absolutes (like "all") are tricksy things.  They often lead to extreme ends.  I am of the sneaking suspicion that your position will be found to be non-falsifiable, or quite possibly equivalent to there being no free will, or both.   The former is uninteresting to discuss, and the latter is pointless (kind of by definition - if there is no free will, discussing *anything* has as much purpose as discussing with a brick wall).


----------



## FrogReaver

Umbran said:


> Dude, repeating the assertion without support does not make me (or, I expect, most of this audience) more likely to accept it.  Nor does it make it true.  You should either back it up with some reasoning, or abandon it.
> 
> Absolutes (like "all") are tricksy things.  They often lead to extreme ends.  I am of the sneaking suspicion that your position will be found to be non-falsifiable, or quite possibly equivalent to there being no free will, or both.   The former is uninteresting to discuss, and the latter is pointless (kind of by definition - if there is no free will, discussing *anything* has as much purpose as discussing with a brick wall).




Free will is not mutually exclusive with everything having a cause.

nor is discussion pointless even without free will - it can always be that this discussion was the pre-ordained one that will change your mind.


----------



## aramis erak

Maxperson said:


> So what.  Word games like this don't alter my point.  Absent some sort of magic, mental control, truth serum or whatever, I still have total authority over my PCs decisions and feelings.




It's not wordgames.

If someone else can say, "no, you don't" on any aspect of your action, they YOU are not in control. If the GM can call for a roll to succeed, you have had control taken away. If the GM can fiat say, "you failed," again, you've lost control over the character's actions.

You're expressing a fundamental disbelief in one of the most important elements that makes RPGing different from other forms of improv... you don't have control over the character you play at all levels. You have only as much control as the system and GM allows you to have.

Part of the implicit social contract of play is that you have to cede control over some aspects of the character over to either dice or the GM (or both) in order to play.


----------



## Lanefan

Nagol said:


> 1e has a bunch.  Loyalty of henchman has a variety of mechanical triggers a PC can manipulate.  Morale of opponents is often manipulated in games of 1e I run.  Reactions of NPCs can occasionally be twiddled with through circumstance and previous knowledge of the character and motivations of the NPC.



All true, but those are PCs influencing NPCs.  We're looking for examples of the less-common reverse, where NPCs can influence PCs without magic.


----------



## Lanefan

aramis erak said:


> It's not wordgames.
> 
> If someone else can say, "no, you don't" on any aspect of your action, they YOU are not in control. If the GM can call for a roll to succeed, you have had control taken away.



Actually, no you haven't.  You always had - and still have - control over the action declaration, and when to make it, and how; but any action declaration is merely an attempt to do or change something in the fiction and is thus not invalidated by either success or failure thereof.  But you don't have - and never had - control over what the the outcome might be*, thus the GM calling for a roll doesn't change your level of control.



> If the GM can fiat say, "you failed," again, you've lost control over the character's actions.



This, on the other hand, does change the level of control in that the attempt has been rendered invalid at source: you've lost control of your ability to make a valid attempt to do (or affect) something in the fiction.

* - though you might have some control over things that might influence the outcome or change the odds - anything from plot bennies to bonus dice to magic items to whatever.


----------



## Nagol

Lanefan said:


> All true, but those are PCs influencing NPCs.  We're looking for examples of the less-common reverse, where NPCs can influence PCs without magic.




Assuming psionics are considered relabelled magic then I got nothing pre 4e.  Early 4e had at least one martial manoeuvre that moved a PC without forced movement, but got somewhat patched up to allow player refusal.  D&D has always allowed the player complete control over emotional and intellectual motivations and reactions.

Specific adventures, written as inconsistently as they were, might have a few examples of NPCs with persuasiveness so good it acts as if it were magic.  Typical attempts to manipulate PCs in D&D rely on circumstance and situation, like telling the players that the widows and orphans will die in 1d6+1 rounds and thus they'll lose their mission bonus unless they are rescued first.  It hasn't mechanically represented personality or motivation in game in a way to test it and specifically exempts PCs from those tests NPCs face -- like morale, intimidation, et al.


----------



## daredevilxp9

totally agree


----------



## Maxperson

aramis erak said:


> If someone else can say, "no, you don't" on any aspect of your action, they YOU are not in control. If the GM can call for a roll to succeed, you have had control taken away. If the GM can fiat say, "you failed," again, you've lost control over the character's actions.




I haven't lost control of the character's action in that circumstance. I simply do not control the result.  My character still takes the action I desire, and the DM states the action failed.  I've never argued that I should have control over the result of the action.



> You're expressing a fundamental disbelief in one of the most important elements that makes RPGing different from other forms of improv... you don't have control over the character you play at all levels. You have only as much control as the system and GM allows you to have.
> 
> Part of the implicit social contract of play is that you have to cede control over some aspects of the character over to either dice or the GM (or both) in order to play.




No, that's not what I'm expressing.  You're just confusing the result of the action with the action itself.  They are two different things.  The DM cannot tell me that my character doesn't try and take a running jump over the Grand Canyon.  He can just tell me that I failed without allowing a roll, since it's an impossible feat to accomplish.  In many, if not most RPGs, the player has full control over his PC's actions.  I won't play the ones that don't allow full control for reasons that are not D&D, despite the failed attempts of some here to paint it that way.


----------



## Maxperson

Lanefan said:


> This, on the other hand, does change the level of control in that the attempt has been rendered invalid at source: you've lost control of your ability to make a valid attempt to do (or affect) something in the fiction.




I disagree.  Remember, [MENTION=6779310]aramis erak[/MENTION] is assuming a valid social contract, "Part of the implicit social contract of play is that you have to cede control over some aspects of the character over to either dice or the GM (or both) in order to play."   That means that the DM isn't going to be using that fiat to cause an attempt that has a chance to succeed to auto fail, as that would violate the social contract.  Telling the PC his character fails at an attempted task with no chance of success is not rendering the attempt invalid.  It's simply the proper response to the attempted action. ​


----------



## FrogReaver

[MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION]

i think there is a pre-step I’ve been missing that changes everything

in d&d I cannot role play the character that can never lose at combat as such a character isn’t supported by the rules of the game.  The pre- step is that I as a player don’t conceive of a character that the rules wouldn’t support

so in the case of the maiden winking melting my heart I can imagine a game that possesses such a mechanic so that I know not to conceive of a character possessing a trait that would be against said mechanic. 

Maybe that hat is the real crux of the issue.


----------



## FrogReaver

[MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION]

i think there is a pre-step I’ve been missing that changes everything

in d&d I cannot role play the character that can never lose at combat as such a character isn’t supported by the rules of the game.  The pre- step is that I as a player don’t conceive of a character that the rules wouldn’t support

so in the case of the maiden winking melting my heart I can imagine a game that possesses such a mechanic so that I know not to conceive of a character possessing a trait that would be against said mechanic. 

Maybe that hat is the real crux of the issue.


----------



## FrogReaver

FrogReaver said:


> @_*pemerton*_
> 
> i think there is a pre-step I’ve been missing that changes everything
> 
> in d&d I cannot role play the character that can never lose at combat as such a character isn’t supported by the rules of the game.  The pre- step is that I as a player don’t conceive of a character that the rules wouldn’t support
> 
> so in the case of the maiden winking melting my heart I can imagine a game that possesses such a mechanic so that I know not to conceive of a character possessing a trait that would be against said mechanic.
> 
> Maybe that hat is the real crux of the issue.



 [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION] 

I think this above is precisely what you have been saying about it being okay as long as their is a mechanic


----------



## Umbran

Lanefan said:


> All true, but those are PCs influencing NPCs.  We're looking for examples of the less-common reverse, where NPCs can influence PCs without magic.




You want one from outside D&D, perhaps?

Let's look at FATE.  Generally, in Fate-based games, social or mental conflicts are on the same mechanical basis as physical combat/conflict.  

As you take hits in conflict, you take stress.  If you run out of available stress boxes, you get "taken out".

You can shunt some stress into Consequences.  The player gets significant say in what the consequences are, but needs GM approval (largely to make sure they are appropriate severity).  But, you can only take so many Consequences.

To end the conflict, there are two choices:

First, someone may concede.  If the player (not the character, the player) concedes, they get to narrate the conditions of their loss, so long as they don't negate the fact that they lost.  So, for example, if it is a fight, the player can concede, and narrate how they get beaten, but escape out a window. The side that concedes can also end up with some Fate points to use later.

If nobody concedes, then someone will get Taken Out.  This is like conceding, except the *other guy* gets to narrate how you lose, within the scope of the conflict and social contract of the table.  If you are in a knife fight, and it isn't a "no PC-death" game, then if you get Taken Out, the other guy can say, "...and I kill the character."

So, if it is within the social contract of the table, you can imagine a party scoundrel-type getting into a social conflict with an attractive person at the inn - "Who seduces who?"  This could easily end with the narration that the PC is seduced, and in the morning they find that the key to the ancient treasure vault has been stolen from their pack.  No magic involved, but within the scope of the conflict, the PCs actions can be narrated by someone else, all within the rules.

The bottom line in this system is that if you don't want someone else narrating what happens to you, you do not fight to the last stress box.  If you soldier on, you are accepting any result within the scope of the conflict.


----------



## Nagol

Outside D&D there are a plethora of games where either the GM or other players can influence PC emotions, motivations, etc. or where other characters can without magic.  The major clue are mechanics that directly support an internal landscape.

Umbran lays out an example above though uses physical combat example when FATE also offers the same mechanics for social and mental combat.  An example social concession could be entering a depressed state and retiring your estate in the north conceding the rest of the social season to your rival.  A social 'take out' could be Marquise Isabelle de Merteuil's end in _Dangerous Liaisons_ (sans death of the other party).

Pendragon offers in-game tests of character so a character (PC or NPC) can offer a temptation the PC is forced to struggle with.  A player who wants a PC as pure as Galahad needs to struggle as much as someone who wants a PC a as good a fighter as Lancelot.

The key is mechanics must be in place.  Much like a PC conception generally cannot be "best fighter EVER" because the game rules and mechanics enforce constraints, conceptions like 'pure as the driven snow'  'entirely chaste', or 'only attracted to gingers' should simply be accepted as unchallengeable in systems without constraint.  Without a way to challenge a conception, the player's view should simply win.

Just as a player can object when a DM uses fiat to ignore combat mechanics in inflict a state on a PC, a player can object when a GM attempts to use fiat to impose a state not touched upon by the game mechanics.


----------



## Umbran

Nagol said:


> The key is mechanics must be in place.




That is the easiest way to manage it.  And, if you are thinking in terms of publishing a game, yeah, you should have mechanics for things you expect to happen in play.

But, with sufficient trust among the people at the table, you don't *need* mechanics to do these things.  The mechanics give us a basis of trust, but it not the only basis available in the world.


----------



## Tony Vargas

Maxperson said:


> Soooo, that's not a rule that says the DM can run my character.  At all.



 To be even clearer:  Narrating the results of actions give the DM more than adequate latitude to 'run your character' - describe action he takes as part of or reactions he has to those results.



> That's a rule that says that the DM can create house rules



Not just in the sense of formally introducing a variant at the start of play, but in the sense of overriding or changing any rule, at any time.  It's carte blanche.







Umbran said:


> discussing *anything* has as much purpose as discussing with a brick wall).



Say, you have spent a lot of time on on-line forums, haven't you?    



Nagol said:


> Assuming psionics are considered relabelled magic then I got nothing pre 4e.



Interaction skills worked on PCs in 3e, bluff & sense motive would come up a lot IIRC, and in 4e and, to the extent skills work independently of the DM's judgement at all, in 5e, I suppose. 

1e had a morale system and PCs were exempted from it.  Apart from that, specific immunities don't leap to mind.  I wonder if the impression that D&D characters' emotional and mental state are sacrosanct (except magic, as always) derives from that hoary exemption?



Nagol said:


> Outside D&D there are a plethora of games where either the GM or other players can influence PC emotions, motivations, etc. or where other characters can without magic.  The major clue are mechanics that directly support an internal landscape.



Nod.  And that really should bring the digression to rest.

But the OP still stands:  regardless of system, it's been common for GMs to narrate things PCs think/feel or do (examples given in OP).  We can justify that by saying that they might involve/reveal things not evident to the player at the time of his action declaration, or simply for convenience to keep a description-declaration loop from going fractal and eating up too much table time, or whatever.  
But, it's certainly familiar - enraging to some players, helpful to others, though it may be.


----------



## Ovinomancer

FrogReaver said:


> [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION]
> 
> i think there is a pre-step I’ve been missing that changes everything
> 
> in d&d I cannot role play the character that can never lose at combat as such a character isn’t supported by the rules of the game.  The pre- step is that I as a player don’t conceive of a character that the rules wouldn’t support
> 
> so in the case of the maiden winking melting my heart I can imagine a game that possesses such a mechanic so that I know not to conceive of a character possessing a trait that would be against said mechanic.
> 
> Maybe that hat is the real crux of the issue.




Yes!  Although, you're too focused on mechanics.  Just the fact that your character is at stake in more ways that just dying in combat is the real crux.  Contests are just, "might my character die in this fight," but may be, "do I find out my character isn't who I thought they were at all?!"


----------



## Aldarc

Bobble said:


> ambiguous: doubtful or uncertain especially from obscurity or indistinctness.
> 
> NO it is NOT ambiguous at all.  That is how it is mostly done in RPGs.  The player decides  describes what his character is doing or trying to do. THEN the GM takes over and describes the results.



Apart from numerous RPGs that are exceptions to this, which have been mentioned previously in this thread. So we return to "ambiguous." 

Catching up on this thread after a weekend vacation: 



Fenris-77 said:


> As to the wink, I agree, there probably is a scenario where it makes sense, but it's going to be off the beaten track as far as systems go.



I don't necessarily think it's that unusual. Pemerton has mentioned this in the context of Prince Valiant/Pendragon and Cortex+. I am familiar with a similar idea in Monster Hearts (a PbtA game). Monster Hearts was really the game that opened my eye to this sort of thinking. You are playing teenage monsters and the like (think Twilight, Teen Wolf, etc.), but teenage sexuality also plays an important role for the game. One of the things that can happen is that while you may - with all your self-professed player "agency" - declare that your character is straight, you may also find yourself in a situation where you feel a sudden, unexpected romantic attraction to a NPC of the same sex. What now? How do you choose to react to that real emotional response? Your male character's heart just unexpected melted in the presence of another guy. 

To me, that's where the actual player agency lies. It lies in deciding how our characters choose to respond to their emotional and psychological urges rather than in deciding the particular emotional and psychological urges themselves. These feelings are not necessarily something that lie within the realm of agency, though your response to such scenarios would be. It's not as if human agency has some grandiose authorizing power over every emotional response or erection you feel. Well, only if you have a +100-year-old out-of-date notion of a mind-body duality in which somehow your moral agency is utterly divorced from psychosomatic and biological cognitive functions. 

Since [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] mentioned Pendragon, I would suspect that a lot of Arthurian courtly romantic complications could have been solved had Lancelot (et al) told the DM, "Nope, my heart doesn't melt for Guinevere, because I know that acting on that would have dire consequences for the kingdom and that it would involve me betraying my bro, Arthur." I think that gets close to [MENTION=16814]Ovinomancer[/MENTION]'s accurately glib comment about how this only transpires when there are potentially negative consequences that a player may want to ignore.


----------



## FrogReaver

Umbran said:


> That is the easiest way to manage it.  And, if you are thinking in terms of publishing a game, yeah, you should have mechanics for things you expect to happen in play.
> 
> But, with sufficient trust among the people at the table, you don't *need* mechanics to do these things.  The mechanics give us a basis of trust, but it not the only basis available in the world.




Or, the reason mecahnics are essential isn't because of trust, but rather that they set the boundaries for where you may freely conceptualize your character and boundaries for where you must refrain from conceptualizing any particular way.


----------



## Fenris-77

Well, yeah, that would be a great example of when that does happen. However, citing Pendragon and Monsterhearts isn't exactly the same as saying the thing is common. Moreover, the fact that those games do have mechanics about that is very much a part of the contract a player is agreeing to when they agree to play those games. Most RPGs don't have that inclination to representing affairs of the heart though, which is why the wink example seems so nonstandard or jarring to some people. If the example had been a noble's sneer inciting hatred, a laughing baby inciting happiness, or even a well turned calf inciting lust, I don't think it would have occasioned nearly so much commentary in this thread. Romance and love have a weird place in TTRPGs. It's cool to have examples of systems that do romance though. I've been meaning to check out Monsterhearts anyway, and now I have another reason to.


----------



## FrogReaver

Ovinomancer said:


> Yes!  Although, you're too focused on mechanics.  Just the fact that your character is at stake in more ways that just dying in combat is the real crux.  Contests are just, "might my character die in this fight," but may be, "do I find out my character isn't who I thought they were at all?!"




Not at all too focused on mechanics.  Without realizing it mechancis have always been the boundaries wherein I conceptualize a character.  If the mechanics simply don't support being the combat god that never loses then I won't conceptualize that I'm the combat god that never loses.  If the mechanics don't support me being able to react as I see fit to a maiden's charms then I will not make a character where that factor is important to my conceptualization of him.

On the flip side if a game doesn't have mechanics around having my heart melted by a maiden then I may have already decided to conceive of a character whose heart won't be melted by said maiden.  

So really it is all about the mechanics because they define the boundaries for character conceptualization playground that roleplaying in an RPG places us in.


----------



## FrogReaver

Fenris-77 said:


> Well, yeah, that would be a great example of when that does happen. However, citing Pendragon and Monsterhearts isn't exactly the same as saying the thing is common. Moreover, the fact that those games do have mechanics about that is very much a part of the contract a player is agreeing to when they agree to play those games. Most RPGs don't have that inclination to representing affairs of the heart though, which is why the wink example seems so nonstandard or jarring to some people. If the example had been a noble's sneer inciting hatred, a laughing baby inciting happiness, or even a well turned calf inciting lust, I don't think it would have occasioned nearly so much commentary in this thread.




It would have for me.  It's not about what emotion is being incited.  It's that absent mechanics (of which a DM conversation at session 0 suffices) that I have already conceptualized my PC and that conceptualizations reaction in that situation may 100% be different than the result the DM is citing.  With mechanics that scenario is entirely avoided.  Without them it's a jarring realization that I'm actually not playing the character I've been conceiving this whole time.


----------



## FrogReaver

Aldarc said:


> Apart from numerous RPGs that are exceptions to this, which have been mentioned previously in this thread. So we return to "ambiguous."




Hmmm...  I just created a game where no roleplaying is required.  I'm going to label it as an RPG.  I guess that means that RPG's don't require roleplaying afterall since now we can cite one where Roleplaying is not required   

The point is that the act of a person or company defining something as a roleplaying game has nothing to do with whether or not it is one, nor whether the mechanics it adopts are mechanics conducive to roleplaying or whether those mechanics would best be classified some other that.

In short - saying there's a roleplaying game where X is done is insufficient to show that X is a roleplaying mechanic or that the game in question is a roleplaying game..


----------



## Aldarc

Fenris-77 said:


> Well, yeah, that would be a great example of when that does happen. However, citing Pendragon and Monsterhearts isn't exactly the same as saying the thing is common.



I believe that other prior examples had already been offered where these things are not strictly the purview of the player, including some past discussion of Fate, for example. 



> Most RPGs don't have that inclination to representing affairs of the heart though, which is why the wink example seems so nonstandard or jarring to some people. If the example had been a noble's sneer inciting hatred, a laughing baby inciting happiness, or even a well turned calf inciting lust, I don't think it would have occasioned nearly so much commentary in this thread. Romance and love have a weird place in TTRPGs.



I'm not sure if it's a case of "most don't" or if it's just that the "elephant in the room doesn't." I also think that the problem with an argument of "most don't" is that it tries to downplay the frequency of those games that do. Does the the frequency need to be "most games" for it to challenge the idea that games (should) operate in particular ways regarding how emotional states can be induced in player characters? 



FrogReaver said:


> Hmmm...  *I just created a game where no roleplaying is required.*  I'm going to label it as an RPG.  I guess that means that RPG's don't require roleplaying afterall since now we can cite one where Roleplaying is not required
> 
> *The point is that the act of a person or company defining something as a roleplaying game has nothing to do with whether or not it is one, nor whether the mechanics it adopts are mechanics conducive to roleplaying or whether those mechanics would best be classified some other that.*
> 
> In short - saying there's a roleplaying game where X is done is insufficient to show that X is a roleplaying mechanic or that the game in question is a roleplaying game..



So basically you made D&D?

Joking aside, I would appreciate more sincerety than what your post represents. You yourself early on acknowledged in this thread that the games that were offered as counter-examples were roleplaying games. So it's a little too late for you to be glib about this now.


----------



## FrogReaver

Aldarc said:


> I believe that other prior examples had already been offered where these things are not strictly the purview of the player, including some past discussion of Fate, for example.
> 
> I'm not sure if it's a case of "most don't" or if it's just that the "elephant in the room doesn't." I also think that the problem with an argument of "most don't" is that it tries to downplay the frequency of those games that do. Does the the frequency need to be "most games" for it to challenge the idea that games (should) operate in particular ways regarding how emotional states can be induced in player characters?
> 
> So basically you made D&D?




You are definitely the first I've met that doesn't call D&D a roleplaying game...


----------



## FrogReaver

Aldarc said:


> Joking aside, I would appreciate more sincerety than what your post represents. You yourself early on acknowledged in this thread that the games that were offered as counter-examples were roleplaying games. So it's a little too late for you to be glib about this now.




You slid this comment in right as I replied and I didn't even notice it was there.

I think that most examples provided here are roleplaying games (I'm not familiar enough with all to know).  But That's not mutually exclusive with believing that a company calling a game a roleplaying game makes it so.

Nor does it mean that any given mechanic in such games is a roleplaying mechanic.  It may very well be that the mechanic in question hinders roleplaying instead of helping it along.


----------



## Aldarc

FrogReaver said:


> You are definitely the first I've met that doesn't call D&D a roleplaying game...



Hardly. (1) Matt Colville has referred to as a dressed-up tactical skirmish war-game. (2) John Wick (7th Sea, LotFR) has controversially said that D&D is not a roleplaying game. (3)@Morrus; (without taking sides) has discussed elsewhere the debates of the '90s between "rollplaying vs. roleplaying" which featured D&D as a common point of debate about its place as a roleplaying game. So no, I'm not the first who (joked) about D&D not being a game that potentially fits what you had said. 



FrogReaver said:


> I think that most examples provided here are roleplaying games (I'm not familiar enough with all to know).  But That's not mutually exclusive with believing that a company calling a game a roleplaying game makes it so.
> 
> Nor does it mean that any given mechanic in such games is a roleplaying mechanic.  It may very well be that the mechanic in question hinders roleplaying instead of helping it along.



And most of those examples, if not, all counter the proposition that I was responding to about roleplaying games. That's all.


----------



## Fenris-77

Aldarc said:


> I believe that other prior examples had already been offered where these things are not strictly the purview of the player, including some past discussion of Fate, for example.
> 
> I'm not sure if it's a case of "most don't" or if it's just that the "elephant in the room doesn't." I also think that the problem with an argument of "most don't" is that it tries to downplay the frequency of those games that do. Does the the frequency need to be "most games" for it to challenge the idea that games (should) operate in particular ways regarding how emotional states can be induced in player characters?



I didn't realize that we were having a conversation about 'should'. I thought we were having a conversation about what's common in RPGs, and thus what common experiences might be framing the responses we've seen in this thread. I am no way downplaying the games that do, or fronting my personal preferences, but that doesn't make them common. I'll make a declarative statement, just to be clear - _most TTRPGs do not deal with inculcating emotional states for roleplaying purposes in PCs period, especially related to romance, and almost none of them without an associated mechanic or rule_. I'm really not just talking about D&D here. 

Whether that should be more common in RPGs, and/or the value of it being more common, is not something I was addressing. Personally I like the fact that games in question are becoming more common.


----------



## FrogReaver

Aldarc said:


> Hardly. (1) Matt Colville has referred to as a dressed-up tactical skirmish war-game. (2) John Wick (7th Sea, LotFR) has controversially said that D&D is not a roleplaying game. (3)Tony Vargas (without taking sides) has discussed elsewhere the debates of the '90s between "rollplaying vs. roleplaying" which featured D&D as a common point of debate about its place as a roleplaying game. So no, I'm not the first who (joked) about D&D not being a game that potentially fits what you had said.
> 
> And most of those examples, if not, all counter the proposition that I was responding to about roleplaying games. That's all.




Ive not met any of them. Nor would I know who any of them are unless you told me


----------



## Bobble

Aldarc said:


> Apart from numerous RPGs that are exceptions to this, which have been mentioned previously in this thread. So we return to "ambiguous."




So, HOW is it ambiguous?  You have NOT stated how that is so


----------



## Ovinomancer

FrogReaver said:


> Not at all too focused on mechanics.  Without realizing it mechancis have always been the boundaries wherein I conceptualize a character.  If the mechanics simply don't support being the combat god that never loses then I won't conceptualize that I'm the combat god that never loses.  If the mechanics don't support me being able to react as I see fit to a maiden's charms then I will not make a character where that factor is important to my conceptualization of him.
> 
> On the flip side if a game doesn't have mechanics around having my heart melted by a maiden then I may have already decided to conceive of a character whose heart won't be melted by said maiden.
> 
> So really it is all about the mechanics because they define the boundaries for character conceptualization playground that roleplaying in an RPG places us in.




So, you're not too focused on the mechanics, but you determine your characterization by your focus on the mechanics.  All good, I guess.


----------



## FrogReaver

Ovinomancer said:


> So, you're not too focused on the mechanics, but you determine your characterization by your focus on the mechanics.  All good, I guess.




That's a very odd way to categorize what I just said.  Mechanics are simply boundaries for the characterization.  Beyond that they play no role.


----------



## Ovinomancer

FrogReaver said:


> That's a very odd way to categorize what I just said.  Mechanics are simply boundaries for the characterization.  Beyond that they play no role.




Yes, well, I thought it odd that you started by saying that you aren't focusing too much on mechanics and then talk about nothing but mechanics and how they enable your characterization and how you couldn't successfully characterize without knowing the mechanical boundaries.  I mean, yeah?  Weird.  

And, it completely doesn't address the point I initially made that you're too focused on mechanics, here.  It's less about how the game does game stuff and more about what you're willing to put at stake.  You're coming at it from the point of view of what you don't want at stake and then checking the mechanics to see if they do, indeed, protect these things -- if not, you adjust.  I'm saying you can put anything at stake.  Sure, the mechanics will influence how at stake things are, but you don't need permission -- which is what I'm saying.  You're still asking for the system to give permission or to tell you that you can't protect your PC in some areas.  That's too focused on the mechanics -- you've stepped in the right direction by recognizing that more can be at stake than just the health of your PC, but you're not across the line if you're still looking to game mechanics to tell if you such.  Take your fighter example.  You say you wouldn't play a fighter who's conception is that they can't be beaten in combat if the mechanics say you can.  I'm wondering why not?  Surely it's interesting to play a character that might fail to realize what they assumed was their core truth and now has to find a new way?  Or, maybe, they actually don't lose in combat, and they are the badass (or stupid lucky) that they believe themselves to be!  Risk _more_.


----------



## FrogReaver

Ovinomancer said:


> Yes, well, I thought it odd that you started by saying that you aren't focusing too much on mechanics and then talk about nothing but mechanics and how they enable your characterization and how you couldn't successfully characterize without knowing the mechanical boundaries.  I mean, yeah?  Weird.




Your throwing out a bit too much nuance there in order that you may paint my position as nonsense.  In fact, your leaving so much out I'm going to go ahead and label this a flat out mischaracterization...



> And, it completely doesn't address the point I initially made that you're too focused on mechanics, here.




Of course it did.  Making the point for why mechanics are necessary and speaking for their accurate role cannot be placing to much focus on them.  It's exactly the right amount of focus.



> It's less about how the game does game stuff and more about what you're willing to put at stake.  You're coming at it from the point of view of what you don't want at stake and then checking the mechanics to see if they do, indeed, protect these things -- if not, you adjust.  I'm saying you can put anything at stake.




Of course you can.  But if you conceptualize your character a certain way and then that gets put at stake, then you risk the whole character conceptualize breaking.  



> sure, the mechanics will influence how at stake things are, but you don't need permission -- which is what I'm saying.




I'm not talking about mechanical permission.  It's like your not even listening to me.  



> You're still asking for the system to give permission or to tell you that you can't protect your PC in some areas.




Total mischaracterization again.  I'm not asking for permission or for my PC to have protection.  The mechanics are there simply as boundaries so that my character conception doesn't get broken mid game.  It's not about protecting my PC from anything.  It's about protecting me as the player.  There's a great difference there.



> That's too focused on the mechanics -- you've stepped in the right direction by recognizing that more can be at stake than just the health of your PC, but you're not across the line if you're still looking to game mechanics to tell if you such.




The game mechanics or session 0 need to tell me what kinds of characters can't be created by the rules.  Some are obviously explicit rules.  Some are implicit, like the character that never loses a fight cannot be made in a D&D game (that's because the mechanics don't support such a concept.  I'm not aware of any game that supports that concept).



> Take your fighter example.  You say you wouldn't play a fighter who's conception is that they can't be beaten in combat if the mechanics say you can.  I'm wondering why not? Surely it's interesting to play a character that might fail to realize what they assumed was their core truth and now has to find a new way?  Or, maybe, they actually don't lose in combat, and they are the badass (or stupid lucky) that they believe themselves to be!  Risk _more_.




You are misunderstanding.  I'm not talking about playing a character that THINKS he is too strong to lose a fight.  I'm talking about the literal god given truth of a character that is to strong/lucky/whatever to lose a fight.  

Your point above is about a PC that THINKS he is too strong to lose a fight and I agree those can be played in any system (well, not in ones that put PC thoughts at stake). Either way, the point is irrelevant to the concept I'm referring to.


----------



## Maxperson

Tony Vargas said:


> To be even clearer:  Narrating the results of actions give the DM more than adequate latitude to 'run your character' - describe action he takes as part of or reactions he has to those results.




There is no such rule.  The DM has a rule that allows him to narrate MY actions, but he cannot alter those actions.  If I declare that my PC is running across the courtyard, he cannot narrate it as, "You run across the courtyard jumping and skipping while singing a little ditty about Jack and Dianne."  He can alter things through in game fiction though, such as "While you run across the courtyard, your back sprouts 20 arrows from archers along the wall.  You make it halfway before you black out."  In no case can he determine how my character feels without magic or some other supernatural power.

When it comes to NPC actions, he has a section in the DMG about social interactions.  In that section it talks about how to influence NPCs and PC altering NPC attitudes, but says nothing about NPCs(or the DM) being able to just play a PC and choose the PCs thoughts and feelings.



> Not just in the sense of formally introducing a variant at the start of play, but in the sense of overriding or changing any rule, at any time.  It's carte blanche.




Sure.  The DM can come up with house rules on the fly. That doesn't change them into anything other than house rules, though, and a house rule created on the fly is still not relevant in a discussion about the rules.


----------



## FrogReaver

Maxperson said:


> There is no such rule.  The DM has a rule that allows him to narrate MY actions, but he cannot alter those actions.  If I declare that my PC is running across the courtyard, he cannot narrate it as, "You run across the courtyard jumping and skipping while singing a little ditty about Jack and Dianne."  He can alter things through in game fiction though, such as "While you run across the courtyard, your back sprouts 20 arrows from archers along the wall.  You make it halfway before you black out."  In no case can he determine how my character feels without magic or some other supernatural power.
> 
> When it comes to NPC actions, he has a section in the DMG about social interactions.  In that section it talks about how to influence NPCs and PC altering NPC attitudes, but says nothing about NPCs(or the DM) being able to just play a PC and choose the PCs thoughts and feelings.
> 
> 
> 
> Sure.  The DM can come up with house rules on the fly. That doesn't change them into anything other than house rules, though, and a house rule created on the fly is still not relevant in a discussion about the rules.




I'm curious how you would feel about an enemy battle master using menacing attack on you and causing you to be frightened?


----------



## Umbran

FrogReaver said:


> Or, the reason mecahnics are essential isn't because of trust, but rather that they set the boundaries for where you may freely conceptualize your character and boundaries for where you must refrain from conceptualizing any particular way.




Explicitly setting boundaries is, in essence, establishing a rule.  Agreed upon rules are one basis for trust, as noted previously.

The rules are a *basis* for trust.  But they aren't actually a replacement for trust.  Even if we establish what rules we are playing by, someone at the table may feel something is unfair, or inappropriate, and so on.  Just because it is in the rules doesn't mean everyone is actually okay with what happens within those rules.  Rules are only a start.


----------



## FrogReaver

Umbran said:


> Explicitly setting boundaries is, in essence, establishing a rule.Agreed upon rules are one basis for trust, as noted previously.
> 
> The rules are a *basis* for trust.  But they aren't actually a replacement for trust.  Even if we establish what rules we are playing by, someone at the table may feel something is unfair, or inappropriate, and so on.  Just because it is in the rules doesn't mean everyone is actually okay with what happens within those rules.  Rules are only a start.




Boundaries are rules that don't require trust.  It does require everyone adhere to those boundaries, but that still doesn't require trust.​


----------



## Maxperson

FrogReaver said:


> I'm curious how you would feel about an enemy battle master using menacing attack on you and causing you to be frightened?




Special abilities with saves are okay.  They are in the magic/supernatural/mental/etc. that I've been talking about.  That's not the DM just telling me that my PC is frightened because the green hag winked at him.


----------



## FrogReaver

Maxperson said:


> Special abilities with saves are okay.  They are in the magic/supernatural/mental/etc. that I've been talking about.  That's not the DM just telling me that my PC is frightened because the green hag winked at him.




That's a fine answer.  The battlemaster's ability was the most mundane fear effect I could think of.  I was curious if it would have the same negative effect on you.

So out of further curiousity.  If the maiden had a special ability causes fear with a wink (save to resist).  Would that fall into the same supernatural/magical/mental realm that you have placed the battlemasters menacing attack within?


----------



## Guest 6801328

Umbran said:


> (emphasis mine)
> 
> This is the meat of it, really.  We are talking, in the end, about TRUST.
> 
> When there are mechanics that the table all agreed to use underlying narrated events, we generally extend trust to the result.  We typically see it as "fair", even if we are somewhat surprised by the result.
> 
> When we don't have the mechanics, the question of trust comes into play.  It also comes into play when there are actually mechanics, but we are not familiar with them - pemerton's story above sits as an example - in the game he was playing, narration of the character moving across the room to introduce a complication was *within mechaical bounds*.  Folks who play D&D, however, don't generally play under such mechanics, and they then fail to extend trust.
> 
> This is where a lot of conflict ton such issues arises - I've been working with my group for something like a decade.  They trust me not to screw them over on a whim.  Folks reading about my session on the message boards don't really know me from Adam, don't trust me, and worry that I might be screwing my players over on a whim.




Wow...too much to fully catch up on this thread after a weekend away.  But I'll start with this one.

While in general I agree that Trust is central to the question of how you resolve things outside the rules...that is, if you trust your GM (or players) then you don't need a specific mechanic behind every declaration.

But that said, dictation of character thoughts/actions/reactions/feelings is, for me, still sacred territory.  Even with GM's I totally trust, and to whom I will happily give a pass for almost any sort of rules transgression because I know it's all in the service of a better story, I _still_ don't want them deciding for my how my character reacts to a maiden winking.  That's my turf, and I'll jealously guard it.

That doesn't mean I don't think the GM should ever cross the line: it just needs to be specified in the rules and mechanics.  That might range from D&D 5e (where "magic" is required) to The One Ring (where "bouts of Shadow madness" give the GM control of your character) to maybe some RPG out there which just says, "The GM can at any time dictate how your character reacts to something."  As long as I know how the mechanics work, and know the GM is working within those boundaries, I'm ok with it.  (Partly because I can then decide which games I do and do not want to play.)

I'm not going to try to claim this as the "right" way to play RPGs.  I won't claim it's "not roleplaying" if the GM takes over your character ever other minute.  It's just not the sort of roleplaying I like.


----------



## Maxperson

FrogReaver said:


> That's a fine answer.  The battlemaster's ability was the most mundane fear effect I could think of.  I was curious if it would have the same negative effect on you.
> 
> So out of further curiousity.  If the maiden had a special ability causes fear with a wink (save to resist).  Would that fall into the same supernatural/magical/mental realm that you have placed the battlemasters menacing attack within?





Sure, but one of the things about the battlemaster ability is that very few can actually do it.  Lots of people can pick up a sword, but only a few very highly trained individuals can instill fear that way.  I'd expect the same sort of in-fiction explanation for some sort of kiss warms the heart ability in this particular maiden.  And it would have to allow a save.


----------



## FrogReaver

Maxperson said:


> Sure, but one of the things about the battlemaster ability is that very few can actually do it.  Lots of people can pick up a sword, but only a few very highly trained individuals can instill fear that way.  I'd expect the same sort of in-fiction explanation for some sort of kiss warms the heart ability in this particular maiden.  And it would have to allow a save.




I agree with that.  This particular maiden is special.  So I can't help but think, how do you as the player know if it's this maiden being special that allows her to do this to your PC.  I mean if that's not the case then obviously you would dislike it.  But if the maiden's special then you are okay with it.  So how do you determine in the moment in the middle of a game which is actually happening?  Do you just take it on trust that your DM would only allow a special maiden to do that to your PC?


----------



## Maxperson

FrogReaver said:


> I agree with that.  This particular maiden is special.  So I can't help but think, how do you as the player know if it's this maiden being special that allows her to do this to your PC.  I mean if that's not the case then obviously you would dislike it.  But if the maiden's special then you are okay with it.  So how do you determine in the moment in the middle of a game which is actually happening?  Do you just take it on trust that your DM would only allow a special maiden to do that to your PC?




So to answer the first question, there will be some sort of save, so it will be apparent in the moment if something unusual is happening.  However, the group I've played with has been together for 15 years, and a few of us go back more than twice that.  If they pulled something like that without save or way to know right then, yes I'd extend the trust, because we're all similar enough in playstyle to mesh together, so I know that they wouldn't pull something like that without something special going on.  If I were in a convention game, I'd have no trust.  I almost never play D&D at a convention because of all the bad experiences I've had in the past.


----------



## pemerton

Lanefan said:


> "The maiden winks at you and tries to melt your heart" is a test, and a perfectly valid one at that.
> "The maiden winks at you and melts your heart" is a manipulation. See the difference?



Not really. Suppose that the first is stated by the GM, the player makes a Resist Passion roll, and fails, and then the GM state the second. How did this situation suddenly change from "test" to "manipulation"?

Or to give a different example. The GM has described the dungeon corridor that the PCs are standing in. The player says _I walk down the left-hand path, inspecting the ceiling as I go._ The GM responds, _OK, after about 10' you find yourself falling - that bit of floor was an illusion!_ Is that "test" or "manipulation"?



Lanefan said:


> In the original example, the PC declares both the action (the wink) and the outcome (the softened heart) without the NPC getting a chance to resist as a) no mechanics are referenced and b) the wording is phrased as a statement of fact rather than an attempt, or a question - it's a done deal.



I wrote the OP, so I can condidently say that you are wrong about this. The OP says nothing in particular about what the mechanics and system conventions might be around establishing true descriptions of PC actions - for instance, what resources might need to be spent in order to be permitted to make a description true. It deliberately and expressly makes the range of possibilities a matter of discussion!



Lanefan said:


> The NPC's reaction was simply narrated as a part of the action declaration, implying said reaction was a fait accompli and somehow bypassed game mechanics entirely.



I think you may have missed the point of the OP. I described an action - _I wink at the maiden, melting her heart_ - in the course of inviting discussion about how these descriptions of actions might be made true of the fiction. The OP canvsasses decision-making and checks - for D&D players, this at least roughly corresponds to the difference between spell-casting and thief abilities.

I don't know why you would equate _a player decision-amking ability_ with _bypassing game mechanics_.

The whole point of the OP was that simply saying _The players decide what their PCs do_ isn't a useful description of any RPG, given that _I wink at the maiden, melting her heart_ is a true description of what a PC does, but isn't something that a player normally has the unfettered power to make true in a RPG.


----------



## pemerton

Lanefan said:


> When a PC is around, minions have 1 h.p. When there's no PC around, they have h.p. suitable to whatever creature type they are.



This still makes no sense. Are you talking about the fiction (in which nothing has hp - hit points are not a part of the gameworld) or about resolution mechanics?



Lanefan said:


> A bar full of minion brawlers can have an ordinary bar fight without a PC present, but once a PC shows up things get weird because the very presence of the PC changes the mechanics for all those minions. Consistency, meanwhile, flies off across the lake



Likewise. I don't think you understand how 4e's combat rules work.


----------



## pemerton

Maxperson said:


> Why do you think that people here are saying that emotional life of the PC should be excluded from testing? I find such tests to often be more engaging than the physical ones.



There is an assertion by some, or at least a very strong implication, that the PC can fail the test, or even feel its force, only if the player decides.



FrogReaver said:


> pemerton said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> My heart being melted isn't an action. It's an emotional state. What action do you think is required/dictated by that state?
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Yes it is an action.
Click to expand...


In what sense? What body part moves? What intention is formed?

Of course _the maiden_ is acting: she is winking. But the PC whose heart is melted is not. No no more than it is an action on Frodo's part _to have his finger bitten off by Gollum_.


----------



## FrogReaver

I  thought I'd come back to the opening post.



pemerton said:


> The function of players in RPGing is often described as _deciding what their PCs do_. But this can be quite ambiguous.
> 
> A classic article on the analysis of actions (Donald Davidson, "Actions, Reasons, and Causes" (1963)) gives the following example:
> I flip the switch, turn on the light, and illuminate the room. Unbeknownst to me I also alert a prowler to the fact that I am home. Here I need not have done four things, but only one, of which four descriptions have been given.​





Contrary to Donald Davidson's opinion, there is one action (attempting to flip the switch) and 4 reactions (each reaction is an action directly resulting from the previous action in the action-reaction chain).
1.  The switch was successful flipped
2.  The switch being flipped successfully completed the circuit to provide power to the lightbulb
3.  The Lightbulb successfully had it's filament heat up and produce light.
4.  The burglar successfully seen the light from the lightbulb

Each of those results is it's own action.  They happen in sequence, an extradionarily fast sequence but a sequence nonetheless.  Each is a direct reaction to the previous action in the sequence (All reactions themselves being actions).

I believe that every non-instantaneous scene can be subdivided into an infinite number of smaller and smaller actions depending on the granularity that we desire the detail to be.  In math terms we might say that every action-reaction sequence is a continuous function of actions.

​


> In RPGing, I think it's a big deal who gets to decide what descriptions of the PCs' actions are true, and how.




I think calling the reactions descriptions does a disservice to them.  I do think it's a big deal about who gets to narrate the reactions.  (Leaving out the controversial bits of this thread)



> For instance, suppose that my ability to decide what descriptions are true of my PC's actions is confined to very "thin" descriptions focused on the character's bodily movements, like _I attack the orc with my sword_ or _I wink at the maiden_. Playing that game will produce a very different experience from one in which I can decide that the following description is true of my PC's actions: _I kill the orc with my sword_ or _I soften the heart of the maiden with a wink_.




Sure.  But should the game allow the player to state the orc was stabbed by his sword and then also narrate the reaction that the orc died by the sword stab.  I think there's still an open question on the impact to roleplaying when it comes to giving the player that ability.



> The same point can be made in relation to success on checks: if succeeding at a check makes a description such as _I find what I was looking for in the safe_ true, that game will produce a different experience from one in which it makes true only a description such as _I open the safe_, with the description of my action in terms of _I find X in the safe_ remaining something for someone else - eg the GM - to decide.




yes, but what impacts does it have on the game and on roleplaying in general.  That's the real question.



> This example shows how it is possible (i) for it to be true that _the players choose what their PCs do_ - under a certain, fairly thin or confined sort of description - and (ii) for there to be fudge-free checks and yet (iii) for it also to be the case that _the GM decides everything significant that happens_ - ie it is the GM who gets to establish the richer, wider, consequence-laden descriptions of what the PCs do.




Only if your are playing a game where the DM can dictate all PC reactions (which are actions).  That's seems to be a fairly controversial set of mechanics though.



> I think that a failure to recognise this point makes a lot of discussions of railroading, "player agency" less productive or insightful than they might be.




Most every DM railroads to some extent.  They don't do it in the perjorative sense though (which tends to be more about degree than substance IMO).  

I think you are right, that recognizing that the DM has authority to dictate many reactions is important to the discussion of player agency.



> What do others think about who does, or should, get to establish the truth of descriptions of PC actions, and how?




PC's establish their "thin actions as you phrased it"  Dm establishes the reactions that he is permitted to establish.  Players establish any additional reactions to those reactions, which can then become an action such that the chain can repeat itself.

I'll have to ponder on the pros and cons some more.


----------



## Aldarc

Bobble said:


> So, HOW is it ambiguous?  You have NOT stated how that is so



Because there are roleplaying games where these lines and boundaries blur, as there are games, for example, where the player may narrates the successful results. As examples of these sort of ambiguities had been mentioned and discussed in passing before your initial comment, I thought that this would be unnecessary to explain.


----------



## pemerton

Maxperson said:


> I haven't lost control of the character's action in that circumstance. I simply do not control the result. My character still takes the action I desire, and the DM states the action failed. I've never argued that I should have control over the result of the action.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> You're just confusing the result of the action with the action itself. They are two different things. The DM cannot tell me that my character doesn't try and take a running jump over the Grand Canyon. He can just tell me that I failed without allowing a roll, since it's an impossible feat to accomplish.



This seems to miss the whole point of the OP.

If person A jums over the Grand Canyon, it follows that A _tried_ to jump over the Grand Canyon. But A didn't perform two different actions - trying to jump the canyon, and then actually jumpiing it. S/he performed a single action which falls under both descriptions.

Which descriptions are made true in a RPG, by whom, and how, is what this thread is about. For instance, you've describd a game in which the player gets to decide, by fiat, that _I try to jump the Grand Canyon_ is a true description of the PC's action; and the GM gets to decide, by fiat, that _I jumped the Grand Canyon_ will not be. Of course that's not the only possible configuration.


----------



## Ovinomancer

FrogReaver said:


> Your throwing out a bit too much nuance there in order that you may paint my position as nonsense.  In fact, your leaving so much out I'm going to go ahead and label this a flat out mischaracterization...
> 
> 
> 
> Of course it did.  Making the point for why mechanics are necessary and speaking for their accurate role cannot be placing to much focus on them.  It's exactly the right amount of focus.



But you're assigning that role (also) to characterization, which is misplaced.  Mechanics are how the system resolves uncertainty, they're not constraints on characterization, unless you're putting undue focus on them.


Here, look at this next bit:


> Of course you can.  But if you conceptualize your character a certain way and then that gets put at stake, then you risk the whole character conceptualize *breaking*.
> 
> *I'm not talking about mechanical permission*.  It's like your not even listening to me.
> 
> 
> Total mischaracterization again.  I'm not asking for permission or for my PC to have *protection*.  The mechanics are there simply as boundaries so that my character conception doesn't get *broken *mid game.  It's not about protecting my PC from anything.  It's about *protecting* me as the player.  There's a great difference there.



This is what I'm talking about.  You, on the one hand, tell me I'm misrepresenting you looking to the mechanics for protection of your character concept and then immediately say that understanding the mechanics prevents your character concept from being "broken."  You're saying exactly what I'm saying, only you think I'm saying something else.

You're looking at mechanics as a way to determine what character concepts won't be challenged by those mechanics.  As you say, you're looking to protect yourself from disappointment in not achieving the character you want to have.  Or, at least, that your character concept won't ever change even if it might die.  This is definitely looking at the game from the point of view of trusting the mechanics to protect your characterization.  [MENTION=23751]Maxperson[/MENTION]'s posts scream this -- you cannot alter my character at all except to harm/kill it, unless magic.  This is an idea of an inviolable character, one that is static but played in a game where things are fluid (zero to hero for D&D).  

I'm saying that this is a poor way of considering the game -- you're putting on a straightjacket from the start.  You might decide to play this way after consideration -- I still love playing and running 5e, for example, and it codifies inviolable character concepts (at least from the DM side).  But, I don't codify how to play according to this, I just use this when I play a game because that's how that game plays.  If I didn't want to play that way, I'd play a different game (and do).  Understanding that the rules serve the game and not the other way around is huge, and I'm hoping you can make the step out to where character is at risk -- not just the life of the character, or its things, but the very nature of the character itself.  This can happen regardless of rules.  You should look at a system not to find out what it protects so you can play there, but how it works to put things at risk, so you can risk those things.

D&D is bad at risking character.  It's an overgrown wargame (and I love it).  As such, it puts the risk more on your hitpoints or your numbers, and not on what makes the character the character.  It doesn't have a good mechanic for risking the concept at all, for finding out unpleasant (or pleasant) truths about the character in play.  You can do it, but the system isn't written to risk these kinds of things, so it's more ad hoc than structured.  Hence why magic exists and often breaks these rules in hamfisted ways.  Yet, even there, the system has so well trained players to believe that this one thing they have control over is the inviolable character concept that it's very, very hard to break free of this thing.  But, D&D (and other games that afford extensive GM authority and very limited PC authority -- for you Max) isn't the only way to play, and it certainly isn't a very good model for how to think about RPGs in general, even if it's, by far, the most popular.  People like Apple and Windows, too.




> The game mechanics or session 0 need to tell me what kinds of characters can't be created by the rules.  Some are obviously explicit rules.  Some are implicit, like the character that never loses a fight cannot be made in a D&D game (that's because the mechanics don't support such a concept.  I'm not aware of any game that supports that concept).




Oh, I strongly disagree.  You absolutely can make this character.  You're just risking your concept in every fight, which is uncomfortable for those that are used to inviolable concepts.


> You are misunderstanding.  I'm not talking about playing a character that THINKS he is too strong to lose a fight.  I'm talking about the literal god given truth of a character that is to strong/lucky/whatever to lose a fight.
> 
> Your point above is about a PC that THINKS he is too strong to lose a fight and I agree those can be played in any system (well, not in ones that put PC thoughts at stake). Either way, the point is irrelevant to the concept I'm referring to.



Hmm.  Name me a character concept that is absolutely true and not what the character believes to be true (ie, thinks).  You're drawing a line that's impossible and declaring my position can only exist on the far side of it.  Well, you've drawn your line so that everything exists on the far side of it, so you might want to back up those goalposts to a place where someone might be able to score.


----------



## Maxperson

pemerton said:


> There is an assertion by some, or at least a very strong implication, that the PC can fail the test, or even feel its force, only if the player decides.




If it's left to a die roll or the DM's decision, there is no real test of character.  The test comes from the player in the role of the PC being caught in a situation which tests his PC's character.  He and the others at the table are only really going to learn what the PC is made of if the player makes the decision.  If it's left to the die roll or DM to decide, the drama virtually vanishes.

There's a huge difference between me struggling with a decision for my PC, and clack, clack, clack!  Oh, look.  This time he's an ass, maybe next time he'll be noble. *yawn*


----------



## Maxperson

pemerton said:


> This seems to miss the whole point of the OP.
> 
> If person A jums over the Grand Canyon, it follows that A _tried_ to jump over the Grand Canyon. But A didn't perform two different actions - trying to jump the canyon, and then actually jumpiing it. S/he performed a single action which falls under both descriptions.
> 
> Which descriptions are made true in a RPG, by whom, and how, is what this thread is about. For instance, you've describd a game in which the player gets to decide, by fiat, that _I try to jump the Grand Canyon_ is a true description of the PC's action; and the GM gets to decide, by fiat, that _I jumped the Grand Canyon_ will not be. Of course that's not the only possible configuration.




Er.  It didn't miss the point of the OP, because it wasn't about the OP.  The discussion has moved on in some parts of the thread.  That's how threads work.


----------



## Ovinomancer

Maxperson said:


> If it's left to a die roll or the DM's decision, there is no real test of character.  The test comes from the player in the role of the PC being caught in a situation which tests his PC's character.  He and the others at the table are only really going to learn what the PC is made of if the player makes the decision.  If it's left to the die roll or DM to decide, the drama virtually vanishes.
> 
> There's a huge difference between me struggling with a decision for my PC, and clack, clack, clack!  Oh, look.  This time he's an ass, maybe next time he'll be noble. *yawn*




Sure, if that's how you think characters are tested, I suppose it is boring.

Instead, picture the knight on a holy quest that has sworn a vow of chastity until the quest is complete.  Then, a maiden melts his heart with a wink.  The knight now has to decide between his love for the maiden and the importance of his quest, and, either way, we'll learn something about this character.

I think another problem with conceptualization here is the difference in how games that risk character play versus those that don't.  In general, a game where the GM has some authority over character are those games that also play in the moment and not according to a preconceived plot.  In the case of the knight above, the quest isn't something the GM has already written up in their notes but instead something that occurs from play.  In that case, the knight suddenly deciding to go with the maiden doesn't derail the planned story because that choice is the story at that moment.  Whereas in games with heavy GM authority that prefer inviolable character conceptualization (like D&D), this kind of sudden shift is difficult to deal with because the system relies so strongly on GM prep.


----------



## Maxperson

Ovinomancer said:


> D&D is bad at risking character.  It's an overgrown wargame (and I love it).  As such, it puts the risk more on your hitpoints or your numbers, and not on what makes the character the character.  It doesn't have a good mechanic for risking the concept at all, for finding out unpleasant (or pleasant) truths about the character in play.  You can do it, but the system isn't written to risk these kinds of things, so it's more ad hoc than structured.  Hence why magic exists and often breaks these rules in hamfisted ways.  Yet, even there, the system has so well trained players to believe that this one thing they have control over is the inviolable character concept that it's very, very hard to break free of this thing.  But, D&D (and other games that afford extensive GM authority and very limited PC authority -- for you Max) isn't the only way to play, and it certainly isn't a very good model for how to think about RPGs in general, even if it's, by far, the most popular.  People like Apple and Windows, too.




You don't NEED an mechanic for that sort of risk, and in my experience mechanics detract from it.  The drama comes from me being put in the hard choice and deciding how my character reacts to the hard choice, not from a boring die roll or DM deciding if I'm good or bad this time around.  I don't play perfect characters, because 1) perfect characters are boring, and 2) perfection doesn't exist in people.  I'm fully capable of assessing all of the details and deciding which side my PC falls on the hard choice.  I can't remember a character that I made whose personal character finished the campaign just like it started.  I'm sure it probably happened when I was a teenager and just starting out in the game, but that was a loooooong time ago.

Mechanics that decide the hard character choices for you seem like a crutch for those who aren't capable of doing it themselves.


----------



## Ovinomancer

Maxperson said:


> You don't NEED an mechanic for that sort of risk, and in my experience mechanics detract from it.  The drama comes from me being put in the hard choice and deciding how my character reacts to the hard choice, not from a boring die roll or DM deciding if I'm good or bad this time around.  I don't play perfect characters, because 1) perfect characters are boring, and 2) perfection doesn't exist in people.  I'm fully capable of assessing all of the details and deciding which side my PC falls on the hard choice.  I can't remember a character that I made whose personal character finished the campaign just like it started.  I'm sure it probably happened when I was a teenager and just starting out in the game, but that was a loooooong time ago.
> 
> Mechanics that decide the hard character choices for you seem like a crutch for those who aren't capable of doing it themselves.




Mechanics for that risk, not that decide.  There's nothing in D&D that calls into question a PC's concept except indirectly.  The game isn't built to do this normally, with how it frames scenes, with how it resolves uncertainty, heck, with what it treats as uncertain.  D&D is bad at this, and that's fine, because it's pretty good at what it does do.

But, some games have mechanics that allow players to risk their concepts and some that allow the GM to attack character concepts to begin with.  These games focus on characterization, and so have mechanics that enable the risking of character.  You're presenting some false idea that you just roll dice and poof, your character changes.  But that's not it at all.  Instead, the it's the player risking the character to begin with, using mechanics that clearly lay out how that will happen.  There's no room in D&D mechanics for a maiden that can melt your heart with a wink because there's no room in D&D for risking that aspect of your characterization.  Anything done here is ad hoc.  But, in a different game, one that does provide for mechanics to risk this kind of characterization, then the risk is operationalized in a way that everyone at the table can understand.

Mechanics don't determine what is at risk, but they do work well to understand how things can be risked.  If you insist on treating situations involving character as if it's the usual D&D "I swing, I miss; I swing again, I hit" of combat, then, yes, you will be disappointed.  Just as I'd be disappointed by that D&D combat.  If you imagine bad play, you'll get bad play, but that's on you.


----------



## Maxperson

Ovinomancer said:


> Instead, picture the knight on a holy quest that has sworn a vow of chastity until the quest is complete.  Then, a maiden melts his heart with a wink.  The knight now has to decide between his love for the maiden and the importance of his quest, and, either way, we'll learn something about this character.




Which is fully accomplished by, "The beautiful maiden winks at you, clearly favoring you with her affections."  I don't need you to melt my PCs heart in order to put me in a position where I have to decide between possible love and the quest.  Swearing a vow doesn't make my PC immune to love, so we will learn something about my character this way as well.

I'm also not seeing how in your example the knight would have to make the choice that you lay out.  I mean, he can fall in love with the maiden, keep his vow, give her a token of promise, complete the quest, and marry his love afterwards.  The choice of deciding between love and the quest is a false choice.



> I think another problem with conceptualization here is the difference in how games that risk character play versus those that don't.  In general, a game where the GM has some authority over character are those games that also play in the moment and not according to a preconceived plot.  In the case of the knight above, the quest isn't something the GM has already written up in their notes but instead something that occurs from play.  In that case, the knight suddenly deciding to go with the maiden doesn't derail the planned story because that choice is the story at that moment.  Whereas in games with heavy GM authority that prefer inviolable character conceptualization (like D&D), this kind of sudden shift is difficult to deal with because the system relies so strongly on GM prep.




So it's like a D&D sandbox game.


----------



## Maxperson

Ovinomancer said:


> Mechanics for that risk, not that decide.  There's nothing in D&D that calls into question a PC's concept except indirectly.  The game isn't built to do this normally, with how it frames scenes, with how it resolves uncertainty, heck, with what it treats as uncertain.  D&D is bad at this, and that's fine, because it's pretty good at what it does do.
> 
> But, some games have mechanics that allow players to risk their concepts and some that allow the GM to attack character concepts to begin with.  These games focus on characterization, and so have mechanics that enable the risking of character.  You're presenting some false idea that you just roll dice and poof, your character changes.  But that's not it at all.  Instead, the it's the player risking the character to begin with, using mechanics that clearly lay out how that will happen.  There's no room in D&D mechanics for a maiden that can melt your heart with a wink because there's no room in D&D for risking that aspect of your characterization.  Anything done here is ad hoc.  But, in a different game, one that does provide for mechanics to risk this kind of characterization, then the risk is operationalized in a way that everyone at the table can understand.
> 
> Mechanics don't determine what is at risk, but they do work well to understand how things can be risked.  If you insist on treating situations involving character as if it's the usual D&D "I swing, I miss; I swing again, I hit" of combat, then, yes, you will be disappointed.  Just as I'd be disappointed by that D&D combat.  If you imagine bad play, you'll get bad play, but that's on you.




My concept is always at risk.  I don't need a mechanic for that.  Maybe others do.  I don't.


----------



## Umbran

Maxperson said:


> The choice of deciding between love and the quest is a false choice.




Yes.  And, considering the precedent of "courtly love", this is merely a complication (perhaps needing to pursue the quest *and* the maiden's needs at once), not an immediate quest-ender.

However, *also* given the precedent of courtly love - finding yourself in it *is* a complication, not something you can engage with or not with no consequence to you either way.



> So it's like a D&D sandbox game.




No.  In an archetypal sandbox game, the GM has filled the sandbox with sand to play with - the world is pre-populated, and the players choose what content to engage with.  More usually, the games Ovinomancer is talking about aren't pre-populated.  Their content is more often improvised in play, or only prepared shortly beforehand, generating content only when it is called for - in effect, the GM puts in sand only where the PCs decide to go, when they decide to go there.


----------



## Umbran

Maxperson said:


> My concept is always at risk.  I don't need a mechanic for that.  Maybe others do.  I don't.




"Need" isn't the question.  You don't *need* combat mechanics either - kids manage cops-n-robbers without any mechanics.  Mechanics aren't there to fulfill "needs".  Abandon that notion.

Mechanics are there (among other reasons) to provide structure, prevent some arguments ("I shot you!"  "No you didn't!"), and (here's the relevant bit) force certain kinds of decision making.

You *can* challenge your concept.  But will you?  Really?  (And, I mean the generic "you", not you, Maxperson)

I mean, if you wanted to, you could challenge your character mechanically in combat, too.  You could set up combat encounters for yourself, and run your character through them, like playing chess against yourself.  But, you don't regularly do that, right?  Probably for a number of good reasons.  Pretty much every reason for having a GM give you all the other game challenges apply to challenging your concept.

Which doesn't say you, personally, have to have a GM challenge your concept.  But it puts some context around why one might like to, such that it isn't crazy to have a game built to do it.


----------



## Ovinomancer

Maxperson said:


> Which is fully accomplished by, "The beautiful maiden winks at you, clearly favoring you with her affections."  I don't need you to melt my PCs heart in order to put me in a position where I have to decide between possible love and the quest.  Swearing a vow doesn't make my PC immune to love, so we will learn something about my character this way as well.



This is just asking permission, though, something that you've roundly rejected from the player side (ie, you've rejected that player propositions are just asking permission of the GM).  So, yes, there is a difference.  If you risk your characterization and the result of a failure is that you're offered a choice to go through with it or ignore the failure, then there's no real failure, here -- you risked nothing.  And yet, you argue that this must be the case, that the player should never risk the character (making your own choices isn't risking the character).  So, yes, there's a difference between failing and having the GM ask you if you want to suffer the consequences and failing and actually suffering the consequences.



> I'm also not seeing how in your example the knight would have to make the choice that you lay out.  I mean, he can fall in love with the maiden, keep his vow, give her a token of promise, complete the quest, and marry his love afterwards.  The choice of deciding between love and the quest is a false choice.



No.  You're softening the failure into an ask.  The result is that the knight is in love with the maiden.  Period.  This is a character truth at this point.  If the knight chooses to ignore this and continue the quest, that's cool, we've learned something, but you better believe that's coming back around to bite them in the ass.

You're insisting that there can be no consequences for character unless the player agrees.  This just means that character is never at risk.  I'm asking to you imagine what happens if it is -- what kind of game is that, how does that work, what can be accomplished?  There's nothing wrong with not grappling with these questions, or grappling and finding them lacking, but you've straightjacketed yourself into a narrow view of games by insisting it should not be.



> So it's like a D&D sandbox game.



Not in the way sandboxes are presented, with the world already statted out and uncaring of PC choices.  This is still reliant on the GM's notes as to what will happen.  In this case, if the knight fails to complete the quest, the result is already established in the GM's notes and so will happen.  In the style I'm talking about, what happens if the knight doesn't complete the quest is unknown until it's needed -- unknown by all players, including the GM.


----------



## Maxperson

Umbran said:


> Yes.  And, considering the precedent of "courtly love", this is merely a complication (perhaps needing to pursue the quest *and* the maiden's needs at once), not an immediate quest-ender.
> 
> However, *also* given the precedent of courtly love - finding yourself in it *is* a complication, not something you can engage with or not with no consequence to you either way.




Sure, it's a complication, just like finding a dead body in your PC's room is a complication.  I was just pointing out that it wasn't the test of character he was portraying it as.



> No.  In an archetypal sandbox game, the GM has filled the sandbox with sand to play with - the world is pre-populated, and the players choose what content to engage with.  More usually, the games Ovinomancer is talking about aren't pre-populated.  Their content is more often improvised in play, or only prepared shortly beforehand, generating content only when it is called for - in effect, the GM puts in sand only where the PCs decide to go, when they decide to go there.




Nobody can detail out a whole world.  It will just be outlines of stuff for the most part with a few things detailed out.  Most of the time the party chooses where it wants to go and the sand(details) is filled in as they go or a bit in advance of where they are going.  For example, the Tower of Magog may be shown on a map, but I'm not going to have spent the time to figure out exactly what it is ahead of the party deciding to go there.  They won't be going most places in the sandbox, so it's a colossal waste of time to fill in everything.


----------



## Ovinomancer

Maxperson said:


> My concept is always at risk.  I don't need a mechanic for that.  Maybe others do.  I don't.




No, it isn't.  If you're the only one that decides, then the concept is never at risk.  There has to be a loss of control for there to be risk, and you're refusing loss of control.


----------



## Umbran

Ovinomancer said:


> But, some games have mechanics that allow players to risk their concepts and some that allow the GM to attack character concepts to begin with.




Example: because I mentioned it before, so it is handy now - FATE.

In FATE-based games, the core of the character concept is ensconced in Aspects - descriptive bits about a character that are available to be invoked for good or ill.  Your character may be a Champion Boxer, so they may get a benefit when punching, but a detriment when caught in a grapple.  Or, maybe your character has a "Heart of stone" - they have a benefit when resisting having their heart melted by maidens, but perhaps a detriment when empathy is necessary.

In conflicts, as previously mentioned, the player may choose to take Consequences, rather than Stress.  There is one top-level consequence they can take it absorbs the most stress for you.  The catch is that if you take it, it *replaces* one of your other aspects, permanently.  Or, at least as permanently as any aspect is in the game - there are milestones at which you can change an aspect if you want.  The point being that a conflict can change something essential about your character, altering the concept.


----------



## Maxperson

Ovinomancer said:


> This is just asking permission, though, something that you've roundly rejected from the player side (ie, you've rejected that player propositions are just asking permission of the GM).  So, yes, there is a difference.  If you risk your characterization and the result of a failure is that you're offered a choice to go through with it or ignore the failure, then there's no real failure, here -- you risked nothing.  And yet, you argue that this must be the case, that the player should never risk the character (making your own choices isn't risking the character).  So, yes, there's a difference between failing and having the GM ask you if you want to suffer the consequences and failing and actually suffering the consequences.




I never said that there was no risk or real failure.  Don't put your assumptions onto me like that.  There are consequences for almost everything.  If you don't understand something, ask me.



> The result is that the knight is in love with the maiden.  Period.  This is a character truth at this point.  If the knight chooses to ignore this and continue the quest, that's cool, we've learned something, but you better believe that's coming back around to bite them in the ass.




Spurning a maiden's love can also bit them in the ass, as can pissing off her father, not completing the quest or many other things that happen with what I am saying.  You need to stop assuming that there are no failures and/or consequences for failure(or even successes) in D&D.



> You're insisting that there can be no consequences for character unless the player agrees.




Nope!  Never said or implied this.


----------



## Ovinomancer

Maxperson said:


> I never said that there was no risk or real failure.  Don't put your assumptions onto me like that.  There are consequences for almost everything.  If you don't understand something, ask me.
> 
> 
> 
> Spurning a maiden's love can also bit them in the ass, as can pissing off her father, not completing the quest or many other things that happen with what I am saying.  You need to stop assuming that there are no failures and/or consequences for failure(or even successes) in D&D.
> 
> 
> 
> Nope!  Never said or implied this.




You're missing my point, but that's partly on me for not being consistently explicit.  There are no consequences to characterization.  Your characterization is not at risk.  Everything you mention here is external to the character -- and, I'm not, nor have I been, talking about that.  So, I get you fine, it's you missing my points.


----------



## Aldarc

Maxperson said:


> If it's left to a die roll or the DM's decision, there is no real test of character.  The test comes from the player in the role of the PC being caught in a situation which tests his PC's character.  *He and the others at the table are only really going to learn what the PC is made of if the player makes the decision. * If it's left to the die roll or DM to decide, the drama virtually vanishes.
> 
> There's a huge difference between me struggling with a decision for my PC, and clack, clack, clack!  Oh, look.  This time he's an ass, maybe next time he'll be noble. *yawn*



That depends on the point of decision. I don't think that the test of character rests in whether your heart melts or not, but in how you choose to respond to the fact that it did. The former seems like a psychosomatic reaction to an external stimulus, while the latter implicates the potential for having to make a moral choice. 



Maxperson said:


> Which is fully accomplished by, "The beautiful maiden winks at you, clearly favoring you with her affections."  I don't need you to melt my PCs heart in order to put me in a position where I have to decide between possible love and the quest.  Swearing a vow doesn't make my PC immune to love, so we will learn something about my character this way as well.



This discussion is not about whether or not Max needs someone "to melt [their] PCs heart in order to put [them] in a position where [they] have to decide between possible love and the quest." It's about whether or not other games exist where this can be a valid norm of play. Hint: it is.


----------



## GrahamWills

What I have learned form this thread is that when I run a game where some of the players are die-hard simulationists who need rules for everything the GM does, when I want to have someone fall in love, all I should do is this:

_GM: The maiden winks at you ... what's your will / determination / mental resistance ?
Player: <number>
GM: <Rolls behind screen> your heart is melted by the wink.
_
So the interesting thing here is that if the GM is actually doing some sort of rule, everyone is happy. If the GM is not, then half the people are furious. But this is completely not observable, and so it boils down to "do I trust the GM to be fair?"

This is exactly the same situation as if the GM doesn't roll dice. If the GM says "The maiden winks at you and melts your heart" without consulting rules, it's the same thing -- do I trust the GM? If I do, then great, something fun will happen. If I don't, then I'm upset.

Consulting rules makes zero difference here. It's just a question of whether or not you trust the GM to set up the game to be fun. Adding a veneer of rules on top is just a comfort blanket for gamers who really like rules


----------



## dragoner

GrahamWills said:


> Consulting rules makes zero difference here. It's just a question of whether or not you trust the GM to set up the game to be fun. Adding a veneer of rules on top is just a comfort blanket for gamers who really like rules




A lot of these discussion seem to boil down to who one is gaming with, someone called my group a "mini-UN" the other day, but bottom line is that we're all just a group of friends. Not running a fun game means the game grinds to a halt as people stop paying attention to it; too many rules is a problem, but also the question of if what happens is important, and is it important to the other players. Yes, we do do trust each other, or don't, but we know each other, and then we all know it has to be fun. It could be a divide vs casual gamers and not.


----------



## Umbran

Maxperson said:


> Most of the time the party chooses where it wants to go and the sand(details) is filled in as they go or a bit in advance of where they are going.  For example, the Tower of Magog may be shown on a map, but I'm not going to have spent the time to figure out exactly what it is ahead of the party deciding to go there.  They won't be going most places in the sandbox, so it's a colossal waste of time to fill in everything.




Yep, sandboxes are impractical, but back in the day, lots of people did populate the whole thing.  Even in outline, it is a lot of work.

The one thing a sandbox needs, beyond the fact that the tower exists, is how much of a challenge that tower is, and what the basic challenge consists of (is it a wizard, a dragon, or what?)  Without that information, the GM cannot telegraph how hard it is, and PCs cannot make meaningful choices (which is what sandbox play has been argued to center upon).

In the style Ovinomancer is referencing, you don't even have an outline.  The world description may b e a couple of paragraphs of flavor text, and everything else is generated _à la minute_.  

Some game engines (like Cortex+) can generate much/most of the content out of die rolls and context.


----------



## Umbran

Ovinomancer said:


> No, it isn't.  If you're the only one that decides, then the concept is never at risk.  There has to be a loss of control for there to be risk, and you're refusing loss of control.




I think he has you there, Maxperson.  There's a difference between, "the concept is always open to change - when I choose it," and, "the concept is *at risk*."


----------



## Guest 6801328

Ovinomancer said:


> Sure, if that's how you think characters are tested, I suppose it is boring.
> 
> Instead, picture the knight on a holy quest that has sworn a vow of chastity until the quest is complete.  Then, a maiden melts his heart with a wink.  The knight now has to decide between his love for the maiden and the importance of his quest, and, either way, we'll learn something about this character.




But even so, rolling a die or having the DM dictate a failure of chastity...or even just a temptation...is kinda boring.  In my opinion.

When it gets interesting is when there's some actual temptation on the part of the player to succumb.  Maybe sometimes, for some, just the story value is enough of a temptation.  But for others a mechanical temptation might be needed.  And I have to admit that I favor genuine trade-offs.  (That is, the player of the knight knows that if he/she gives in to the temptation, there's some concrete benefit to be gained, and a concrete penalty to breaking the vow.)

But, either way, if the reaction is dictated by the GM, I've just lost interest in playing that game.

Upthread somebody pointed out that in reality we aren't in control of all of our thoughts/reactions/emotions...that the mind is a mysterious black box...and that having the DM step in and make that determination is therefore "realistic". (Or something like that.)  

But we are not talking about how the player's mind works, we are talking about the character's mind. So, while the observation about the black box has merit, I believe the player should be in firm control of the black box, except when game mechanics determine otherwise.


----------



## Maxperson

Ovinomancer said:


> You're missing my point, but that's partly on me for not being consistently explicit.  There are no consequences to characterization.  Your characterization is not at risk.  Everything you mention here is external to the character -- and, I'm not, nor have I been, talking about that.  So, I get you fine, it's you missing my points.




Nah.  You just somehow don't understand what it is that I do.  You see, if my knight whose concept is a knightly paragon of virtue gets put into that situation, he may or may not succumb to the maiden's wiles.  His character is indeed at risk, as if he does succumb, his concept is dead or dying.  Not only that, but if he succumbs, I then have to struggle with he reacts to his fall.  Does he do the right thing and marry her?  Probably.  Does he fall into a great depression, perhaps drinking or not doing anything, including the quest?  Maybe.  Does he try to atone?  Does he pretend it didn't happen and do double duty on knightly virtue stuff?  And so on.  Lots and lots of character development and risk to who and what he was.

I didn't mention that stuff, because it was so obvious that if it was a hole, you could drive an 18 wheeler through it, so I figured you'd understand.


----------



## FrogReaver

Elfcrusher said:


> But even so, rolling a die or having the DM dictate a failure of chastity...or even just a temptation...is kinda boring.  In my opinion.




Isn't what he is suggesting what is classically referred to as roll playing.  When you roll dice to determine if your characters heart is melted, if you are tempted etc.

Aren't playstyles heavy in such mechanics also classically deemed simulationist.

I find it strange that the playstyle I'm advocating for has been referred to as roll-playing and simulationist etc, but that such mechanical tests that [MENTION=16814]Ovinomancer[/MENTION] and others keep referring to actually would be much clearer examples of such terms than anything I've advocated for.


----------



## Maxperson

Umbran said:


> Yep, sandboxes are impractical, but back in the day, lots of people did populate the whole thing.  Even in outline, it is a lot of work.
> 
> The one thing a sandbox needs, beyond the fact that the tower exists, is how much of a challenge that tower is, and what the basic challenge consists of (is it a wizard, a dragon, or what?)  Without that information, the GM cannot telegraph how hard it is, and PCs cannot make meaningful choices (which is what sandbox play has been argued to center upon).
> 
> In the style Ovinomancer is referencing, you don't even have an outline.  The world description may b e a couple of paragraphs of flavor text, and everything else is generated _à la minute_.
> 
> Some game engines (like Cortex+) can generate much/most of the content out of die rolls and context.




Yeah. I understand that there are some significant differences, but there are a lot of similarities as well.  I also don't think, in fact I know, that you don't have to know how much of a challenge the tower is.  It's a name on a map and as soon as the PCs express interest in finding out, you can improv it, roll it, or determine what challenge level it is while they are doing their research or travelling towards it, so that any needful telegraphing can occur.


----------



## FrogReaver

Maxperson said:


> Nah.  You just somehow don't understand what it is that I do.  You see, if my knight whose concept is a knightly paragon of virtue gets put into that situation, he may or may not succumb to the maiden's wiles.  His character is indeed at risk, as if he does succumb, his concept is dead or dying.  Not only that, but if he succumbs, I then have to struggle with he reacts to his fall.  Does he do the right thing and marry her?  Probably.  Does he fall into a great depression, perhaps drinking or not doing anything, including the quest?  Maybe.  Does he try to atone?  Does he pretend it didn't happen and do double duty on knightly virtue stuff?  And so on.  Lots and lots of character development and risk to who and what he was.
> 
> I didn't mention that stuff, because it was so obvious that if it was a hole, you could drive an 18 wheeler through it, so I figured you'd understand.




Great example of a concept evolving through play.  Nothing wrong with that, unless it's someone other than the player that gets to choose to evolve the concept.


----------



## Maxperson

FrogReaver said:


> Great example of a concept evolving through play.  Nothing wrong with that, unless it's someone other than the player that gets to choose to evolve the concept.




I can't think of any of my concepts that survived from conception to the end of the campaign without changes, often significant ones.  People evolve and so do my characters.


----------



## FrogReaver

GrahamWills said:


> What I have learned form this thread is that when I run a game where some of the players are die-hard simulationists who need rules for everything the GM does, when I want to have someone fall in love, all I should do is this:




Oh please, no one has asked for rules for everything the GM does.  I'm fine with him doing nearly anything.  The only thing I ask for is that he don't try to control things about my character for which there aren't mechanics for - and that if an NPC does that the NPC be special.  I have no problem with a single special maiden doing what is described.  I have a problem with every maiden doing what is described (barring some kind of setting where all maidens are extremely special simply by virtue of being a maiden).



> _GM: The maiden winks at you ... what's your will / determination / mental resistance ?
> Player: <number>
> GM: <Rolls behind screen> your heart is melted by the wink.
> _
> So the interesting thing here is that if the GM is actually doing some sort of rule, everyone is happy. If the GM is not, then half the people are furious. But this is completely not observable, and so it boils down to "do I trust the GM to be fair?"




It boils down to whether the maiden in question is special.  The DM giving her the special ability to melt hearts with a wink is very observable whether he names the ability in play or not.  Trust actually isn't much of a factor IMO as all of this works just fine in the game of a random stranger who I don't know.



> This is exactly the same situation as if the GM doesn't roll dice. If the GM says "The maiden winks at you and melts your heart" without consulting rules, it's the same thing -- do I trust the GM? If I do, then great, something fun will happen. If I don't, then I'm upset.




It's not much of an RPG if the DM dictates how your character thinks and feels for you, especially without consulting any dice to do so.



> Consulting rules makes zero difference here. It's just a question of whether or not you trust the GM to set up the game to be fun. Adding a veneer of rules on top is just a comfort blanket for gamers who really like rules




It makes all the difference.  It's not about trust.  It's about NPC specialness.  It's not about trust, its about not taking overt control over a PC's character.  I don't need a DM I trust, I need a DM that creates special NPC's if he wants to contest something normally uncontestable about my character and I need him not to take overt control over my PC.


----------



## hawkeyefan

Maxperson said:


> Nah.  You just somehow don't understand what it is that I do.  You see, if my knight whose concept is a knightly paragon of virtue gets put into that situation, he may or may not succumb to the maiden's wiles.  His character is indeed at risk, as if he does succumb, his concept is dead or dying.  Not only that, but if he succumbs, I then have to struggle with he reacts to his fall.  Does he do the right thing and marry her?  Probably.  Does he fall into a great depression, perhaps drinking or not doing anything, including the quest?  Maybe.  Does he try to atone?  Does he pretend it didn't happen and do double duty on knightly virtue stuff?  And so on.  Lots and lots of character development and risk to who and what he was.
> 
> I didn't mention that stuff, because it was so obvious that if it was a hole, you could drive an 18 wheeler through it, so I figured you'd understand.




All those things may happen, yes. But they happen if the player decides that they happen. So in that sense, there is no risk.

If we take the idea and instead apply it to combat, perhaps that will make it clearer. When I enter combat, only I decide how my character is affected. The DM tells me an orc attacks me....I declare it is a miss. A spell goes off? My character avoids the effects. 

Yes, I could decide to say that the orc’s attack inflicts 12 HP of damage, or even that it was a critical and my PC lost an eye! I could decide that the spell incinerates my PC, and his adventuring days are done!

But however it actually plays out, is all up to me.

So, given that these things can happen to my PC, combat’s just as risky for my PC as it would be for PCs where the game functions normally. 

Right?


----------



## Maxperson

hawkeyefan said:


> All those things may happen, yes. But they happen if the player decides that they happen. So in that sense, there is no risk.




I have no control over what the DM does that might impact my character's character, though.  As he challenges me, sooner or later things will happen that cause my character to deviate that I have no control over.  



> If we take the idea and instead apply it to combat, perhaps that will make it clearer. When I enter combat, only I decide how my character is affected. The DM tells me an orc attacks me....I declare it is a miss. A spell goes off? My character avoids the effects.
> 
> Yes, I could decide to say that the orc’s attack inflicts 12 HP of damage, or even that it was a critical and my PC lost an eye! I could decide that the spell incinerates my PC, and his adventuring days are done!
> 
> But however it actually plays out, is all up to me.
> 
> So, given that these things can happen to my PC, combat’s just as risky for my PC as it would be for PCs where the game functions normally.
> 
> Right?




But you have no control over if or when an orc attacks.  Going outside is a risk, because you might be attacked and sooner or later, playing with swords causes someone to lose an eye.


----------



## Guest 6801328

FrogReaver said:


> Isn't what he is suggesting what is classically referred to as roll playing.  When you roll dice to determine if your characters heart is melted, if you are tempted etc.
> 
> Aren't playstyles heavy in such mechanics also classically deemed simulationist.
> 
> I find it strange that the playstyle I'm advocating for has been referred to as roll-playing and simulationist etc, but that such mechanical tests that @_*Ovinomancer*_ and others keep referring to actually would be much clearer examples of such terms than anything I've advocated for.




I think you are trying to adopt too narrow a definition of "roleplaying".  There's nothing inherent in the term that suggests the person doing the playing must also choose the role.

A game where you draw cards and act out the emotions and intentions you find on your card could still be roleplaying.  

Just not the sort I like.


----------



## Guest 6801328

hawkeyefan said:


> All those things may happen, yes. But they happen if the player decides that they happen. So in that sense, there is no risk.
> 
> If we take the idea and instead apply it to combat, perhaps that will make it clearer. When I enter combat, only I decide how my character is affected. The DM tells me an orc attacks me....I declare it is a miss. A spell goes off? My character avoids the effects.
> 
> Yes, I could decide to say that the orc’s attack inflicts 12 HP of damage, or even that it was a critical and my PC lost an eye! I could decide that the spell incinerates my PC, and his adventuring days are done!
> 
> But however it actually plays out, is all up to me.
> 
> So, given that these things can happen to my PC, combat’s just as risky for my PC as it would be for PCs where the game functions normally.
> 
> Right?




If you are talking about a game in which "Seductive Wink" is a known mechanic, and has been defined in the way that sword attacks and the like are, then sure.

But otherwise it sounds like you're conflating "DM Fiat" with actual rules.

EDIT:

Alternatively, here's how to make the comparison apples-to-apples:

The orc makes an attack and does 12 damage according to the rules of the game, and the DM says, "Suddenly you have an overwhelming sense of your own mortality and sink into melancholy."

There.  That's an apt comparison to "The maiden winks at you and melts your heart."


----------



## hawkeyefan

Maxperson said:


> I have no control over what the DM does that might impact my character's character, though.  As he challenges me, sooner or later things will happen that cause my character to deviate that I have no control over.
> 
> But you have no control over if or when an orc attacks.  Going outside is a risk, because you might be attacked and sooner or later, playing with swords causes someone to lose an eye.




But the outcome is always up to the player. They may choose to lose an eye, yes....out of some sense of realism or because they think it’ll be dramatic or any other reason. But it’s up to them. They don’t ever have to lose an eye, or fail a save, or face any other outcome that they don’t want to face.

But you didn’t really answer my question. If combat works for me where I decide the outcome, but it works for you along the traditional D&D type expectations, who faces more risk in combat? Me or you? Or is it the same?


----------



## hawkeyefan

Elfcrusher said:


> If you are talking about a game in which "Seductive Wink" is a known mechanic, and has been defined in the way that sword attacks and the like are, then sure.
> 
> But otherwise it sounds like you're conflating "DM Fiat" with actual rules.
> 
> EDIT:
> 
> Alternatively, here's how to make the comparison apples-to-apples:
> 
> The orc makes an attack and does 12 damage according to the rules of the game, and the DM says, "Suddenly you have an overwhelming sense of your own mortality and sink into melancholy."
> 
> There.  That's an apt comparison to "The maiden winks at you and melts your heart."




I didn’t mention the maiden’s wink. I’m asking if combat mechanics for a game worked in such a way that the player decided the outcome of combat for their character, would you consider such a system more or less risky than the traditional D&D combat system?


----------



## Guest 6801328

hawkeyefan said:


> I didn’t mention the maiden’s wink. I’m asking if combat mechanics for a game worked in such a way that the player decided the outcome of combat for their character, would you consider such a system more or less risky than the traditional D&D combat system?




Well, that's exactly how I handle PvP.  (Thanks, [MENTION=97077]iserith[/MENTION]!)

I'm actually tempted to ask you to define "risky", but I'll assume the LCD meaning and say "less risky".

Point?


----------



## FrogReaver

hawkeyefan said:


> All those things may happen, yes. But they happen if the player decides that they happen. So in that sense, there is no risk.
> 
> If we take the idea and instead apply it to combat, perhaps that will make it clearer. When I enter combat, only I decide how my character is affected. The DM tells me an orc attacks me....I declare it is a miss. A spell goes off? My character avoids the effects.
> 
> Yes, I could decide to say that the orc’s attack inflicts 12 HP of damage, or even that it was a critical and my PC lost an eye! I could decide that the spell incinerates my PC, and his adventuring days are done!
> 
> But however it actually plays out, is all up to me.
> 
> So, given that these things can happen to my PC, combat’s just as risky for my PC as it would be for PCs where the game functions normally.
> 
> Right?




It depends on how the scene is framed.  There can be risk in such combats (though what you describe is not a combat resolution system I would enjoy).

Let me give an example.  Perhaps if you fight too well the King notices but the captain is jealous and if you don't fight well the king doesn't notice you but the princess notices just how weak you are and since she carries carries favor with the king you are kicked out of army and if you fight just well enough then might get selected to be on the front lines of the next great battle.

-All of those scenarios carry a risk and a possible reward depending on if you overcome the risk.

It's a different kind of risk for sure, but even then there's potential risks involved - sometimes no matter what choice you make.


----------



## hawkeyefan

Elfcrusher said:


> Well, that's exactly how I handle PvP.  (Thanks, @_*iserith*_!)
> 
> I'm actually tempted to ask you to define "risky", but I'll assume the LCD meaning and say "less risky".
> 
> Point?




Just that systems that leave outcomes up to the player are less risky than those that resolve them in other ways. Could be combat, could be social encounters.


----------



## Maxperson

hawkeyefan said:


> But the outcome is always up to the player. They may choose to lose an eye, yes....out of some sense of realism or because they think it’ll be dramatic or any other reason. But it’s up to them. They don’t ever have to lose an eye, or fail a save, or* face any other outcome that they don’t want to face*.




It isn't about "want."  I may want to remain a paragon of knightly virtue, but if the circumstances warrant a fall, it's going to happen whether I want it to or not.  I'm not going to play in bad faith and avoid something that is warranted, just because I don't want it to happen.



> But you didn’t really answer my question. If combat works for me where I decide the outcome, but it works for you along the traditional D&D type expectations, who faces more risk in combat? Me or you? Or is it the same?




There's more risk with the random method.  There is still risk with you deciding things..........if you're playing in good faith anyway.


----------



## Maxperson

hawkeyefan said:


> Just that systems that leave outcomes up to the player are less risky than those that resolve them in other ways. Could be combat, could be social encounters.




Cool, but you've moved the goalposts.  The debate is between zero risk and risk, not more risk and less risk.  That you've acknowledged that there is at least some risk with me deciding the outcomes is enough for me.  Some risk is all I've argued.


----------



## Lanefan

pemerton said:


> Not really. Suppose that the first is stated by the GM, the player makes a Resist Passion roll, and fails, and then the GM state the second. How did this situation suddenly change from "test" to "manipulation"?



It didn't.  The invokation and use of a mechanic (the Resist Passion roll) kept it at 'test', which was then failed, thus giving the GM the right to narrate the results of said failure.  All is good.

But the second statement _without any mechanics involved_ isn't a test, it's a manipulation.



> Or to give a different example. The GM has described the dungeon corridor that the PCs are standing in. The player says _I walk down the left-hand path, inspecting the ceiling as I go._ The GM responds, _OK, after about 10' you find yourself falling - that bit of floor was an illusion!_ Is that "test" or "manipulation"?



It's magic, which allows a certain amount of bypassing the normal rules.  Same idea, in a way, as how a charm spell allows a DM to make a PC do/feel things he might otherwise not.

However, let's say it wasn't an illusion but just a simple pit.  The player has stated the PC is specifically looking at the ceiling, so the GM just deciding that the PC doesn't see the pit coming* might be fair game; though I think most would give some sort of perception roll in any case and have that one roll kind of serve two purposes: a) did the PC notice anyhting odd about the ceiling and b) did the PC happen to notice the pit ahead.

* - one has to ask why the rest of the party aren't warning this poor sot to watch where he's putting his feet. 



> I wrote the OP, so I can condidently say that you are wrong about this. The OP says nothing in particular about what the mechanics and system conventions might be around establishing true descriptions of PC actions - for instance, what resources might need to be spent in order to be permitted to make a description true. It deliberately and expressly makes the range of possibilities a matter of discussion!



Actually, that it says nothing about the mechanics and system conventions being used says to me quite specifically that there are none being used at all (otherwise they'd have been mentioned, hm?) and thus it's an example of a player dictating an NPC's reaction.



> I think you may have missed the point of the OP. I described an action - _I wink at the maiden, melting her heart_ - in the course of inviting discussion about how these descriptions of actions might be made true of the fiction. The OP canvsasses decision-making and checks - for D&D players, this at least roughly corresponds to the difference between spell-casting and thief abilities.
> 
> I don't know why you would equate _a player decision-amking ability_ with _bypassing game mechanics_.



But that's just the point: you didn't just describe an action.  You described an action (winking at the maiden) and its result (melting her heart) all in one.  The action is fine, but describing the result without reference to either it being an attempt only or to any system mechanics or conventions is where the problems arise: it reads as if game mechancs ARE being bypassed by player fiat - which is why I turned the example around to make it GM fiat so you and others could see the problem for what it was.



> The whole point of the OP was that simply saying _The players decide what their PCs do_ isn't a useful description of any RPG, given that _I wink at the maiden, melting her heart_ is a true description of what a PC does, but isn't something that a player normally has the unfettered power to make true in a RPG.



Actually, no it isn't.

'I wink at the maiden' is a true description of what a PC does.  'Melting her heart' is merely a description of, one must assume, the PC's goal in doing it; but without the co-operation of the maiden there's no implied guarantee that this goal will be achieved...except by use of either game mechanics (which aren't mentioned) or GM fiat (which, as mechancs aren't mentioned, becomes the default).  It's merely an attempt, and thus should be phrased as such.


----------



## Lanefan

pemerton said:


> This still makes no sense. Are you talking about the fiction (in which nothing has hp - hit points are not a part of the gameworld) or about resolution mechanics?



Hit points per se aren't a part of the game world but what they describe - a creature's general degree of toughness and resilience - is.

Take a typical ogre.  They're usually pretty tough and can take a few solid hits from pretty much any other ogre before going down - this is represented in game mechanics by their usually having a decent amount of h.p. - let's for argument's sake say 60 each. So two of these ogres get into a fight - they whale on each other a while until one goes down bruised and bleeding and the other steals his cake.  We're good so far, right?

Now take those same two ogres (who have recovered from their fight) and have them fight two low-level characters who are each capable, let's say, of doing about 15 points damage per round given good rolls.  The ogres give it out, they take it, good fight, and for these purposes who cares who wins.

But now let's put these same ogres - who for consistency's sake should ALWAYS have toughness represented by 60 h.p. - and make them minions, and put them up against a high-level character who with good rolling can give out maybe 45 h.p. damage per round.  If these ogres could keep their normal toughness they'd on average give that PC at least a 3-round workout before going down...but they're minions, meaning with good rolling the PC can wipe them out in a hearbeat.  This is where the glaring inconsistency arises with minion rules, particularly when applied to larger and-or (usually) much tougher creatures.

(my actual numbers above are probably all far too low given 4e's hit point ranges, but the principle still applies)



> Likewise. I don't think you understand how 4e's combat rules work.



I don't understand how they can work when viewed through any sort of lens of internal consistency.


----------



## Lanefan

Ovinomancer said:


> Sure, if that's how you think characters are tested, I suppose it is boring.
> 
> Instead, picture the knight on a holy quest that has sworn a vow of chastity until the quest is complete.  Then, a maiden melts his heart with a wink.  The knight now has to decide between his love for the maiden and the importance of his quest, and, either way, we'll learn something about this character.



Agreed so far.



> I think another problem with conceptualization here is the difference in how games that risk character play versus those that don't.  In general, a game where the GM has some authority over character are those games that also play in the moment and not according to a preconceived plot.  In the case of the knight above, the quest isn't something the GM has already written up in their notes but instead something that occurs from play.  In that case, the knight suddenly deciding to go with the maiden doesn't derail the planned story because that choice is the story at that moment.  Whereas in games with heavy GM authority that prefer inviolable character conceptualization (like D&D), this kind of sudden shift is difficult to deal with because the system relies so strongly on GM prep.



Oddly enough, it's not the GM's notes that are put in jeopardy here: it's the player's notes. 

Why, you ask?  Because one expects that a player is going to have some sort of basic idea about what makes a character tick, and will maybe even have some notes to that effect e.g.:

_Chastain rose to knighthood from the common ranks, and though he tries to be noble he cannot forget his roots.  As a means of separating himself from the free-swinging peasant society in which he was raised, he has sworn to remain chaste and pure until marriage, to only ever marry once, and to not entertain the thought at all until he has either completed a significant quest or won a significant tournament at the lists and thus proven himself worthy of the love of a lady of noble standing._

And then the maiden winks at him...and those notes suddenly might not mean as much as they did a moment ago.

The GM's notes (or lack thereof) don't much matter here - whether she's prepped the quest or not, this sort of thing can happen in any game; and it's just part of a GM's job to be able to hit curveballs like this when they arise.


----------



## aramis erak

Elfcrusher said:


> That doesn't mean I don't think the GM should ever cross the line: it just needs to be specified in the rules and mechanics.  That might range from D&D 5e (where "magic" is required)



5E has strong social effect in the DMG, page 244. It's not intended for vs PC use, but it's definitely there for PCs to non-magically alter the reaction of the NPC, and that alteration can move one from neutral to actively helpful (given a high enough roll)...

Using it vs PC's is off-label, but if part of the social contract of the game as a house rule, can make for some really fun play. It's a higher level of ceding control over the character by the player to the combination of GM and rules. 

The transfer of authority is fundamental in rules based roleplay. It is the singularly most fundamental aspect of it being a game.

Let's take and expand this to the absurd level...
Two players, a table, and a chess set.
They can, as they choose, move the pieces about, and play with the chess set. They could even use it to play any of several games... Chess being the intended, but you can play checkers with a chess set (8 pawns, and the 2 rooks and 2 bishops are my favored subset). You can also play tablero, or xiangqi. Or one of several mensa-developed variants upon chess.

Simply moving the bits about generally isn't amusing past about age 10... but one cedes options to turn it from a toy to a game, and in the process, increase the intellectual reward.

RPGs differ only in that the pieces are mental - tho' some have physical items tied to them. It is by limiting choices that those choices restrict outcomes, and in the process, increase the value of the game play.


----------



## Umbran

Maxperson said:


> I have no control over what the DM does that might impact my character's character, though.




If you have absolute control over the personality, what the GM puts up as a challenge is irrelevant.  

In a combat challenge, you have your stats, and you get to play - you make choices based on various odds, and maybe you win, and maybe you don't.  Maybe you and your character are up to the task, and maybe they aren't.  

In a challenge to the core personality of a character, you can just say, "Nah.  This has no impact."  That's not a challenge, that's merely a choice.  It is like saying, "I'll flip a coin, and then choose whatever I want anyway," and calling that a challenge.  If you have two teams playing soccer and, whatever happens on the field, one team just gets to just pick the final score of the game, that team isn't challenged.

Now, I am fine if you prefer a game where the character's core isn't challenged.  That's a perfectly acceptable way to play.  But call it what it is.


----------



## FrogReaver

Umbran said:


> If you have absolute control over the personality, what the GM puts up as a challenge is irrelevant.
> 
> In a combat challenge, you have your stats, and you get to play - you make choices based on various odds, and maybe you win, and maybe you don't.  Maybe you and your character are up to the task, and maybe they aren't.
> 
> In a challenge to the core personality of a character, you can just say, "Nah.  This has no impact."  That's not a challenge, that's merely a choice.  It is like saying, "I'll flip a coin, and then choose whatever I want anyway," and calling that a challenge.  If you have two teams playing soccer and, whatever happens on the field, one team just gets to just pick the final score of the game, that team isn't challenged.
> 
> Now, I am fine if you prefer a game where the character's core isn't challenged.  That's a perfectly acceptable way to play.  But call it what it is.




You are defining challenge in a very narrow context - using a mechanical test to determine something about your character. Your concept can be challenged. 

As as a quick example - let’s say your the chaste knight. You are promised Excalibur for giving up your chastity.  Do you take that offer?  Is that not having your character challenges while still maintaining full control of it?


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## Umbran

FrogReaver said:


> You are defining challenge in a very narrow context - using a mechanical test to determine something about your character. Your concept can be challenged.




No, I don't _require_ a mechanical test.  That was merely the easiest example, and the way we typically form challenges in RPGs.  

What is required for a challenge is 
1) More than one possible end state, in which one is preferable to others.
2) Significant question over whether you can attain a preferable end state.
3) Some ability to influence the course of events.

So, a fight between a 20th level fighter and a base goblin - not a challenge, as there's no real question about being able to reach the preferred state.  Similarly, flip a coin, and that's the result you get, no matter what you do?  Also not a challenge, as no effort on your part influences results.

If you maintain full control of the choice, there is no challenge, as there no doubt you can reach your preferred end state.



> As as a quick example - let’s say your the chaste knight. You are promised Excalibur for giving up your chastity.  Do you take that offer?  Is that not having your character challenges while still maintaining full control of it?




In this context, no.  That isn't a challenge.  That is a question.  "Who are you?  What do you want?"  You can have either just as easily.  There is no difficulty in attaining either.  Angst over not being able to have your cake and eat it too does not constitute a challenge.  Questions over what really is your preferred end state, similarly, do not constitute a challenge.

This is something we should note - a difference between the real world and authored fiction.  In the real world, resisting temptation may be a challenge for a person.  For an authored fiction, there is the *illusion* of a challenge.  If we suspend our disbelief, it makes us *feel* like a challenge took place.  But, really, the author just decided - there is no person whose will was honestly tested.  If someone has full, or zero, control over the result, there is no test.


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## hawkeyefan

Maxperson said:


> It isn't about "want."  I may want to remain a  paragon of knightly virtue, but if the circumstances warrant a fall,  it's going to happen whether I want it to or not.  I'm not going to play  in bad faith and avoid something that is warranted, just because I  don't want it to happen.




No, it can't happen if you don't want it to. You have to approve it since your PC is your domain. That's the whole point. 

You're  talking about playing in "bad faith" but that's a judgment call, and is  going to have a pretty broad gray area. And again, relying on judgment  is a fine way to do it if that's what you prefer. 

But the  addition of mechanics would remove the gray area and the need for as  much judgment. And this addition appeals to some players. Really that's  all it boils down to.

Relying on judgment is fine.....I play  plenty of D&D, and a lot of my game functions this way. There's  nothing wrong with it. It's just not focused on challenges to character  as much as it is about combat. 



Maxperson said:


> There's more risk with the random method.




Thank  you. This is the point. People may prefer a game where there is more  risk in this area. They want there to be mechanics so that there's  consistency in application, and understanding of stakes and risk. 

This  approach in the social aspect of the fiction is not any less about  roleplaying than D&D and similar games are because combat functions  that way. 

Basically, the stance "I am in control of my character  at all times, unless magic or during combat. All other outcomes are for  me to decide and any change to this means I'm no longer roleplaying" is  pretty absurd.



Maxperson said:


> Cool, but you've moved the goalposts.  The debate is between zero risk and risk, not more risk and less risk.  That you've acknowledged that there is at least some risk with me deciding the outcomes is enough for me.  Some risk is all I've argued.




I've not moved goalposts. I'm not trying to "win". The semantic difference between "less risk" and "no risk" is unimportant to me. What I'm trying to do is explain to you how mechanics that may dictate PC behavior can appeal as an alternate approach to play. The risk to character that is inherent in that play is why it appeals to some folks. You don't dig it...that's fine. But if you can accept that there is more risk to character in that style of play, then I expect you may understand how it may appeal to someone, even if you don't share that preference. 

I don' think that there would really be no risk to character in a system like that of D&D 5E. I think a good DM can put a choice to a PC that is not easy and which requires no mechanics to resolve. All that takes is two desires or goals to be put at odds with one another. Tough choices like that seem to me to be possible in just about any system, I'd expect.


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## Aldarc

Elfcrusher said:


> Upthread somebody pointed out that in reality we aren't in control of all of our thoughts/reactions/emotions...that the mind is a mysterious black box...and that having the DM step in and make that determination is therefore "realistic". (Or something like that.)
> 
> *But we are not talking about how the player's mind works, we are talking about the character's mind.* So, while the observation about the black box has merit, I believe the player should be in firm control of the black box, except when game mechanics determine otherwise.



I'm a bit perplexed here, as you seem to presume that we haven't been talking about the character's mind. In fact, I don't think that any of us have talked thus far about the player's mind, as we have been focused on the character's mental states. But again, I think that this touches upon my earlier point that your whole "black box" perspective - since you appear to be introducing a novel idea of a black box - essentially approaches this issue from the lens of mind-body duality and tabula rasa-style free-will. Whereas I think that a lot of us who made mention of human irrationality view this through the lens of cognitive science, behavioral psychology, and biolgoical psychosomatic processes. So from our perspective, it largely simulates the human condition and experience (and characters within dramatic stories) while not depriving us of any fundamental agency in roleplay. 



Lanefan said:


> Hit points per se aren't a part of the game world but what they describe - a creature's general degree of toughness and resilience - is.



I don't necessarily agree here, Lanefan, which may be part of the problem. I regard hit points foremost as a pacing mechanic rather than some sort of dogmatic truth about the nature of the creature. And part of the DM's responsibility is to manipulate the pacing of encounters, so having the DM alter HP of creatures doesn't bother me at all presuming that it's fair or well. A level one party of four fighting a 100 goblins with 1000 HP each would be unfair by most reasonable metrics in any edition of D&D. 



> Take a typical ogre. They're usually pretty tough and can take a few solid hits from pretty much any other ogre before going down - this is represented in game mechanics by their usually having a decent amount of h.p. - let's for argument's sake say 60 each. So two of these ogres get into a fight - they whale on each other a while until one goes down bruised and bleeding and the other steals his cake.  We're good so far, right?



Well, no. If they whale on each other, then it doesn't matter what their HP are, because the GM controls the entirety of the fiction. They could have them fight non-stop for days or have the other be killed from a bee sting without picking up the dice once and regardless of the listed HP. Most DMs do this all the time. All the time. 



> But now let's put these same ogres - *who for consistency's sake should ALWAYS have toughness represented by 60 h.p.* - and make them minions, and put them up against a high-level character who with good rolling can give out maybe 45 h.p. damage per round.  If these ogres could keep their normal toughness they'd on average give that PC at least a 3-round workout before going down...but they're minions, meaning with good rolling the PC can wipe them out in a hearbeat.  This is where the glaring inconsistency arises with minion rules, particularly when applied to larger and-or (usually) much tougher creatures.



(1) Why is the bold required for consistency's sake? My sense of ogres or their consistency does not hinge on how many HP they have, but on the fact that they are ogres in the fiction. HP is one tool, among many, that the DM can manipulate to control the pacing of the encounter. Some monsters will have more HP than in the MM, and others will have less. Minions have 1 HP and it's shorthand for saying that they take one hit. So yes, ogres are usually tough, or at least they were before, but now you know how to fight them better and make your hits count. 

(2) How does applying the minion rules consistently create a "glaring inconsistency"?  

Though I am now imaginging ogres getting upset that PCs don't follow the internal consistency of their humanoid type: 


> Ogre 1: Karlogg, it just upsets me that the humanoid adventurers we encounter have variable hit points.
> 
> Ogre 2: What about it, Uzar?
> 
> Ogre 1: Let's take a typical human. They have 4 HP. This means that it should only require one hit to kill them. So for consistency's sake, they should all have 4 HP. And yet, the other day we encountered humans who now have 64 HP! What's up with that? I don't understand how they can work when viewed through any sort of lens of internal consistency.



Anyway... 



> I don't understand how they can work when viewed through any sort of lens of internal consistency.



But as you know, it does work for many who have used minions. Why do you think that may be the case? And while you genuinely consider your answer to that with actual reflection about other people with differing gaming preferences... 

IMHO, I think that opposition to minions is predominately is a DM-side problem and far less of a player-side problem. I don't think that I have ever encountered in _my own experience_ a single player - regardless of which side of the DM screen I was sitting on at the time - who complained about minions ever. I'm not saying that there aren't players who oppose minion rules, but I think all complaints I have encountered have come from the DM side of the equation. I suspect that the issue from the DM-side of things is that minion rules essentially show the DM how the sausage is made, and some DMs don't like anything that makes them aware of that. In contrast, players see and engage the fiction. 

Of course, I'm not entirely sure how minions are relevant to the larger discourse on winking maidens and melting hearts. 



Lanefan said:


> Why, you ask?  Because one expects that a player is going to have some sort of basic idea about what makes a character tick, and will maybe even have some notes to that effect e.g.:
> ...
> And then the maiden winks at him...and those notes suddenly might not mean as much as they did a moment ago.



Or those player notes may mean more now, since the melting of his heart by the maiden's wink may signify that the character has found a lady of noble standing worth fighting for rather than simply the furtive dream of a noble lady. Or maybe the lady that affects them the most is not the one their mind was previously set upon. Of course it's also the player's responsibility to hit curveballs like this when they are encountered in the fiction. Otherwise, it almost seems like the character-side equivalent of railroading.


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## Umbran

Aldarc said:


> I'm a bit perplexed here, as you seem to presume that we haven't been talking about the character's mind. In fact, I don't think that any of us have talked thus far about the player's mind, as we have been focused on the character's mental states.




We could say that, even with total player control, within the fiction, we decide that a thing was a challenge for the character.  There's no problem with that broadly speaking, though we are then walking the line between role-playing, and straight authorship.  That's a significant reason why I describe challenges as being something not fully in the player's control - to stand back from that line, where the player cannot be an outright author of the character's fate.


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## Tony Vargas

FrogReaver said:


> You are defining challenge in a very narrow context - using a mechanical test to determine something about your character....As as a quick example - let’s say your the chaste knight. You are promised Excalibur for giving up your chastity.  Do you take that offer?  Is that not having your character challenges while still maintaining full control of it?



There's still a significant mechanical /element/ there, in that you'll get a powerful item, which, in some games, will make a huge difference to your experience of play for quite a while.  So the fact you have full control over the character can actually be a bit of a conflict of interest.  To totally mix systems, if the character is 'chaste' because it's part of the core character concept, that's one thing, if it got you an extra build point as a GURPS-style quirk or something, mainly to get points for said build, well...

Systems like FATE that give character concept mechanical teeth (Aspects) that can bite both ways have their virtues, too.  

Of course, the mechanical 'test' doesn't need to be rolling a die or any other sort of randomization, it just has to be a fork with different mechanical consequences depending on why way it goes.  The example you give, or offering a FATE point to compel and aspect would both be examples of mechanical tests that aren't randomized.  
FWIW.


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## lowkey13

*Deleted by user*


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## GrahamWills

FrogReaver said:


> Oh please, no one has asked for rules for everything the GM does.  I'm fine with him doing nearly anything.  The only thing I ask for is that he don't try to control things about my character for which there aren't mechanics for




Heh. I guess we have fundamentally different ideas about what a GM does. For me if you say "I need mechanics for everything the GM controls which affects my character" that is the same as saying "I need mechanics for everything" -- or at least everything that matters.

I mean, what else does a GM do, but adjudicate what happens to your character? Anything which does not affect anyone's character at all is pretty much irrelevant, so outside of that, everything the GM does is controlling your character's destiny. Does the orc attack you? She's controlling your destiny. Does the city of Fuzit elect a mayor who will outlaw your class? She's controlling your destiny. Does the maiden's wink melt your heart?  She's controlling your destiny. Does she roll on the random-monster table when you rest in the 10'x10' room?  She's controlling your destiny.

I think what you are arguing is that there are some aspects of your character you would like only you to have control over. Which is fine -- that's certainly true for me and my characters. And I also understand that a very common default set of such aspects is "those aspects which D&D does not have rules for", which is also fine. But it's by no means universal. And it's not even going to be the same for the same people in different games.

D&D has lots of rules for how characters react to physical stimuli and virtually none to how they react to emotional or social stimuli. Even when it has rules, they are asymmetric -- the wandering monster does not get YOU to role on the reaction table, and that's likely because the game is all about the physical and goes freeform for social and emotional issues. But that's the genre, not a universal truth. In a genre about courtly romance, the GM might set the scene by saying "the wink of a maiden melts your heart" setting up a social conflict where you want to win her approval while not alienating your fiancee. She's putting you in emotional danger just as a D&D GM puts characters in physical danger by calling for initiative.


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## lowkey13

*Deleted by user*


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## Campbell

Although I fought the label at first I have found that I'm fairly immersion focused as a player. Mechanics that help me feel the pressure of social expectations, emotions, and weight of character beliefs only serve to aid in immersion. I'm not a huge fan of mechanics that dictate behavior, but ones that impact success and failure like strings in Monsterhearts or Conditions and Influence in Masks really help me to get inside my characters' hearts and heads. They also provide cover to players to play with integrity in situations where common tabletop rpg culture would put pressure on them to be more of a team player.


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## Guest 6801328

Umbran said:


> No, I don't _require_ a mechanical test.  That was merely the easiest example, and the way we typically form challenges in RPGs.
> 
> What is required for a challenge is
> 1) More than one possible end state, in which one is preferable to others.
> 2) Significant question over whether you can attain a preferable end state.
> 3) Some ability to influence the course of events.
> 
> So, a fight between a 20th level fighter and a base goblin - not a challenge, as there's no real question about being able to reach the preferred state.  Similarly, flip a coin, and that's the result you get, no matter what you do?  Also not a challenge, as no effort on your part influences results.
> 
> If you maintain full control of the choice, there is no challenge, as there no doubt you can reach your preferred end state.
> 
> 
> 
> In this context, no.  That isn't a challenge.  That is a question.  "Who are you?  What do you want?"  You can have either just as easily.  There is no difficulty in attaining either.  Angst over not being able to have your cake and eat it too does not constitute a challenge.  Questions over what really is your preferred end state, similarly, do not constitute a challenge.
> 
> This is something we should note - a difference between the real world and authored fiction.  In the real world, resisting temptation may be a challenge for a person.  For an authored fiction, there is the *illusion* of a challenge.  If we suspend our disbelief, it makes us *feel* like a challenge took place.  But, really, the author just decided - there is no person whose will was honestly tested.  If someone has full, or zero, control over the result, there is no test.






I have to admit I fully agree with FrogReaver on this one. Maybe chastity vs Excalibur is too binary, too simplistic, but I think it’s a far more interesting sort of personality challenge than some of the other examples thrown around. 

Folks keep using the dice rolling of combat as some kind of standard against which other activities are measured, but isn’t combat (besides being fun) really the result of failing to overcome challenges in more interesting, and in many ways less risky, ways?

In some ways this is starting to remind me of the recent mega-thread(s) about challenging the player vs challenging the character, with much of the same underlying philosophy, but (apparently) shifting sides.


----------



## generic

Umbran said:


> We could say that, even with total player control, within the fiction, we decide that a thing was a challenge for the character.  There's no problem with that broadly speaking, though we are then walking the line between role-playing, and straight authorship.  That's a significant reason why I describe challenges as being something not fully in the player's control - to stand back from that line, where the player cannot be an outright author of the character's fate.




I agree, for the most part.

After all, If the player chooses to role=play in perfect character, this would not be an issue.  But, if the player disregards the character in order to take a magic sword (Excalibur), the most we, as DMs, can do, under the RAW, is exhibit the consequences to the character from the perspective of outsiders.

For example, the chaste knight who relinquishes his chastity will, if role-played to a standard of accuracy, respond appropriately.  Otherwise, the horror of his fellow knights can be one of the only indicators of the consequence that the character experiences.  In this case, it is not a good simulation, because the character has experienced no regret or character change.

When moments like this come up in my game, when the player says something that seem entirely out of character, I first ask them why their character has chosen to take this action.  With my players, it's not too difficult, but what am I supposed to say if their response is "lol, magic sword duh"?

So, yes, this is a good point.


----------



## FrogReaver

Tony Vargas said:


> There's still a significant mechanical /element/ there, in that you'll get a powerful item, which, in some games, will make a huge difference to your experience of play for quite a while.




If that's what mechanical means to you then that's a good part of the reason we are getting no where in this discussion.


----------



## FrogReaver

Aebir-Toril said:


> I agree, for the most part.
> 
> After all, If the player chooses to role=play in perfect character, this would not be an issue.  But, if the player disregards the character in order to take a magic sword (Excalibur), the most we, as DMs, can do, under the RAW, is exhibit the consequences to the character from the perspective of outsiders.




This is the weirdest turn in the whole conversation.  

I'm not sure it can ever be that simple.  Regardless of the player's motivation he roleplayed the character as choosing the sword.  If that was how he always conceived his character then great.  If that choice made him have to rethink who his character is in the world and evolve his conceptualization of the character then that's great too.  He broke his character concept but that's okay because it was his choice to do so. There's no wrong answer here.  There's no cheating, there's just progress.

And even if you insist on calling it cheating, the only person he can possibly be cheating is himself.


----------



## Tony Vargas

FrogReaver said:


> This is the weirdest turn in the whole conversation.



 Conversation's not over yet. 



> And even if you insist on calling it cheating, the only person he can possibly be cheating is himself.



Yep.  Players do that.  Seen it more often than I'd like.


----------



## Guest 6801328

Aebir-Toril said:


> But, if the player disregards the character in order to take a magic sword (Excalibur), the most we, as DMs, can do, under the RAW, is exhibit the consequences to the character from the perspective of outsiders.
> 
> ....
> 
> When moments like this come up in my game, when the player says something that seem entirely out of character, I first ask them why their character has chosen to take this action.  With my players, it's not too difficult, but what am I supposed to say if their response is "lol, magic sword duh"?




Sounds like roleplaying thought police to me. 

Ever seen/read a fictional noble character who succumbed to temptation or other base instincts?  Like...all of Greek literature?  Shakespeare?

Conversely, imagine the opposite: the noble and pure character who *never* does. Like...in moralizing cartoons for small children?

Now, maybe said player is just greedy, and isn’t trying to roleplay a dramatic fall from Grace, but in trying to distinguish between the two you’re falling into the same trap as the anti-metagaming crowd and trying to police their thoughts. 

Don’t play with people you don’t want to play with, but expecting (or trying to force) people to roleplay a character the way you think it should be role played just ain’t gonna end well. 

Somebody above referred to immersion. Put the player in the situation where he is genuinely agonizing over a moral choice, and he will feel like his character feels. That’s a win before he even makes the decision.


----------



## Ovinomancer

FrogReaver said:


> This is the weirdest turn in the whole conversation.
> 
> I'm not sure it can ever be that simple.  Regardless of the player's motivation he roleplayed the character as choosing the sword.  If that was how he always conceived his character then great.  If that choice made him have to rethink who his character is in the world and evolve his conceptualization of the character then that's great too.  He broke his character concept but that's okay because it was his choice to do so. There's no wrong answer here.  There's no cheating, there's just progress.
> 
> And even if you insist on calling it cheating, the only person he can possibly be cheating is himself.




Yes, I agree, it is the weirdest turn.  No one's mentioned calling the choice cheating, yet here you are arguing as if this was said.  It's like before, when you tried to use "roll-playing" to dismiss arguments.  I though that had to be the most ridiculous thing in the thread, but, no, I was wrong.  This is going a bit further.  I'm not sure if you just don't understand what's being said, or if you do and feel the need to do this anyway.  I'm going to give the benefit of the doubt and assume the former.


----------



## Ovinomancer

Elfcrusher said:


> Sounds like roleplaying thought police to me.
> 
> Ever seen/read a fictional noble character who succumbed to temptation or other base instincts?  Like...all of Greek literature?  Shakespeare?
> 
> Conversely, imagine the opposite: the noble and pure character who *never* does. Like...in moralizing cartoons for small children?
> 
> Now, maybe said player is just greedy, and isn’t trying to roleplay a dramatic fall from Grace, but in trying to distinguish between the two you’re falling into the same trap as the anti-metagaming crowd and trying to police their thoughts.
> 
> Don’t play with people you don’t want to play with, but expecting (or trying to force) people to roleplay a character the way you think it should be role played just ain’t gonna end well.
> 
> Somebody above referred to immersion. Put the player in the situation where he is genuinely agonizing over a moral choice, and he will feel like his character feels. That’s a win before he even makes the decision.




Huh?  Are you taking Frogreaver's meds, too?  The ask is to explore the reasoning behind the sudden change, not to refute it if doesn't meet guidelines.  Heck, [MENTION=6923088]Aebir-Toril[/MENTION] even says they wouldn't know what to do with "lol, magic sword duh" which strongly suggests that this would just be a confusing answer, not one that's censored.

Perhaps I'm wrong, and AT really is running roughshod over his players, but I haven't gotten that at all, and it requires adding words to what they've posted to get there.


----------



## pemerton

Lanefan said:


> Hit points per se aren't a part of the game world but what they describe - a creature's general degree of toughness and resilience - is.



This is why I say you don't undertand the 4e combat resolution mechanics. This claim isn't true of 4e; hit points aren't a description of anything. The toughness of a creature is described in the fiction - just as (say) JRRT conveys that the cave troll is tough. The hit points are then a device - together with AC, attack rolls, damage dice etc - that are used to determine the outcomes of fights. That is to say, they are a component of a resolution system. And this is all subsequent to the fiction of how tough the creature/NPC is, not an input into it.


----------



## pemerton

[MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION], [MENTION=6795602]FrogReaver[/MENTION] - you've both made some recent posts which dispute the analysis of action put foward in the OP. Eg you both deny that _I melt the maiden's heart with my wink_ is a true description of a PC's action, and a description of the same action as _I wink at the maiden_ (although obviously a different description).

I'm not that interested in turning this thread into an argument in the philosophy of action, but I think that the objections to your claims are overwhelming. (And there's a reason why Davidson remains, even posthumously, one of the leading figures in contemporary philosophy of action.) Just to give one: if the character in fact melts the maiden's heart with a wink, then it is obviously true to say of him/her _S/he melted the maiden's heart with a wink_. It's also obviously true to say _S/he winked_. If you deny that these are the same action (under different descriptions) then you suddenly have the person doing two things although she performed only one bodily movement (the wink) with only one intention (to melt the maiden's heart). This is metaphysically untenable, I think for fairy obvious reasons.

In the context of a RPG, there are also obvioous objections to the sort of distinction the two of you draw between _actions_ and _results_ in the sort of discussion taking place in this thread - namely, that that distinction can't be drawn until we know how some particular RPG system draws it; and so it isn't a distinction we can rely upon to talk about how and why different systems might take different approaches to making descriptions of actions true. Just one example to illustrate the point: is _I draw my sword_ an account of a PC's action, or of a result - the action being _I move my hand so as to grip the pommel of my sword and then move my arm in the motion characteristic of drawing a sword from a scabbard_?


----------



## Ovinomancer

Re: challenging the character concept

I was using risk earlier, because it's a better framing for the issue.  Are you risking your character.  Challenging is so vague as to mean anything.  Heck, the example of chastity versus a sword is being used, but that doesn't challenge the character at all, it challenges the player to make a choice as to what character they want to play.  This isn't anything like risking the characterization.  Instead, it's a choice the player is making as to whether or not they value their characterization over the mechanical advantage of a powerful magic item.  Even if the example is using Excalibur in it's broader fictional sense and offering a choice between playing a chaste knight that honors their vows versus being the Once and Future King, this is a choice for the player to make -- which characterization do I want to play.  Nothing is actually risked here, it's just a choice.  And, this is the kind of choice that's confused for characterization risking by those steeped in gaming culture where the DM has loads of authority and the player has little because it represents the limited amount of authority the player has in these games -- choosing what kind of character they want to play.

In games where the character is actually risked, as in the very nature of the character is at risk in play and not in the players sole choice, you have a different concept going on.  Here, the character can be changed in the game without the player's choice.  The player risks a loss of power over their choices for the character.  Like anything, this gets very bad with excess, but most games that do this use explicit tells to show what's at stake and what isn't in a given scene.  To return to the maiden's wink example, here's a possible way that it could play out in one of these kinds of games, absent specific mechanics.

Firstly, the character of the knight is set up with what's at stake up front.  The quest, for one, is clearly at stake.  The vow of chastity is at stake.  We know these things because the player has stated them as driving forces and thereby opened them to being at stake.

The GM would frame a scene where one or more of the player's stakes are risked.  Let's imagine a courtly ball, being held in honor of the knight as he quests through this noble's land.  At this ball, the GM frames a winsome young lady, the maiden, who approaches the knight and invites being courted.  The knight has to refuse the courtship without insulting anyone (it's chivalry, after all), and so a challenge begins.  Let's say the knight fails the challenge, and so has either managed to insult the maiden or invited another problem.  Let's say the GM decides to widen the conflict, and has the noble become involved, accusing the knight of insulting his house with his boorish behavior.  The knight now has to negotiate this challenge -- how best to placate his host while maintaining his honor.  Let's again say the knight fails.  At risk now is his quest -- he's offended a noble who's offered succor and the stain on his reputation will be hard to overcome and significantly increase the difficulty of his quest (again, chivalry as trope is assumed).  But, the GM decides to go a different route with the failure, and has the young maiden put up a sudden a spirited defense of the knight's honor, pointing out his vow of chastity, and stating no offense was given or taken.  This placates the noble.  Then, the lady looks over at the knight an gives a conspiratorial wink and it's this wink that has the knight realize that he's fallen for this maiden.  Now the result of the failures here is that the knight has fallen in love and must decide how to deal with this complication to his honor and his quest.  Certainly, this will come up again.

So, in this example, the player of the knight chose what aspects of their character where at risk, but has no control of how that risk occurs.  The player of the knight has choice regarding what they attempt in a scene, but no choice as to the outcomes if they fail.  If a failure condition occurs, then what the player has put at stake is, well, at stake.  It's perfectly fine play to actually attack those things.

What I think one side is missing in this discussion is that the character can actually be at stake in more ways than just alive/dead (which is the default in D&D).  This works best if there's some mechanics in play to announce what is at stake and how those stakes are resolved.  The player is still the authority for what's at stake, even if these choices are made at character creation.  What they don't have choice over is what happens to those stakes if they lose a contest.  I think one side here is holds on far too tightly to character not being at stake because it has been, traditionally, the one thing the player has authority over.  It's hard to overcome this ingrained defensiveness of your one thing.  Especially since many bad play examples in D&D operate by reducing or removing that authority (railroading, etc.).  So, it's hard to see that there are games and ways of playing where you intentionally risk these things as part of play, and that it can happen without bad play occurring.  The focus in these games isn't (often) figuring out the GM's plot, or if you can win this fight, but rather is this character who I think they are.  And, it's quite often that they aren't, and this is fun.

Not the only way to have fun, nor am I saying that playing in the traditional way is less fun or less in any way.  It's different, that's all, and the point of this thread, and my participation in it, is to hopefully get one more person to open their eyes to more ways to play, even if they then choose to not change.  Understanding other ways to play almost always improves how you play however you choose to play, because you're more aware of what's at stake in the game you play and how best to bring those stakes forward.  My D&D games got better after I tried some other ways to play, not because I brought things from other games in (although I did), but more because I recognized better what it is that D&D does well and made my games about that rather than about the things it doesn't do well.  For games involving those, I use other systems.


----------



## pemerton

A long post as I catch up on this thread.



Maxperson said:


> If it's left to a die roll or the DM's decision, there is no real test of character.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> There's a huge difference between me struggling with a decision for my PC, and clack, clack, clack! Oh, look. This time he's an ass, maybe next time he'll be noble. *yawn*



The second bit here suggest to me that you're not familiar with the play of any of the non-D&D games that [MENTION=5142]Aldarc[/MENTION], [MENTION=177]Umbran[/MENTION], [MENTION=16814]Ovinomancer[/MENTION] and I have referenced - Fate, Pendrgaon, Prince Valiant, MHRP/Cortex+ Heroic, Bunring Wheel, etc.

And the first bit is odd, because the way you find out whether a D&D character is tough enough to beat Orcus in a fight is (among other things) to roll some dice.

Of course D&D combat is not _nothing_ but die rolls. But nor is a skill challenge, or a Duel of Wits, or whatever other mechanic a system might use to find out whether or not your PC is steely-hearted enough to resist the maiden's wink.



GrahamWills said:


> Consulting rules makes zero difference here. It's just a question of whether or not you trust the GM to set up the game to be fun. Adding a veneer of rules on top is just a comfort blanket for gamers who really like rules



I certainly find it interesting that [MENTION=6795602]FrogReaver[/MENTION] and [MENTION=23751]Maxperson[/MENTION] are fine with the maiden melting a PC's heart of the GM has written down (i) that the maiden has such a special ability and (ii) it allows a saving throw. Given that there's no rule in D&D that limits the special abilities a GM can place on a creature or NPC, and no rules that limit the number of saves s/he can call for, this seems like a strange view to take - what you call a comfort blanket or even a fetish.



Ovinomancer said:


> You're insisting that there can be no consequences for character unless the player agrees. This just means that character is never at risk. I'm asking to you imagine what happens if it is -- what kind of game is that, how does that work, what can be accomplished? There's nothing wrong with not grappling with these questions, or grappling and finding them lacking, but you've straightjacketed yourself into a narrow view of games by insisting it should not be.



This post in particular has some nice accounts of what is involved in putting a character at risk.

In his discussion of this, Ron Edwards characterises different systems in terms of the degree of intensity/pressure they will place on the participants. He correctly notes that Prince Valiant is pretty light in this respect - the tropes are safely within romantic fantasy territory, the characters are not super-deep, the action is chivalric jousts, winking maidens, etc. For a sentimental referee such as me it's a superb game!

He doesn't comment on Burning Wheel (not really a thing when he was writing his stuff) but it's at the other end of the spectrum. Having read but not (yet) played Apocalypse World, I think it too is towards that other end. These games encourage deep characterisation, really hard GM pressure (which for a sentimental referee like me is hard on my as well as the players!) and a serious chance that you might get burned in play. (Not emotinally scarred or traumatised, but cetainly the possibility of experiences that are bruising in the moment.)

I fully agree with you that you can't do this - and especially the more intense stuff - if nothing ever happens that the player doesn't choose for his/her PC.

I also agree with something you said in an earlier post in reply to [MENTION=6795602]FrogReaver[/MENTION], about the alleged difference between a character who can't be beaten in a fight, and a character who thinks s/he can't be beaten. In play, if I'm immersed in that character, then _there is no difference_ until - should it come to pass - I'm beaten. And linking this to the point about risk, it follows that the difference only matters from the out-of-game perspective - if, as a _player_, I don't want my character conception to be at risk, then the difference is crucial. But oddly enough that seems to contradict the notion of _roleplaying_ that was being put forward, which was all about performing the character, not performing the role of an author who doesn't want his/her character conception violated.

I'll finish with a little actual play example that illustrates both points, in the context of a light-hearted MHRP session. One of the players - perhaps unsuprisingly, the one who most enjoys showing off at the table! - was playing Nightcrawler. One of Nightcrawler's character destinctions is Devout Catholic. One of his milestones is Romantic. This particular session started with Nightcrawler, Iceman and War Machine heading out to a Washington, DC bar in their civvies. Naturally the women they met in the bar turned out to be the supervillains Black Mamba, Asp and Diamondback (the B.A.D. girls). The session was a mixture of romancing, fighting and breaking hearts: Bobby took Asp skating on the moat in front of the Washington Monument (I think I'm getting that right - my knowledge of the city is from TV, not real life), and also ended the session by sweeeping into the Smithsonian on an ice slide and carrying off the last B.A.D. girl standing into the sunset, thereby both ending the fisticuffs between her and Nighcrawler and War Machine, _and_ getting the girl. Earlier on, War Machine left one of the women dangling from the top of the monument when he got the alert about the attack on the Smithsonian; and Nightcrawler loved and left one on the roof of the Capitol Dome. In doing this he reached the capstone on his Romantic Milestone ("when you either break off a romantic relationship, or seek to enter into a more permanent partnership and ask your love to marry you") and so he had to write a new Milestone. And in combination with other events, in the session, it became clear that his Catholicism was less devout than previously believed, and so the player spent the requisite XPs to replace that distinction. From memory, the new distinction was The Devil Within while the new milestone was about lapsed faith.

That's not the sort of play that's going to cause flashback or make someone question the meaningfulness of their life! But we got to see an image of Bobby as slightly naive and innocent affirmed; while Nightcrawler definitely emerged as more dark than he sometimes is portrayed, and the PC sheet changed to reflect this - and that happened withint Nightcrawler actually having to fail any checks (that's not to say that he had no failures, but those weren't crucial to the character transformation arc that I outlined).



Elfcrusher said:


> When it gets interesting is when there's some actual temptation on the part of the player to succumb. Maybe sometimes, for some, just the story value is enough of a temptation. But for others a mechanical temptation might be needed. And I have to admit that I favor genuine trade-offs. (That is, the player of the knight knows that if he/she gives in to the temptation, there's some concrete benefit to be gained, and a concrete penalty to breaking the vow.)



I am somewhat wary of reducing the emotional and thematic aspect of playing a charcter to a cost-benefit analysis. Because then the main thing we learn is how expedient the character is.

There are variations on this that don't push so hard towards expedience: eg in systems with player-side action-boosting currency one way we learn how much the character cares about X is by seeing how much currency the player is prepared to spend to help ensure X. Or we can have the opposite, as per the AW seduce/manipulate PvP mechanic that I posted upthread: we can see how dedicated the character is to avoiding X by seeing if she gives up the possible XP, or is prepared to soak the possible penalty, for not doing X. (MHRP/Cortex+ is similar to this - go against your complication and the opposing dice pool gets to include that complication die.)

Then there are ways of risking one's character (and character concept) that are more like my play example: the character doesn't become more (or less) effective by changing milestones and changing descriptors; rather, the sorts of things s/he is incentivised to do, and the flavour of those actions, changes.

So if we consider the example of the knight who abandons his/her quest for love, to frame the issue as one of _succumbing to temptation_ is already to have taken a god's-eye-view on the matter. Whereas if we take a player-inhabiting-the-character view how do we know that that's what it is? Maybe it's realising that quests are abstract futility whereas real love with a real person is concrete, worthwile reality.

In a game of the sort [MENTION=16814]Ovinomancer[/MENTION] has described, one key function of the GM is to create these opportunities for the player to decide what/who his/her PC _really is. Typically - perhaps almost always - this won't involve narrating the maiden's wink as melting the PC's heart. But it has to meaningfully put into play a possibility of that sort in a way that doesn't make the player think about what is expedience but rather - from the point of view of his/her PC but also knowing as a player that the whole game experience can survive changes in the character - makes the player think what do I really want here?_


----------



## Maxperson

Umbran said:


> If you have absolute control over the personality, what the GM puts up as a challenge is irrelevant.
> 
> In a combat challenge, you have your stats, and you get to play - you make choices based on various odds, and maybe you win, and maybe you don't.  Maybe you and your character are up to the task, and maybe they aren't.
> 
> In a challenge to the core personality of a character, you can just say, "Nah.  This has no impact."  That's not a challenge, that's merely a choice.  It is like saying, "I'll flip a coin, and then choose whatever I want anyway," and calling that a challenge.  If you have two teams playing soccer and, whatever happens on the field, one team just gets to just pick the final score of the game, that team isn't challenged.




You really can't just say, "Nah, this has no impact." or it's not core to the personality of the character.  A challenge to the core will have an impact either way it goes


----------



## Guest 6801328

Ovinomancer said:


> Huh?  Are you taking Frogreaver's meds, too?  The ask is to explore the reasoning behind the sudden change, not to refute it if doesn't meet guidelines.  Heck, @_*Aebir-Toril*_ even says they wouldn't know what to do with "lol, magic sword duh" which strongly suggests that this would just be a confusing answer, not one that's censored.
> 
> Perhaps I'm wrong, and AT really is running roughshod over his players, but I haven't gotten that at all, and it requires adding words to what they've posted to get there.




I might be wrong, too.  Let me break down how I read it:



> After all, If the player* chooses to role=play in perfect character,* this would not be an issue. But, if the player disregards the character in order to take a magic sword (Excalibur), the most we, as DMs, can do, under the RAW, is exhibit the consequences to the character from the perspective of outsiders.




The phrase in bold was a red flag for me.  It suggests that "perfect character" is something that can be discerned or defined. 



> For example, the chaste knight who relinquishes his chastity will, *if role-played to a standard of accuracy*, *respond appropriately*. Otherwise, the horror of his fellow knights can be one of the only indicators of the consequence that the character experiences. In this case, it is not a good simulation, because the character has experienced no regret or character change.




Same thing.  What's a "standard of accuracy"?  What is an "appropriate" response?  Sounds to me like external judgments.



> When moments like this come up in my game, when the player says something that seem entirely out of character, *I first ask them why their character has chosen to take this action*. With my players, it's not too difficult, but what am I supposed to say if their response is "lol, magic sword duh"?




In my book, that's something that DMs do only if they are trying to enforce "correct" roleplaying.

Again, maybe I'm mis-reading it all.


----------



## Lanefan

pemerton said:


> This is why I say you don't undertand the 4e combat resolution mechanics. This claim isn't true of 4e; hit points aren't a description of anything. The toughness of a creature is described in the fiction - just as (say) JRRT conveys that the cave troll is tough.



And by that we can reasonably extrapolate that for game purposes a cave troll has lots of hit points and-or a high Con score.



> The hit points are then a device - together with AC, attack rolls, damage dice etc - that are used to determine the outcomes of fights. That is to say, they are a component of a resolution system. And this is all subsequent to the fiction of how tough the creature/NPC is, not an input into it.



Each reflects the other.  Just as you can't say a creature described as being particularly tough (relative to other creatures) in the fiction doesn't have lots of hit points, you can't say a creature with lots of hit points (relative to other creatures) isn't tough.

Put another way, hit points (relative to the hit points of other creatures) are just one more means of expressing and describing toughness and resilience.

And if 4e wants to (rather oddly) claim that this doesn't apply then that's its problem, not mine.


----------



## Lanefan

pemerton said:


> [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION], [MENTION=6795602]FrogReaver[/MENTION] - you've both made some recent posts which dispute the analysis of action put foward in the OP. Eg you both deny that _I melt the maiden's heart with my wink_ is a true description of a PC's action, and a description of the same action as _I wink at the maiden_ (although obviously a different description).



Correct: they are not the same.  The latter describes an action, the former tries to tie a result to it.



> I'm not that interested in turning this thread into an argument in the philosophy of action, but I think that the objections to your claims are overwhelming. (And there's a reason why Davidson remains, even posthumously, one of the leading figures in contemporary philosophy of action.) Just to give one: if the character in fact melts the maiden's heart with a wink, then it is obviously true to say of him/her _S/he melted the maiden's heart with a wink_.



The key word there is IF, which remains undetermined until-unless game mechanics resolve.  After that happens and it's determined that the wink succeeded in melting her heart then yes, you can bundle action and result together.

Which means describing the result before this point is wrong; you're only describing a hoped-for or attempted result.



> It's also obviously true to say _S/he winked_. If you deny that these are the same action (under different descriptions) then you suddenly have the person doing two things although she performed only one bodily movement (the wink) with only one intention (to melt the maiden's heart). This is metaphysically untenable, I think for fairy obvious reasons.



She only winks once, and only has one intention (or so we must assume).  It's the tying-in of intention as if it was already result (before confirmation/denial via accepted game mechanics) that's wrong.



> In the context of a RPG, there are also obvioous objections to the sort of distinction the two of you draw between _actions_ and _results_ in the sort of discussion taking place in this thread - namely, that that distinction can't be drawn until we know how some particular RPG system draws it; and so it isn't a distinction we can rely upon to talk about how and why different systems might take different approaches to making descriptions of actions true. Just one example to illustrate the point: is _I draw my sword_ an account of a PC's action, or of a result - the action being _I move my hand so as to grip the pommel of my sword and then move my arm in the motion characteristic of drawing a sword from a scabbard_?



I draw my sword is an action.  I draw my sword and try to kill the orc with it is two actions, reasonably enough stitched together, with the second action demanding game mechanics to resolve success or failure (because it's phrased as 'I try to...').   I draw my sword and kill the orc with it, however, presupposes a result that has in fact yet to be determined and thus is (at this pre-resolution point) invalid.

Discussing how various games resolve "I try to..." into "I do" (or "I don't") is fine.  But you need to make it clear you're starting from "I try to...", which I think in your mind you might have been but it didn't translate onto the screen in the OP.


----------



## Maxperson

hawkeyefan said:


> No, it can't happen if you don't want it to. You have to approve it since your PC is your domain. That's the whole point.



Yes it absolutely can happen if I don't want it do.  I can approve all kinds of things I don't want to happen.  For instance, even though I really don't want you to try and argue your incorrect position, I approve of your right to that kind of speech. 



> But the  addition of mechanics would remove the gray area and the need for as  much judgment. And this addition appeals to some players. Really that's  all it boils down to.




I've not argued otherwise.   If those sorts of games appeal to you, I'm truly glad that they exist for you to play. 



> Thank  you. This is the point. People may prefer a game where there is more  risk in this area. They want there to be mechanics so that there's  consistency in application, and understanding of stakes and risk.




Again, I've not argued that some people don't prefer games with mechanics for this sort of thing.



> Basically, the stance "I am in control of my character  at all times, unless magic or during combat. All other outcomes are for  me to decide *and any change to this means I'm no longer roleplaying*" is  pretty absurd.




Cool, because the absurd part isn't something I've said, either.



> I've not moved goalposts. I'm not trying to "win". The semantic difference between "less risk" and "no risk" is unimportant to me.




It's not semantics.  It's literally the difference between less aliens on my lawn waving at me right now and no aliens on my lawn waving at me right now.  Less aliens means that there is at least 1 alien out there.  That's a pretty significant difference.



> I don' think that there would really be no risk to character in a system like that of D&D 5E. I think a good DM can put a choice to a PC that is not easy and which requires no mechanics to resolve. All that takes is two desires or goals to be put at odds with one another. Tough choices like that seem to me to be possible in just about any system, I'd expect.




Agreed.  You can have both risk and challenge when you have full control over your PC's reactions.  I know this for a fact, since I have had both full control over my PC and still been challenged.


----------



## Maxperson

pemerton said:


> I certainly find it interesting that @_*FrogReaver*_ and @_*Maxperson*_ are fine with the maiden melting a PC's heart of the GM has written down (i) that the maiden has such a special ability and (ii) it allows a saving throw. Given that there's no rule in D&D that limits the special abilities a GM can place on a creature or NPC, and no rules that limit the number of saves s/he can call for, this seems like a strange view to take - what you call a comfort blanket or even a fetish.




Look through the Monster Manual and tell me how many mental/emotion control powers there are that don't give a save.  D&D does demonstrate quite clearly that the DM is supposed to make these sorts of things resistible.  And the comment on the number of saves is just odd.  What does that have to do with anything we've been saying?


----------



## pemerton

Campbell said:


> They also provide cover to players to play with integrity in situations where common tabletop rpg culture would put pressure on them to be more of a team player.



This could really be a topic all its own.


----------



## pemerton

Elfcrusher said:


> isn’t combat (besides being fun) really the result of failing to overcome challenges in more interesting, and in many ways less risky, ways?



I don't see how this could be a general truth about RPGing. Maybe it's a truth about a certain sort of approach to D&D, Classic Traveller and maybe RQ.

In Marvel Heroic RP, combat - ie fisticuffs between superheroes and supervillains - isn't a result of failing to overcome challenges in some other fashion. It's how heroes defeat villains!

In Prince Valiant, a joust can be anything from friendly sport to a duel of honour. It's not normally the result of faiur in some other domain of challenge.

Etc.



FrogReaver said:


> As as a quick example - let’s say your the chaste knight. You are promised Excalibur for giving up your chastity.  Do you take that offer?  Is that not having your character challenges while still maintaining full control of it?



Just to add to my post half-a-dozen or so upthread, and also [MENTION=16814]Ovinomancer[/MENTION]'s post just upthread of that - what you describe here is an _offer_, not a challenge. It invites the player to make a calculation or choice of some sort.

You could elaborate on the scenario, so that in some way this is the culmination of a series of events in the fiction - a bit like Ovinomancer's story of the knight on a quest, or my actual play example of Nightcrawler discovering he's neither as nice nor as devout as he thought.

Not all character change or development need be the result of failed checks. It can come about from fidelity to the fiction. But that fiction won't have been established solely by the player!


----------



## pemerton

Lanefan said:


> pemerton[/quote said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> This is why I say you don't undertand the 4e combat resolution mechanics. This claim isn't true of 4e; hit points aren't a description of anything. The toughness of a creature is described in the fiction - just as (say) JRRT conveys that the cave troll is tough.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> And by that we can reasonably extrapolate that for game purposes a cave troll has lots of hit points and-or a high Con score.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> Just as you can't say a creature described as being particularly tough (relative to other creatures) in the fiction doesn't have lots of hit points, you can't say a creature with lots of hit points (relative to other creatures) isn't tough.
> 
> Put another way, hit points (relative to the hit points of other creatures) are just one more means of expressing and describing toughness and resilience.
Click to expand...


This is why I keep saying that you don't understand 4e's mechanics and combe resolution system.

Not all tough creatures in 4e have many hp. For instance, the PCs in my game have fought hobgolbins - undoubtedly skilled warriors - who had 1 hp. They have fought devils from the depth of the hells who had 1 hp.

4e uses many mechanical devices to present a creature as tough: hit points; Fortitude defence; various special abilities; and most of all _level_.



Lanefan said:


> And if 4e wants to (rather oddly) claim that this doesn't apply then that's its problem, not mine.



This is just nuts - you're now saying that 4e is inconsistent and mistaken because it uses a different combat resolution framework from the one that you're used to!

Absolutely bizarre.


----------



## pemerton

Maxperson said:


> Look through the Monster Manual and tell me how many mental/emotion control powers there are that don't give a save.  D&D does demonstrate quite clearly that the DM is supposed to make these sorts of things resistible.  And the comment on the number of saves is just odd.  What does that have to do with anything we've been saying?



In D&D there is no limit - neither a hard one, nor even a soft one based on principles - as to how many special abilities a GM can use and how many saves s/he might force.

This is not a universal truth of RPG design: I quoted the principle from Prince Valiant upthread; Marvel Heroic RP/Cortex+ Heroic uses the Doom Pool to modulate the challenges the GM introduces; other systems have other sorts of devices here.

I therefore find the idea that D&D sits on one side of a "player control over PC" line compared to some of those other systems a strange one.


----------



## Maxperson

pemerton said:


> In D&D there is no limit - neither a hard one, nor even a soft one based on principles - as to how many special abilities a GM can use and how many saves s/he might force.




Sure, and the DM can just say all the PCs are dead, too.  Being able to do something doesn't mean that it's playing by the social contract.  There is an expectation that the DM is going to be fair and follow the way the game is laid out.



> This is not a universal truth of RPG design: I quoted the principle from Prince Valiant upthread; Marvel Heroic RP/Cortex+ Heroic uses the Doom Pool to modulate the challenges the GM introduces; other systems have other sorts of devices here.




Sure.  Games can build such things in.  I've already said that those games aren't for me.  I didn't deny their existence. There are many RPGs were that sort of thing isn't built in.


----------



## generic

Ovinomancer said:


> Huh?  Are you taking Frogreaver's meds, too?  The ask is to explore the reasoning behind the sudden change, not to refute it if doesn't meet guidelines.  Heck, @_*Aebir-Toril*_ even says they wouldn't know what to do with "lol, magic sword duh" which strongly suggests that this would just be a confusing answer, not one that's censored.
> 
> Perhaps I'm wrong, and AT really is running roughshod over his players, but I haven't gotten that at all, and it requires adding words to what they've posted to get there.




I don't know what [MENTION=6801328]Elfcrusher[/MENTION] thought, but I am in no way crushing my players.

I allow my players do do whatever the Nine Hells they want 99.9% of the time, but if, for instance, the Lawful Good Paladin says, "I torture her with acid to get information", even though her character's bond is to protect others, even those who have strayed from the path of good, I might ask her if that's what she really wants to do.  Furthermore, I always allow the players to do what they want to do with their character, but it would frustrate me if their only explanation for their actions was "lol, magic sword duh".


----------



## Umbran

Maxperson said:


> You really can't just say, "Nah, this has no impact." or it's not core to the personality of the character.  A challenge to the core will have an impact either way it goes




I was trying to say that, if you are in complete control, you always have the ability to say, "Nah, this has no impact," and so there is never a challenge to the core.  Challenge does not happen in a position of certainty.


----------



## generic

Elfcrusher said:


> Sounds like roleplaying thought police to me.
> 
> Ever seen/read a fictional noble character who succumbed to temptation or other base instincts?  Like...all of Greek literature?  Shakespeare?
> 
> Conversely, imagine the opposite: the noble and pure character who *never* does. Like...in moralizing cartoons for small children?
> 
> Now, maybe said player is just greedy, and isn’t trying to roleplay a dramatic fall from Grace, but in trying to distinguish between the two you’re falling into the same trap as the anti-metagaming crowd and trying to police their thoughts.
> 
> Don’t play with people you don’t want to play with, but expecting (or trying to force) people to roleplay a character the way you think it should be role played just ain’t gonna end well.
> 
> Somebody above referred to immersion. Put the player in the situation where he is genuinely agonizing over a moral choice, and he will feel like his character feels. That’s a win before he even makes the decision.




This isn't at all what I meant [MENTION=6801328]Elfcrusher[/MENTION].  I will ask players why they might want to do something, as in, actually _question_ their motivations, but I always allow them to do what they want to do.  If the player decides that their Chaotic Good Rogue has no qualms about torturing innocents in order to find out where the Drow Demon-summoners hide, I won't prevent them from doing it, but I'll ask them why their character has decided this is a thing they want to do.

In fact, I have had players tell me, whilst slaughtering dozens of cultists in their sleep, that they think that their character has fallen into the depths of madness and evil, and is now Chaotic Evil.  In this case, I allow them to change their alignment to Chaotic Evil, and play proceeds.

My point about role-playing is not that players should be forced to make their characters feel regret or remorse, but that I like to ask them how their characters _feel _about what they are doing or what they have done.  If the player decides that, "lol, I'm gaming, duh" is their answer, I allow them to do that, but it's not exactly a rewarding role-playing moment.

In my games, players can do whatever they want, but they will be asked how their character justifies an action.  If a player wants to change their character's alignment, they can say that their character has become good/evil/neutral or whatever, and I allow them to do so.

Honestly, I don't think this is really a controversial opinion.  I don't "thought police" players, I just question their motives.

Did you even read my entire post?


----------



## generic

Elfcrusher said:


> I might be wrong, too.  Let me break down how I read it:
> 
> In my book, that's something that DMs do only if they are trying to enforce "correct" roleplaying.
> 
> Again, maybe I'm mis-reading it all.




You were, but it's okay, I see how my verbiage became a little confusing.  All I meant by "perfect" and "standard of accuracy" was just that I expect a Lawful Good knight to have to explain himself if he slaughters innocents, causes chaos, and generally makes a mess of things.  

I will still let the player do these things, as I can't "police" what they do or what their characters think, but I do ask them what their motivations are.


----------



## Umbran

Elfcrusher said:


> Folks keep using the dice rolling of combat as some kind of standard against which other activities are measured, but isn’t combat (besides being fun) really the result of failing to overcome challenges in more interesting, and in many ways less risky, ways?




"interesting" is subjective, so no, this is not generally true.  Especially when you call out that combat is "fun" - fun things aren't interesting?  I know players who find tactical combat or cinematic combat scenes very interesting.  Don't you?

I think most of us use dice-rolling combat not as a "standard" for measure, but as an example/analogy that is ready to hand.  If this analogy does not fit, that strongly suggests that "challenge" has multiple meanings in this discussion.


----------



## Umbran

Aebir-Toril said:


> After all, If the player chooses to role=play in perfect character, this would not be an issue.  But, if the player disregards the character in order to take a magic sword (Excalibur), the most we, as DMs, can do, under the RAW, is exhibit the consequences to the character from the perspective of outsiders.




Define, "role-play in perfect character".

I will assume a few things that I figure are solidly in-genre here for the point.  The noble knight wants to be chaste.  He also wants to protect the kingdom from whatever threatens it this week.  So, the knight has a conflict of priorities - _both of which are part of his character._  The point here is to ask which is dominant, and have that be an interesting choice for the player.

If we already know what is the perfect choice for this character, then there's no point in asking the question.

Mind you, this still isn't a "challenge".  We are not testing whether his chastity is "strong enough".  We are simply asking the player to make a decision.


----------



## Guest 6801328

Umbran said:


> "interesting" is subjective, so no, this is not generally true.  Especially when you call out that combat is "fun" - fun things aren't interesting?  I know players who find tactical combat or cinematic combat scenes very interesting.  Don't you?
> 
> I think most of us use dice-rolling combat not as a "standard" for measure, but as an example/analogy that is ready to hand.  If this analogy does not fit, that strongly suggests that "challenge" has multiple meanings in this discussion.




"Interesting" is a pretty vague adjective.  _Mea culpa_.

I agree that some/many players find tactical combat interesting.  Far more interesting than _non_-tactical combat, right?  In other words, it's not the uncertainty of the dice rolls they like, it's the complexity of options, and the uncertainty of what the opponent will do.  The dice are only needed because a non-random system that encompassed all the possibilities in RPG combat would be...unwieldy.  (Think about Ace of Aces...that would make an awesome fantasy combat simulator, if it didn't run to tens of thousands of pages.)

If you stripped out all options, and just allowed each combatant to roll their basic attack every round, combat would be considerably less fun.

Likewise, where there is uncertainty in the resolution of non-combat challenges...e.g. the knight/maiden/heart scenario...I'd rather solve it without RNG.  This is why I referenced the discussions about challenging the player vs. challenging the character.  Apparently some people think that making the player roll to determine whether or not his heart is melted is "challenging the character", but I see it as just rolling dice.  Where the character would be feeling conflicted emotion, the player only feels anxiety about how the dice will fall.

On the other hand, tempting the player with something desirable, even in a pure metagame sense, puts the player in an emotional state at least somewhat similar to the character's: "OMG what should I do?"  If a GM rolled dice, or even just simply dictated, my reaction, that just wouldn't be engaging to me.  It would make my character feel less like a character and more like a board game token.

Note that I'm NOT saying that it wouldn't still be "roleplaying".  Just not the kind of roleplaying I have, so far, enjoyed the most.


----------



## Umbran

pemerton said:


> That is to say, they are a component of a resolution system. And this is all subsequent to the fiction of how tough the creature/NPC is, not an input into it.




For D&D (any edition), I don't think you can make that general statement.  In some games, the GM says, "this is a tough encounter," and the mechanics *will* be tough - the narration literally determines the mechanics.

D&D, though, has a significant past tradition of tournament play, and a current tradition of purchasing adventures created by others, and presenting them with minimal editing.  So, for any given encounter or challenge, the mechanics are effectively set before the local GM makes any narration, and the fiction results from the mechanical resolution, not the other way around.


----------



## Guest 6801328

Aebir-Toril said:


> You were, but it's okay, I see how my verbiage became a little confusing.  All I meant by "perfect" and "standard of accuracy" was just that I expect a Lawful Good knight to have to explain himself if he slaughters innocents, causes chaos, and generally makes a mess of things.
> 
> I will still let the player do these things, as I can't "police" what they do or what their characters think, but I do ask them what their motivations are.




Ok, fair enough.

But even if you don't force players to roleplay a certain way, your language suggests you still make value judgments about the choices they do make.  I would propose thinking deeply about what purpose that serves.

It's kind of like the metagaming discussion, where some people think it's "wrong" or "cheating" to metagame.  Others (myself included) say that for GMs who care about it, it's their own fault for putting the players into that situation.  (E.g., don't use official monsters if you don't want them to know the monster's special abilities.)

If you don't approve of a noble knight torturing captives, have consequences.  The player just proved they find it hard to resist certain benefits (such as acquiring information).  Great!  That's a totally valid flaw for a knight, and (I think) more narratively interesting than the incorruptible goody two-shoes.  Keep tempting them with similar bait, with steadily increasing consequences in the game.  But also reward them if they refuse the bait.

If there are no consequences, don't blame the player.  

And if you want to play with people who think it's fun to rigidly abide by their predefined personality, find those kinds of players.


----------



## hawkeyefan

Maxperson said:


> Yes it absolutely can happen if I don't want it do.  I can approve all kinds of things I don't want to happen.  For instance, even though I really don't want you to try and argue your incorrect position, I approve of your right to that kind of speech.
> 
> I've not argued otherwise.   If those sorts of games appeal to you, I'm truly glad that they exist for you to play.
> 
> Again, I've not argued that some people don't prefer games with mechanics for this sort of thing.
> 
> Cool, because the absurd part isn't something I've said, either.
> 
> It's not semantics.  It's literally the difference between less aliens on my lawn waving at me right now and no aliens on my lawn waving at me right now.  Less aliens means that there is at least 1 alien out there.  That's a pretty significant difference.
> 
> Agreed.  You can have both risk and challenge when you have full control over your PC's reactions.  I know this for a fact, since I have had both full control over my PC and still been challenged.




I could reply point for point, but I don’t think that will really do anyone any good. 

My point was this: the increase in risk to character and the mechanics that go along with that are what many players find appealing about such games. You acknowledged that increased risk, and I think you understand that such a game would have a bit of a shift in focus from a more traditional RPG. So I think that you can at least grasp the different opinion, even if you don’t share it.

I don’t know what position of mine you think is incorrect, but the above is the only point worth making. It’s simply an alternate approach to RPGing. Nothing wrong with that way or with the way you play. I think you agree with this, so i don’t really get what you’re trying to argue.


----------



## Umbran

Elfcrusher said:


> I agree that some/many players find tactical combat interesting.  Far more interesting than _non_-tactical combat, right?




I was using that term in contrast to things like strategic combat, or narrative/cinematic combat.  




> In other words, it's not the uncertainty of the dice rolls they like, it's the complexity of options, and the uncertainty of what the opponent will do.  The dice are only needed because a non-random system that encompassed all the possibilities in RPG combat would be...unwieldy.




Um... you know that there are/have been dice-less RPGs, right?  RPGs that have no random elements exist.  There is uncertainty not in what the random generator will produce, but instead uncertainty in what they other person will choose as their priorities.





> Likewise, where there is uncertainty in the resolution of non-combat challenges...e.g. the knight/maiden/heart scenario...I'd rather solve it without RNG.  This is why I referenced the discussions about challenging the player vs. challenging the character.  Apparently some people think that making the player roll to determine whether or not his heart is melted is "challenging the character", but I see it as just rolling dice.  Where the character would be feeling conflicted emotion, the player only feels anxiety about how the dice will fall.




Here's the thing - when you step back, there are relatively few places where you *purely* challenge the just character build, or just the player.  In general, RPG challenges are a mixture.  Does the character have abilities and resources to meet the challenge, and what choices does the player make.

This is why, when I talked about challenges alone, I noted that it isn't really a challenge if the player has no way to influence the result.  It is in this ability to influence that "meaningful choices" sit.

If, for example, we have a die roll... modified by the player spending some resource to impact the roll, or we have a bidding mechanic where how much the player spends resources determines the outcome, that tests the player's determination to have a thing be true, with respect to the unknown future where those resources might be needed.


----------



## Guest 6801328

hawkeyefan said:


> My point was this: the increase in risk to character and the mechanics that go along with that are what many players find appealing about such games. You acknowledged that increased risk, and I think you understand that such a game would have a bit of a shift in focus from a more traditional RPG. So I think that you can at least grasp the different opinion, even if you don’t share it.




What I'm struggling with here is to understand the point you are making about risk.

I do get that risk and uncertainty make (or can make) games more exciting.  But the consequence of a risk gone awry does matter.  Traditionally (at least in my experience) in an RPG some of the things exposed to risk are:
 - Health/Life
 - Treasure/Possessions
 - Allies
 - Reputation
 - XP/Levels (in older versions of D&D, for example)
 - Maybe some other stuff I'm not thinking off at the moment.

Sure, "Character Concept" could be added to this list.  But I'm not sure what that achieves, except to annoy people who think they should be in control of the concept.  How about forcibly changing the character's name?  Their physical description?  Their class?

Oh, wait, real life example: the now-defunct Girdle of Femininity/Masculinity.  Which you will note didn't make the cut for 5e.  That adds (or used to add) another kind of risk.  Does it make the game better to forcibly change the gender of a character?  

Your answer may be 'yes', and if so that's illuminating.  My answer would be 'no', except as comic relief, and maybe that gets to the heart of the difference in viewpoint.


----------



## Guest 6801328

Umbran said:


> Um... you know that there are/have been dice-less RPGs, right?  RPGs that have no random elements exist.  There is uncertainty not in what the random generator will produce, but instead uncertainty in what they other person will choose as their priorities.




Yes, although I haven't personally played them. (And is why I made a reference to Ace of Aces.) In a perfect world I would spend some time investigating and then post, but I do feel compelled to observe that RNG-less combat hasn't exactly caught on.  I suspect there's a reason for that. 




> Here's the thing - when you step back, there are relatively few places where you *purely* challenge the just character build, or just the player.  In general, RPG challenges are a mixture.  Does the character have abilities and resources to meet the challenge, and what choices does the player make.
> 
> This is why, when I talked about challenges alone, I noted that it isn't really a challenge if the player has no way to influence the result.  It is in this ability to influence that "meaningful choices" sit.
> 
> If, for example, we have a die roll... modified by the player spending some resource to impact the roll, or we have a bidding mechanic where how much the player spends resources determines the outcome, that tests the player's determination to have a thing be true, with respect to the unknown future where those resources might be needed.




Yeah, I don't disagree with any of that.  It's possible we each misunderstand the other's point, and have falsely concluded we're arguing about something.  I completely agreed with your response to Aebir-Toril.


----------



## lowkey13

*Deleted by user*


----------



## generic

Elfcrusher said:


> Ok, fair enough.
> 
> But even if you don't force players to roleplay a certain way, your language suggests you still make value judgments about the choices they do make.  I would propose thinking deeply about what purpose that serves.
> 
> It's kind of like the metagaming discussion, where some people think it's "wrong" or "cheating" to metagame.  Others (myself included) say that for GMs who care about it, it's their own fault for putting the players into that situation.  (E.g., don't use official monsters if you don't want them to know the monster's special abilities.)
> 
> If you don't approve of a noble knight torturing captives, have consequences.  The player just proved they find it hard to resist certain benefits (such as acquiring information).  Great!  That's a totally valid flaw for a knight, and (I think) more narratively interesting than the incorruptible goody two-shoes.  Keep tempting them with similar bait, with steadily increasing consequences in the game.  But also reward them if they refuse the bait.
> 
> If there are no consequences, don't blame the player.
> 
> And if you want to play with people who think it's fun to rigidly abide by their predefined personality, find those kinds of players.




I gave you XP, but you seem to have a fundamental misunderstanding of what I'm saying.

I am not implying that players have to rigidly abide by their characters, which you would know if you read my other responses.

I am, in fact, only implying that I ask players why their characters have chosen to do something.

Yes, I am choosing to judge the actions of the character on an axis of moral and ideological values, but I allow the player to do whatever they want with their character.

Again, all I am doing is *asking them why*, not telling them they can't do something, not judging that it is not something their character would do, just asking them why.

Is this really so hard to understand?


----------



## generic

Umbran said:


> Define, "role-play in perfect character".
> 
> I will assume a few things that I figure are solidly in-genre here for the point.  The noble knight wants to be chaste.  He also wants to protect the kingdom from whatever threatens it this week.  So, the knight has a conflict of priorities - _both of which are part of his character._  The point here is to ask which is dominant, and have that be an interesting choice for the player.
> 
> If we already know what is the perfect choice for this character, then there's no point in asking the question.
> 
> Mind you, this still isn't a "challenge".  We are not testing whether his chastity is "strong enough".  We are simply asking the player to make a decision.




False premise looking for an argument.

I didn't think this would be as controversial as it became, all I'm saying is that I ask players why their characters have made these choices.


----------



## Guest 6801328

lowkey13 said:


> So, I don't actually disagree with you, but when I read what you wrote, I had the following thought-
> 
> when you appear to criticize someone for making "value judgments about the choices they do make," I have to contrast that with your approach.
> 
> I find it hard to square your criticism with the following description of escalating consequences. I mean ... how does one adjudicate "escalating consequences" without making value judgments? If you aren't being all judge-y judge-y about how a noble knight should act as a DM, how (or why?) should you be dishing out consequences?
> 
> Again, I happen to be of the mindset, "Spare the rod, spoil the player" myself, so it's not that I disagree with you. I mean, if God & Gygax didn't want consequences (so MANY consequences muahahahahahahahaha!), he wouldn't have invented Paladins, amirite?
> 
> I'm just not seeing the distinction you're making. Seems like judge-y turtles, all the way down.




Yeah, that's a fair point.

For me, the distinction is that one is based on the belief that the player is "wrong", while the other is more like designing encounters with monsters or traps or whatever, in that you (the GM) are establishing the realities in your game world, and then inviting the player to engage with it, to their profit or peril.  Sure, you may have expectations or even desires that they make certain choices, but if they don't, that leads in ok/fun directions, too.


----------



## Guest 6801328

Aebir-Toril said:


> False premise looking for an argument.
> 
> I didn't think this would be as controversial as it became, all I'm saying is that I ask players why their characters have made these choices.




Ok, but _why_ are you asking them?

(Unless we're talking about brand new players, and you're trying to get them to think like roleplayers...?)


----------



## generic

Elfcrusher said:


> Ok, but _why_ are you asking them?
> 
> (Unless we're talking about brand new players, and you're trying to get them to think like roleplayers...?)




Sometimes, I do DM for new players.

Otherwise, I ask why a player chooses for a character to do something.

Not because I think players shouldn't have control over their characters, but because I want, as a DM, to know why the noble knight would commit adultery, even if it's not his flaw.

I don't prevent players from doing things, I ask them why they're doing them.


----------



## generic

[MENTION=6801328]Elfcrusher[/MENTION], for me it's not about the justification of their actions, it's more about my curiosity as to their motivations.


----------



## Guest 6801328

Aebir-Toril said:


> Sometimes, I do DM for new players.
> 
> Otherwise, I ask why a player chooses for a character to do something.
> 
> Not because I think players shouldn't have control over their characters, but because I want, as a DM, to know why the noble knight would commit adultery, even if it's not his flaw.
> 
> I don't prevent players from doing things, I ask them why they're doing them.




Ok, then why do you want to know?

Maybe try to imagine this as a movie.  A character you thought was a "good guy" does something surprising.  Do you want text on the screen explaining the character's thoughts and motivations?  Or do you think, "Oh! I wasn't expecting that!  I wonder where this is going....?"


----------



## Guest 6801328

Aebir-Toril said:


> @_*Elfcrusher*_, for me it's not about the justification of their actions, it's more about my curiosity as to their motivations.




Overlapping posts there.

If it's because you want to be able to design future encounters to interact in interesting ways with the player's ideas for their character, then that I understand.  But even then I, personally, would base it off of the actual actions, rather than asking explicitly.


----------



## generic

Elfcrusher said:


> Overlapping posts there.
> 
> If it's because you want to be able to design future encounters to interact in interesting ways with the player's ideas for their character, then that I understand.  But even then I, personally, would base it off of the actual actions, rather than asking explicitly.




Good point, I've used a varied system of both in the past.


----------



## Tony Vargas

Elfcrusher said:


> Maybe try to imagine this as a movie.  A character you thought was a "good guy" does something surprising.  Do you want text on the screen explaining the character's thoughts and motivations?  Or do you think, "Oh! I wasn't expecting that!  I wonder where this is going....?"



Are you the viewer, actor, writer, choreographer, set designer, SFX artist, or director? 

Because, in an RPG, what you're doing, whether as DM or Player, encompasses several of those.

Part of the point is to experience the story:  viewer.
Part of roleplaying is to create that story:  writer.
Part of roleplaying is portraying the character, maybe even with the 'method' of experiencing it's emotions:  actor.
Part of roleplaying is setting the scene: writer, designer
Part of roleplaying is describing the action: choreographer, SFX

Everyone at the table, if the game is well-crafted enough, /should/ get the sense of seeing it play out as if it were a narrative, like a film or book or the like - but they also play a part, often a very important, collaborative, conscious part, in creating that narrative.


----------



## Umbran

Aebir-Toril said:


> False premise looking for an argument.




With respect - I think it is more that you expressed your idea here... very poorly.  



> I didn't think this would be as controversial as it became, all I'm saying is that I ask players why their characters have made these choices.




It became controversial because... well, your words didn't say this.  Sorry.


----------



## Ovinomancer

Umbran said:


> With respect - I think it is more that you expressed your idea here... very poorly.
> 
> 
> 
> It became controversial because... well, your words didn't say this.  Sorry.




I didn't have any trouble understanding him.  If you don't add words to what he said, you can avoid the conclusion leapt to.


----------



## Maxperson

Umbran said:


> I was trying to say that, if you are in complete control, you always have the ability to say, "Nah, this has no impact," and so there is never a challenge to the core.  Challenge does not happen in a position of certainty.




That's simply untrue.  I have been in a position where I can make the decision and I have been plenty challenged.  I am frequently significantly challenged by situations that come up in game.  Which way do I go with my character?  It's not certain until the decision is made, which occurs after the challenge.  The result of that challenge may be in my total control, but the challenge is there.


----------



## Guest 6801328

Ovinomancer said:


> I didn't have any trouble understanding him.  If you don't add words to what he said, you can avoid the conclusion leapt to.




Without actually adding any words I still think he says (intentionally or not) what I first assumed.  But you apparently read something entirely different.

It's funny how that works.

Sometimes I think we should all communicate in nothing higher level than assembly language.


----------



## Guest 6801328

Maxperson said:


> That's simply untrue.  I have been in a position where I can make the decision and I have been plenty challenged.  I am frequently significantly challenged by situations that come up in game.  Which way do I go with my character?  It's not certain until the decision is made, which occurs after the challenge.  The result of that challenge may be in my total control, but the challenge is there.




Yeah.  Once again I find myself in the unfamiliar position of agreeing with you.  

"You feel your heart melt, despite your vow.  What do you do?" is one kind of challenge.

Having the maiden wink at you, and knowing that you both have to seduce her if you want to achieve the McGuffin, and knowing that it's going to jeopardize something if you do so, is another kind of challenge.

Or, heck, even just being tempted by the awesome story developments of letting your character break his vow, presents an interesting roleplaying challenge.


----------



## Umbran

Ovinomancer said:


> If you don't add words to what he said, you can avoid the conclusion leapt to.




What conclusion?

If you are going to accuse folks of jumping to things, please be clear.  Misunderstandings cannot be corrected when you are being vague.


----------



## FrogReaver

Aebir-Toril said:


> @_*Elfcrusher*_, for me it's not about the justification of their actions, it's more about my curiosity as to their motivations.




So why did you say you don’t know what you would do if they said for the super magical sword duh?


----------



## Umbran

Maxperson said:


> That's simply untrue.  I have been in a position where I can make the decision and I have been plenty challenged.I am frequently significantly challenged by situations that come up in game.  Which way do I go with my character?  It's not certain until the decision is made, which occurs after the challenge.  The result of that challenge may be in my total control, but the challenge is there.




With respect, two things - 

1) I was speaking about a challenge *to the core of the character*.  You are talking about a challenge to *you*, the player.  You don't get to change th referent, and then asses my statement against the new referent. 

2) I was also pretty clear about what I was talking about when I spoke of challenge in this context.  If Chris Claremont writes a comic book about a conflict between Professor X and Magneto, there is no actual challenge to Professor X - only the illusion of one.  

2a) You, the player/author may feel anxiety, uncertainty, angst, or other emotions over making a decision - but in the sense I defined it, this is not a "challenge", for the simple reason that there is no success or failure to be had.  Mr. Claremont does not "succeed" if Professor X wins the comic book fight.  You don't "fail" if the knight chooses chastity over Excalibur.  The choice _*isn't a test!*_


----------



## Umbran

Elfcrusher said:


> Yes, although I haven't personally played them. (And is why I made a reference to Ace of Aces.) In a perfect world I would spend some time investigating and then post, but I do feel compelled to observe that RNG-less combat hasn't exactly caught on.  I suspect there's a reason for that.




In a very practical sense, nothing that isn't D&D has really caught on.  What was the statistic Morrus gave - 40 million people play D&D?  By comparison to that, everything else is just an corner experiment, isn't it?  Market realities have so much say in the success of a line that I don't think we can say market success speaks to the whether the mechanical design is flawed in concept all that much.  Which is to say, yeah, if your mechanic sucks decaying donkey through a straw, your game won't succeed.  But, having really awesome mechanics really doesn't mean you'll succeed either.


----------



## Lanefan

pemerton said:


> This is why I keep saying that you don't understand 4e's mechanics and combe resolution system.
> 
> Not all tough creatures in 4e have many hp. For instance, the PCs in my game have fought hobgolbins - undoubtedly skilled warriors - who had 1 hp. They have fought devils from the depth of the hells who had 1 hp.



Yes, and IMO that's an outright glaring error in how 4e handles these things.



> 4e uses many mechanical devices to present a creature as tough: hit points; Fortitude defence; various special abilities; and most of all _level_.



Put another way, it dredges up the old glass-cannon monster design issue from 1e and dials it up to 11.  Why in the name of sweet bejeebers would a designer take a known problem and intentionally make it worse?



> This is just nuts - you're now saying that 4e is inconsistent and mistaken because it uses a different combat resolution framework from the one that you're used to!
> 
> Absolutely bizarre.



Not bizarre at all.  I'm saying it's mkstaken because to make that system work one has to make a conscious decision to throw out internal consistency when it comes to creatures within the setting; and given as there's systems out there which work perfectly well without forcing this decision, it boggles the mind that someone would design a system that requires it.

One thing that defines a creature is its [toughness/resilience/resistance to wounds/however you want to phrase it], shown in the fiction by how much physical harm or abuse a creature can withstand and still be functional and shown at the table by hit points.  Hit points are a constant in the moment*, in that if a creature has 60 hit points here it has 60 hit points there and everywhere else, no matter its situation or who/what it's dealing with.

* - though they can, of course, change over time e.g. as an adventurer gains (or loses!) levels or a monster goes from child to adult.

Now true, sometimes against really powerful foes those 60 h.p. won't provide much of a buffer - but almost without exception they'll provide more of a buffer than just 1 h.p. will.

Defend it as you will, there's no getting around that when put under the light of internal setting consistency it's a poor and badly-designed mechanic particularly when applied to creatures that by their very nature should be resiloient enough to withstand a hit or two from almost anything.

As a pure game-play mechanic I'm sure it works great - but it's just that, an unnecessary game play mechanic that does nothing except remind players that this is nothing more than a game.


----------



## Lanefan

Elfcrusher said:


> What I'm struggling with here is to understand the point you are making about risk.
> 
> I do get that risk and uncertainty make (or can make) games more exciting.  But the consequence of a risk gone awry does matter.  Traditionally (at least in my experience) in an RPG some of the things exposed to risk are:
> - Health/Life
> - Treasure/Possessions
> - Allies
> - Reputation
> - XP/Levels (in older versions of D&D, for example)
> - Maybe some other stuff I'm not thinking off at the moment.
> 
> Sure, "Character Concept" could be added to this list.  But I'm not sure what that achieves, except to annoy people who think they should be in control of the concept.  How about forcibly changing the character's name?  Their physical description?  Their class?



AFAIC all of those are fair play - I've had effects crop up in my games over the years that have done all these things.

One easy example of a forced change to character concept is a forced alignment change e.g. from a Helm of Opposite Alignment.  But that's both mechanical and forced.

I think the type of challenge being brought up here is less (or not at all) mechanical or mechanics-based.

There's a problem with the Excalibur example, in that a sword like Excalibur can reasonably be expected to provide some mechanical combat benefits to its wielder and thus the player has to choose between maintaining a character concept or gaining some combat benefits - a non-mechanics option vs a mechanics one.  This somewhat takes the choice out-of-character.



> Oh, wait, real life example: the now-defunct Girdle of Femininity/Masculinity.  Which you will note didn't make the cut for 5e.  That adds (or used to add) another kind of risk.  Does it make the game better to forcibly change the gender of a character?
> 
> Your answer may be 'yes', and if so that's illuminating.  My answer would be 'no', except as comic relief, and maybe that gets to the heart of the difference in viewpoint.



It may or may not make the game better to actually have it happen, but I think it does make the game better to have it be out there as a known or rumoured threat - never mind I've once or twice in my games had some particularly chaotic characters actively seek such things out to use on themselves just for the hell of it.


----------



## Lanefan

Umbran said:


> 1) I was speaking about a challenge *to the core of the character*.  You are talking about a challenge to *you*, the player.  You don't get to change th referent, and then asses my statement against the new referent.



Given a decent level of immersion there shouldn't be all that much difference between the two.



> 2) I was also pretty clear about what I was talking about when I spoke of challenge in this context.  If Chris Claremont writes a comic book about a conflict between Professor X and Magneto, there is no actual challenge to Professor X - only the illusion of one.
> 
> 2a) You, the player/author may feel anxiety, uncertainty, angst, or other emotions over making a decision - but in the sense I defined it, this is not a "challenge", for the simple reason that there is no success or failure to be had.  Mr. Claremont does not "succeed" if Professor X wins the comic book fight.  You don't "fail" if the knight chooses chastity over Excalibur.  The choice _*isn't a test!*_



Not all tests are strictly pass-fail.

Sometimes all options lead to varying degrees of failure and-or success e.g. choosing the lesser of two (or more) evils.

The questing knight, for example.  Forget Excalibur for a moment, and let's just say he's on a quest to retrieve a McGuffin. (let's for argument's sake say he's also straight; and betrothed)  At some key moment, probably when he meets her, he realizes the McGuffin's final guardian is its current rightful owner, a very comely commoner lass who seeks a noble husband.  Before long he realizes that seducing her is an option, thus presenting him with a lot of to-him-unpalatable choices:

He can choose not to seduce her and thus maintain his chastity while failing his quest
He can choose to seduce her and succeed on his quest while breaking his vow of chastity (and maybe also his betrothal)
He can take the item by force or guile, thus marking himself as a thief and-or liar - though a chaste one
He can denounce her as evil (whether verified mechanically or not) and kill her, thus marking himself as a murderer
He can, rather unchivalrously, kick the problem down the road via letting the rest of his party deal with her while intentionally standing aside.

Every one of these options has elements of pass and elements of fail, all in one; because every one of them tests at least two of: loyalty to vows made; loyalty to quest; respect for laws of the land; and general chivalry.  And I'd say this would represent a challenge to all of the character, the character concept, and the player.


----------



## Ovinomancer

Umbran said:


> What conclusion?
> 
> If you are going to accuse folks of jumping to things, please be clear.  Misunderstandings cannot be corrected when you are being vague.




If you need me to tell you what conclusion you reached that you then blamed on another poster's phrasing... well, I'm just gonna have to let you wonder about that.


----------



## Ovinomancer

Maxperson said:


> That's simply untrue.  I have been in a position where I can make the decision and I have been plenty challenged.  I am frequently significantly challenged by situations that come up in game.  Which way do I go with my character?  It's not certain until the decision is made, which occurs after the challenge.  The result of that challenge may be in my total control, but the challenge is there.






Elfcrusher said:


> Yeah.  Once again I find myself in the unfamiliar position of agreeing with you.
> 
> "You feel your heart melt, despite your vow.  What do you do?" is one kind of challenge.
> 
> Having the maiden wink at you, and knowing that you both have to seduce her if you want to achieve the McGuffin, and knowing that it's going to jeopardize something if you do so, is another kind of challenge.
> 
> Or, heck, even just being tempted by the awesome story developments of letting your character break his vow, presents an interesting roleplaying challenge.




Then what does a success on this challenge look like and how does it differ from a failure?

You're confusing a choice, even a hard one, with a challenge.  You can fail to overcome a challenge, or succeed at it, but you can't fail or succeed at a choice.


----------



## generic

Umbran said:


> With respect - I think it is more that you expressed your idea here... very poorly.
> 
> It became controversial because... well, your words didn't say this.  Sorry.




Perhaps, if so I apologize.


----------



## generic

FrogReaver said:


> So why did you say you don’t know what you would do if they said for the super magical sword duh?




Because that's a silly answer.

What am I, as a DM supposed to infer from that?

"Oh, you don't like RP'ing, okay..."


----------



## generic

Lanefan said:


> Yes, and IMO that's an outright glaring error in how 4e handles these things.
> 
> Put another way, it dredges up the old glass-cannon monster design issue from 1e and dials it up to 11.  Why in the name of sweet bejeebers would a designer take a known problem and intentionally make it worse?




No.  Just no.  Read 4e sourcebooks, and then come back.


----------



## Guest 6801328

Ovinomancer said:


> Then what does a success on this challenge look like and how does it differ from a failure?
> 
> You're confusing a choice, even a hard one, with a challenge.  You can fail to overcome a challenge, or succeed at it, but you can't fail or succeed at a choice.




Oh, I see.  You're trying to look at the choice itself as a challenge.  I was looking at the choice as a small component of a larger challenge.  Or, really, a piece of two larger challenges, with the dilemma being that choice A gets you closer to succeeding at the first challenge, but further from succeeding at the second, and vice versa.  So the two challenges are: a) maintain your purity, and b) get the girl.  (For whatever larger purpose both serve.)


----------



## Guest 6801328

Aebir-Toril said:


> Because that's a silly answer.
> 
> What am I, as a DM supposed to infer from that?
> 
> "Oh, you don't like RP'ing, okay..."




Like Boromir?  

He was obviously a  roleplayer.  Some knight.


----------



## FrogReaver

Aebir-Toril said:


> Because that's a silly answer.
> 
> What am I, as a DM supposed to infer from that?
> 
> "Oh, you don't like RP'ing, okay..."




And you wonder why we read into your post that you would not condone a player doing that at your table. I’d say we were right on all counts...


----------



## Tony Vargas

Lanefan said:


> I'm saying it's mkstaken because to make that system work one has to make a conscious decision to throw out internal consistency when it comes to creatures within the setting



Greater internal consistency, actually.  Hit points are /very/ abstract, and they goof up the internal consistency of a world quite a lot.  Particularly in the oddity of high-hp creatures being un-killable when fresh, by attacks that can kill them when worn down a bit (or when caught helpless).  I mean, what's "deadly" in AD&D?  A dagger, at 1-4/1-3? Laughable!  ...until you're killed by one because in your sleep.

The ways you can die are just too varied for Xhps and Y dice of damage to capture, even adding saves and critical hits didn't solve it, just created more issues with said highly-dubious internal consistency.

Secondary roles were a step in the right direction.  The 'same' monster could be /much/ harder for one set of characters to kill than another to a degree that would have required giving the more powerful set untenably high damage to represent.  So hps & defenses, instead, moved relative to the league a creature was operating in.   Greater challenges could be handled in greater detail than just bigger numbers, lesser challenges handled quicker & more simply than just smaller numbers without becoming irrelevant. (What's the complaint about 5e monsters? Giant sacks of hps?  Because they're being arbitrarily kept on one hp scale.)

It modeled fiction much better than arbitrarily locking each creature into a set of fixed numbers that only modeled it well in one sort of situation (typically facing enemies of similar power levels)Which is fair, from a game-design perspective, since that's what's likely most common and germaine in play, and limiting scope isn't beyond the pale when designing a game. 
But it's possible for a game to go further and enable more sorts of situations, challenges, & stories.



> and given as there's systems out there which work perfectly well without forcing this decision, it boggles the mind that someone would design a system that requires it.



Except those systems never worked perfectly well, they have well-known and increasingly serious issues as level increases.  



> As a pure game-play mechanic I'm sure it works great.



Well, in a game, that's ultimately what matters.  If a mechanic creates a superior play experience, and expands the possible scope of fiction that play can model, that's a pretty worthy mechanic.


----------



## FrogReaver

Umbran said:


> I was trying to say that, if you are in complete control, you always have the ability to say, "Nah, this has no impact," and so there is never a challenge to the core.  Challenge does not happen in a position of certainty.




Do you know what future reprecussions your characters choice will hold?  Then it's not done in a position of certainty.  It's only certain in this moment which is what every choice in real life is like too.  Are real life choices not challenging?


----------



## FrogReaver

Elfcrusher said:


> Oh, I see.  You're trying to look at the choice itself as a challenge.  I was looking at the choice as a small component of a larger challenge.  Or, really, a piece of two larger challenges, with the dilemma being that choice A gets you closer to succeeding at the first challenge, but further from succeeding at the second, and vice versa.  So the two challenges are: a) maintain your purity, and b) get the girl.  (For whatever larger purpose both serve.)




I think I characterized his view of challenge as too narrow.  Wouldn't you agree?


----------



## FrogReaver

pemerton said:


> I certainly find it interesting that @_*FrogReaver*_ and @_*Maxperson*_ are fine with the maiden melting a PC's heart of the GM has written down (i) that the maiden has such a special ability and (ii) it allows a saving throw. Given that there's no rule in D&D that limits the special abilities a GM can place on a creature or NPC, and no rules that limit the number of saves s/he can call for, this seems like a strange view to take - what you call a comfort blanket or even a fetish.




The view is simply that once you designate that said NPC is special then then we are open to them having special influence on our PC's.  Without that special designation then it fails.  "Magic" is the fill in word that most people use to designate this special concept, but it's really not about magicalness per se, it's about specialness.

It's nothing hard or complicated to understand


----------



## Ovinomancer

Elfcrusher said:


> Oh, I see.  You're trying to look at the choice itself as a challenge.  I was looking at the choice as a small component of a larger challenge.  Or, really, a piece of two larger challenges, with the dilemma being that choice A gets you closer to succeeding at the first challenge, but further from succeeding at the second, and vice versa.  So the two challenges are: a) maintain your purity, and b) get the girl.  (For whatever larger purpose both serve.)




The choice is what's been presented as the challenge.  This is the first instance of the example choice being part of a larger, interconnected story.  Even there, I'm not clear on what you think the challenge is, or how the choice leads to success or failure at the challenge rather than just another part of a larger choice tree.  I can see choice as part of an actual challenge only if you're making the choice blind or partly blind as to whether or not it will lead to ultimate success at the overarching goal.  What I don't see is your duality of challenge being either maintain your purity or get the girl -- this is a naked choice, not a challenge.  There's no fail state here, nor is there a success state, it's just a choice between two different states.

To illuminate, swap your goals to a) get the piece of pumpkin pie, and b) get the piece of apple pie.  Either way you get a piece of pie and don't get the other, but this isn't a challenge, it's just a choice.  For there to be an actual challenge, you have to be able to fail at what you attempt, and there's no attempt here, just a choice between outcomes.

As I say above, I can see choice being part of a larger challenge tree, where your choice of pie is actually part of a larger goal, but that goal cannot be determining which pie you get, it has to be something that the choice of pie affects.  Even then, depending on how it's set up, the nature of the goal may still not be a challenge.  If it's just tiered choices, where the outcome that's achieved is directly in line with the choices made, then this isn't a challenge.  If the result is something that has a fail state -- you don't get what you want -- and a success state -- you do get what you want -- then it's a challenge.  I'm having a difficult time envisioning such a challenge based on choice alone and without any mechanic to determine a result.  Even diceless systems have mechanics to determine results.

All this isn't to say that the above play isn't fun -- it is.  I put hard choices in front of my players all the time.  Nor is it to say that you can't have character development using this play -- you clearly can.  What it says is that it's not a challenge and you aren't putting your concept of the character at risk with this kind of play.  In other words, it's part and parcel of the play where the player declares their intended actions only and the GM decides the results vice being able to make rich action declarations on behalf of the character where both the action and the outcome are determined.  In this play, you're staking that action AND outcome and a failure may mean you get both a different action and outcome than you intended, because that's what was at stake.

I tried earlier to explore what kind of play this might be, and no one except [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] has bothered to engage it.  I suppose it fell flat for the rest of you, either in conceiving the play presented or caring about it.


----------



## FrogReaver

Ovinomancer said:


> The choice is what's been presented as the challenge.  This is the first instance of the example choice being part of a larger, interconnected story.  Even there, I'm not clear on what you think the challenge is, or how the choice leads to success or failure at the challenge rather than just another part of a larger choice tree.  I can see choice as part of an actual challenge only if you're making the choice blind or partly blind as to whether or not it will lead to ultimate success at the overarching goal.  What I don't see is your duality of challenge being either maintain your purity or get the girl -- this is a naked choice, not a challenge.  There's no fail state here, nor is there a success state, it's just a choice between two different states.




failure = not being able to obtain both states at the same time.


----------



## generic

FrogReaver said:


> And you wonder why we read into your post that you would not condone a player doing that at your table. I’d say we were right on all counts...




And we wonder why you always disagree with everyone on the boards.

Once again, false premise looking for an argument.

Yes, I do pass judgement on the idea that saying "lol, magic sword duh" is silly, but I don't tell the player this, and I allow them to do whatever they want to do.

I'd say you were wrong on all counts.

Read my posts.

Please, just read them.


----------



## FrogReaver

Aebir-Toril said:


> And we wonder why you always disagree with everyone on the boards.
> 
> Once again, false premise looking for an argument.




LOL.  This is too funny.  You say that and then your very next sentence you agree with the premise you just called false.



> Yes, I do pass judgement on the idea that saying "lol, magic sword duh" is silly,




So am I reading your posts enough?


----------



## FrogReaver

Just thought I'd read some more of your posts...



Aebir-Toril said:


> And we wonder why you always disagree with everyone on the boards.




On this thread alone there are multiple people who agree with me on quite a bit.  Is this another moment where what you say and what you mean are two different things?


----------



## FrogReaver

Did some more reading,



Aebir-Toril said:


> No.  Just no.  Read 4e sourcebooks, and then come back.




I'm noticing a trend where you like to tell people to go read things.  Is that just your way of being dismissive or do you have a problem?


----------



## FrogReaver

Lanefan said:


> There's a problem with the Excalibur example, in that a sword like Excalibur can reasonably be expected to provide some mechanical combat benefits to its wielder and thus the player has to choose between maintaining a character concept or gaining some combat benefits - a non-mechanics option vs a mechanics one.  This somewhat takes the choice out-of-character.




I choose the Excalibur example because any knight is going to know it's a special sword that will greatly benefit them in combat.  What you refer to as solely player knowledge is also character knowledge in this example.


----------



## generic

FrogReaver said:


> LOL.  This is too funny.  You say that and then your very next sentence you agree with the premise you just called false.
> 
> 
> 
> So am I reading your posts enough?




Interesting how you cut out the "but" segment of my statement, I think I'm being fundamentally misunderstood.


----------



## generic

FrogReaver said:


> Just thought I'd read some more of your posts...
> 
> 
> 
> On this thread alone there are multiple people who agree with me on quite a bit.  Is this another moment where what you say and what you mean are two different things?




Name them for me.

I allow my players to do whatever they choose, and I don't value certain choices as better or more valid than others.  It's a simple as that.

I don't think that I'm the rude one here, maybe you should *actually* read what I wrote, then pass judgement.

And yes, I am dismissive of rudeness.


----------



## generic

FrogReaver said:


> Did some more reading,
> 
> 
> 
> I'm noticing a trend where you like to tell people to go read things.  Is that just your way of being dismissive or do you have a problem?




Being mean has no purpose here.  The only reason I became exasperated is because I've tried to express the very simple point that I like to ask my players why they're doing what they're doing in approximately 0.01 percent of instances, nothing more.  I don't police actions or motivations, and I don't constantly ask for justifications, it's a rare thing that I sometimes do out of curiosity, not some rail-roading motive.

"Do I have a problem?"

Well, maybe, but at least I'm not going to stoop to calling names and slinging insults when I don't understand someone.  

Best wishes.


----------



## Campbell

I'm going to say something I expect will be controversial here.

If I am playing or running a game that is supposed to be more character focused I absolutely do make aesthetic judgments of other players and I expect the same in kind. We should all be invested in each others' characters - be fans of them. For that to happen players should play their characters as if they were real people with real passions and real relationships. Players should play their characters with integrity and want to find out who they really are. They shouldn't try to drive play to some preferred outcome. Still ultimately their decisions to make, but they have responsibilities to what we are creating together.


----------



## Fenris-77

Campbell said:


> I'm going to say something I expect will be controversial here.
> 
> If I am playing or running a game that is supposed to be more character focused I absolutely do make aesthetic judgments of other players and I expect the same in kind. We should all be invested in each others' characters - be fans of them. For that to happen players should play their characters as if they were real people with real passions and real relationships. Players should play their characters with integrity and want to find out who they really are. They shouldn't try to drive play to some preferred outcome. Still ultimately their decisions to make, but they have responsibilities to what we are creating together.



That's a great post. Normally i wouldn't quote and post just to say that, but in this case I think it's warranted.


----------



## FrogReaver

Aebir-Toril said:


> Being mean has no purpose here.  The only reason I became exasperated is because I've tried to express the very simple point




Now this I have empathy for.  That happens to me all the time.  If that is what is happening I am truly sorry.



> that I like to ask my players why they're doing what they're doing in approximately 0.01 percent of instances, nothing more.  I don't police actions or motivations, and I don't constantly ask for justifications, it's a rare thing that I sometimes do out of curiosity, not some rail-roading motive.




I'm still confused by it, but I'll take your word for it.

Just putting this additional thought out there for you to consider:  Some DM's ask "why" as a form of "preemptive policing".  That is they realize (maybe not even consciously) that people feel a bit of social pressure when put on the spot to answer a question and know they will want to provide a good and acceptable answer.  It's not hard to realize that a particular DM would disapprove of some non-in-character reasoning and so the player that sees such a DM occasionally ask "Why?" gets deterred from doing things not-in-character (or at least lying about it and finding a justification if they are). Not saying that you are doing it for this reason or that it's even having that effect but such does happen.


----------



## generic

FrogReaver said:


> Now this I have empathy for.  That happens to me all the time.  If that is what is happening I am truly sorry.
> 
> 
> 
> I'm still confused by it, but I'll take your word for it.
> 
> Just putting this additional thought out there for you to consider:  Some DM's that ask "why" so as a form of "preemptive policing".  That is they realize that people feel a bit of social pressure when put on the spot to answer a question and know they will want to provide a good and acceptable answer.  It's not hard to realize that a particular DM would disapprove of some non-in-character reasoning and so the player that sees such a DM occasionally ask "Why?" gets deterred from doing things not-in-character (or at least lying about it and finding a justification if they are). Not saying that you are doing it for this reason or that it's even having that effect but such does happen.




Thanks.


----------



## Lanefan

Ovinomancer said:


> The choice is what's been presented as the challenge.  This is the first instance of the example choice being part of a larger, interconnected story.  Even there, I'm not clear on what you think the challenge is, or how the choice leads to success or failure at the challenge rather than just another part of a larger choice tree.  I can see choice as part of an actual challenge only if you're making the choice blind or partly blind as to whether or not it will lead to ultimate success at the overarching goal.  What I don't see is your duality of challenge being either maintain your purity or get the girl -- this is a naked choice, not a challenge.  There's no fail state here, nor is there a success state, it's just a choice between two different states.
> 
> To illuminate, swap your goals to a) get the piece of pumpkin pie, and b) get the piece of apple pie.  Either way you get a piece of pie and don't get the other, but this isn't a challenge, it's just a choice.  For there to be an actual challenge, you have to be able to fail at what you attempt, and there's no attempt here, just a choice between outcomes.



Why does it have to be limited to a binary pass-fail outcome, is my question.

Having the goals of getting the piece of pumpkin pie and getting the piece of apple pie leads to at least four possible outcomes:

1. You get both.
2. You get apple but not pumpkin.
3. You get pumpkin but not apple.
4. You get neither.

And this is ignoring any nuances and-or repercussions arising from any specific character-testing things you had to do or not do in these pie-acquiring attempts.

I suspect you're using the word 'challenge' to mean something very specific and mechanical that has only two possible outcomes - succeed or fail - but I'm not at all sure everyone else here is using 'challenge' to mean that same thing.  I know I'm not: when I refer to a 'challenge' I refer to an obstacle or decision or task the dealing-with of which may have numerous possible outcomes, with straight 'succeed' or straight 'fail' only sometimes being included.



> All this isn't to say that the above play isn't fun -- it is.  I put hard choices in front of my players all the time.  Nor is it to say that you can't have character development using this play -- you clearly can.  What it says is that it's not a challenge and you aren't putting your concept of the character at risk with this kind of play.  In other words, it's part and parcel of the play where the player declares their intended actions only and the GM decides the results vice being able to make rich action declarations on behalf of the character where both the action and the outcome are determined.  In this play, you're staking that action AND outcome and a failure may mean you get both a different action and outcome than you intended, because that's what was at stake.



If a failure on an attempted action can mean you've instead done (or tried) a completely different action then fair enough, but be aware it might step on the toes of player agency a little.

PC action declaration (in form of attempted actions) is the purview of the player unless unusual circumstances dictate otherwise.  Determining the results of said declaraction is often the purview of game mechanics, and narrating what that determined result looks like in the fiction is (usually) the purview of the GM.  Seems simple enough - why mess with it?


----------



## FrogReaver

When it comes to challenges, My biggest thought is that people face challenging decisions all the time and it's due more to uncertainty that straight out randomness.  

In the Excalibur example I presented it as a you for sure get this if you do this etc.  There's rarely that kind of certainty, even in an RPG.  There's always the risk that whatever path you choose, the result doesn't end up like you envisioned.  

Could the knight lose his chastity only to then find out he can't acquire Excalibur because he is now not chaste?
Could the knight remain chaste only to fail his people by not acquiring the sword he needs to help them?
Could the knight refuse to lose his chastity and acquire the sword another way and succeed on all accounts?

Whether or not it was stated, those are the kinds of challenges said knight is facing.  In any case this is a challenge, far more akin to the kind people face in real life than the kind some here insist are the only kinds of challenges worth talking about in RPG's.


----------



## Maxperson

Umbran said:


> With respect, two things -
> 
> 1) I was speaking about a challenge *to the core of the character*.  You are talking about a challenge to *you*, the player.  You don't get to change th referent, and then asses my statement against the new referent.




I'm not changing anything.  I AM the character, including its core.  When I am in a roleplaying challenge, I'm viewing it from the point of view of my character and making a decision that my character would.  The challenge is to the core of the character.  I'm just making the decision, because I'm the one that best knows the circumstances and the PC himself.  



> 2) I was also pretty clear about what I was talking about when I spoke of challenge in this context.  If Chris Claremont writes a comic book about a conflict between Professor X and Magneto, there is no actual challenge to Professor X - only the illusion of one.




This isn't the same, though.  I'm not proposing that I set up both the challenge and the solution.  Unlike the comic book writer, I have a DM who is going to throw things at me that I don't expect and will challenge my character's character.



> 2a) You, the player/author may feel anxiety, uncertainty, angst, or other emotions over making a decision - but in the sense I defined it, this is not a "challenge", for the simple reason that there is no success or failure to be had.  Mr. Claremont does not "succeed" if Professor X wins the comic book fight.  You don't "fail" if the knight chooses chastity over Excalibur.  The choice _*isn't a test!*_




Challenges are not a dichotomy, so there doesn't to be a success/fail condition.  There can be two(or more) hard choices that challenge the PC, neither of which are win/lose.


----------



## Maxperson

Ovinomancer said:


> Then what does a success on this challenge look like and how does it differ from a failure?
> 
> You're confusing a choice, even a hard one, with a challenge.  You can fail to overcome a challenge, or succeed at it, but you can't fail or succeed at a choice.




It's probably a good thing for me, then, that success/fail challenges are just one type of challenge and I can indeed be challenged in ways that are not success/fail.


----------



## Maxperson

FrogReaver said:


> Just putting this additional thought out there for you to consider:  Some DM's ask "why" as a form of "preemptive policing".  That is they realize (maybe not even consciously) that people feel a bit of social pressure when put on the spot to answer a question and know they will want to provide a good and acceptable answer.  It's not hard to realize that a particular DM would disapprove of some non-in-character reasoning and so the player that sees such a DM occasionally ask "Why?" gets deterred from doing things not-in-character (or at least lying about it and finding a justification if they are). Not saying that you are doing it for this reason or that it's even having that effect but such does happen.




I've seen this mentioned twice now.  I ask "why" all the time.  Not in an effort to police the action, but to understand the action.  If the player is getting from A to C and I don't understand how the PC got there, I'm going to ask why.  The follow-up explanation sometimes helps me narrate the response properly or better.  I also award bonus XP based on good roleplaying, and a lack of understanding will hurt the player's chances for that award, where the clarity gained by the explanation will often turn on the light bulb for me and help get the player the bonus.


----------



## Ovinomancer

Maxperson said:


> That's simply untrue.  I have been in a position where I can make the decision and I have been plenty challenged.  I am frequently significantly challenged by situations that come up in game.  Which way do I go with my character?  It's not certain until the decision is made, which occurs after the challenge.  The result of that challenge may be in my total control, but the challenge is there.






Maxperson said:


> It's probably a good thing for me, then, that success/fail challenges are just one type of challenge and I can indeed be challenged in ways that are not success/fail.




If you cannot succeed nor fail, how are you challenged?  You keep insisting that there are other challenges that don't include possibility of failure, but you haven't presented the case -- you just assert it.  Show the work.

Edit: multiquote is stuck


----------



## Ovinomancer

FrogReaver said:


> failure = not being able to obtain both states at the same time.




So, success would be maintaining your chastity and getting the girl.  How pseudo-zen of you.


----------



## Maxperson

Ovinomancer said:


> If you cannot succeed nor fail, how are you challenged?  You keep insisting that there are other challenges that don't include possibility of failure, but you haven't presented the case -- you just assert it.  Show the work.
> 
> Edit: multiquote is stuck




By making the hard choice obviously.  I you can't fail to pick a choice, but none of the choices may be what you want, so there is no success. Challenge has more than one definition and not of them are binary.  Trying to limit a challenge to success or failure is a False Dichotomy.


----------



## FrogReaver

Ovinomancer said:


> So, success would be maintaining your chastity and getting the girl.  How pseudo-zen of you.




Note my example didn’t have getting the girl as the alternate goal. It was getting the sword.

But Yes!  To keep your chastity and get the girl is success if those are your goals. They used to call it marriage...


----------



## FrogReaver

Ovinomancer said:


> If you cannot succeed nor fail, how are you challenged?  You keep insisting that there are other challenges that don't include possibility of failure, but you haven't presented the case -- you just assert it.  Show the work.
> 
> Edit: multiquote is stuck




Because there are other states than full success or full failure. The challenge is due to risk which is due to uncertainty.  Pushing for full success can sometimes cause a greater risk for full failure


----------



## FrogReaver

Maxperson said:


> By making the hard choice obviously.  I you can't fail to pick a choice, but none of the choices may be what you want, so there is no success. Challenge has more than one definition and not of them are binary.  Trying to limit a challenge to success or failure is a False Dichotomy.




I really don't understand why @_*Ovinomancer*_ and others can't grasp this simple concept.  

Challenges are about risk.  Risk is based on uncertainity.  However, even in a perfectly deterministic world, there is still uncertainty which means there is still risk which means there's still challenges.  Thus, you don't need a randomization method like dice to produce uncertainty.

Chess actually makes a great example.  Chess is a deterministic game and it's very challenging.  It's challenging because there's always uncertainty because as a human we don't possess the knowledge of all game states.  That lack of knowledge causes uncertainty which causes risk which causes challenge.

Now consider a simple game of a coin flip where you win if a heads is flipped.  There's uncertainty there.  You have a great chance to lose the game and no control over winning or losing (without cheating).  That kind of a game doesn't present a challenge even though there could potentially be risk and uncertainty.  The real challenge with such a game is the betting aspect.  Do you continue to bet to try to win one more time or do you walk away.  That's where the challenge in such a game really lies.

In RPG terms.  I struggle to see a challenge simply resulting from the DM saying random maiden approaches you, make a save.  That's not a challenge, even though there's risk and uncertainty IMO, as there's no decision point for the character or the player.


----------



## generic

FrogReaver said:


> I really don't understand why @_*Ovinomancer*_ and others can't grasp this simple concept.
> 
> Challenges are about risk.  Risk is based on uncertainity.  However, even in a perfectly deterministic world, there is still uncertainty which means there is still risk which means there's still challenges.  Thus, you don't need a randomization method like dice to produce uncertainty.
> 
> Chess actually makes a great example.  Chess is a deterministic game and it's very challenging.  It's challenging because there's always uncertainty because as a human we don't possess the knowledge of all game states.  That lack of knowledge causes uncertainty which causes risk which causes challenge.
> 
> Now consider a simple game of a coin flip where you win if a heads is flipped.  There's uncertainty there.  You have a great chance to lose the game and no control over winning or losing (without cheating).  That kind of a game doesn't present a challenge even though there could potentially be risk and uncertainty.  The real challenge with such a game is the betting aspect.  Do you continue to bet to try to win one more time or do you walk away.  That's where the challenge in such a game really lies.
> 
> In RPG terms.  I struggle to see a challenge simply resulting from the DM saying random maiden approaches you, make a save.  That's not a challenge, even though there's risk and uncertainty IMO, as there's no decision point for the character or the player.




Yes, it's not a real challenge.  Exactly.

Maybe [MENTION=16814]Ovinomancer[/MENTION] means that it's mechanical challenge, which it is (your character's probability of succeeding is tested, but that makes it less of a challenge and more of a "save or get charmed", which is honestly more of an attack than something that challenges the player.


----------



## FrogReaver

Aebir-Toril said:


> Yes, it's not a real challenge.  Exactly.
> 
> Maybe @_*Ovinomancer*_ means that it's mechanical challenge, which it is (your character's probability of succeeding is tested, but that makes it less of a challenge and more of a "save or get charmed", which is honestly more of an attack than something that challenges the player.




I wanted to add, it's not just about challenging the player.  Everything I've said also applies to the character.


----------



## generic

FrogReaver said:


> I wanted to add, it's not just about challenging the player.  Everything I've said also applies to the character.




Of course.


----------



## FrogReaver

I honestly would even struggle to classify an in-combat attack against a PC or NPC as a challenge for them.  The combat itself may be a challenge both for the player and the character.  But a single attack from that combat is really just a piece of the overall challenge that's occurring

The challenge that comes from combat is determining what resources to use when, or whether you should save some for later in the day.  Those are the combat challenges a player and a character face.  (I say the character - presuming you believe a character is at least somewhat aware how much gas he has left in his tank for the rest of the day)


----------



## generic

FrogReaver said:


> I honestly would even struggle to classify an in-combat attack against a PC or NPC as a challenge for them.  The combat itself may be a challenge both for the player and the character.  But a single attack from that combat is really just a piece of the overall challenge that's occurring
> 
> The challenge that comes from combat is determining what resources to use when, or whether you should save some for later in the day.  Those are the combat challenges a player and a character face.  (I say the character - presuming you believe a character is at least somewhat aware how much gas he has left in his tank for the rest of the day)




AC is not ability, and saving throw bonuses are not a skill (non-mechanical). 

I agree completely.


----------



## FrogReaver

Could it be that players often prefer D&D combat over non-combat play largely because DM's can be pretty bad about making out of combat challenges where characters and players actually face risk due to uncertainty?


----------



## Maxperson

FrogReaver said:


> I wanted to add, it's not just about challenging the player.  Everything I've said also applies to the character.




The character is really just a sheet of paper.  It's the player inhabiting the idea of the character that gives it life.  That's why I don't understand this idea that you can challenge the character socially, without challenging the player.  When [MENTION=177]Umbran[/MENTION] said that I was switching the challenge from the character to the player, I had a vision of Leslie Nielson in an interrogation room with a character sheet sitting on a chair, demanding that it confess.  After a few minutes he turns to Nordberg and says, "I never thought it would be so hard to challenge a character."  

You cannot challenge a character without simultaneously challenging the player.  A challenge where the DM takes control and informs the player that his PC's heart warms is no less a challenge to the player than what we are describing.  It's just a different sort of challenge.


----------



## FrogReaver

Maxperson said:


> The character is really just a sheet of paper.  It's the player inhabiting the idea of the character that gives it life.  That's why I don't understand this idea that you can challenge the character socially, without challenging the player.  When @_*Umbran*_ said that I was switching the challenge from the character to the player, I had a vision of Leslie Nielson in an interrogation room with a character sheet sitting on a chair, demanding that it confess.  After a few minutes he turns to Nordberg and says, "I never thought it would be so hard to challenge a character."




I think there is a difference between challenging the player and challenging the character.  I think it needs explored whether such you can ever challenge the character without challenging the player.

I don't view the character as a character sheet.  IMO They exist in the shared fictional world that we have created.  They can be challenged in that world the same way I can be challenged in this one.  



> You cannot challenge a character without simultaneously challenging the player.




That's an interesting assertion and one I need to ponder on.




> A challenge where the DM takes control and informs the player that his PC's heart warms is no less a challenge to the player than what we are describing. It's just a different sort of challenge.




The more I think about that the more I think that is not a challenge at all.


----------



## Maxperson

FrogReaver said:


> I think there is a difference between challenging the player and challenging the character.  I think it needs explored whether such you can ever challenge the character without challenging the player.
> 
> I don't view the character as a character sheet.  IMO They exist in the shared fictional world that we have created.  They can be challenged in that world the same way I can be challenged in this one.




But all that shared fiction is in the minds of the players and DM.  Only the sheet, dice, etc. are independent of that.  It might be possible to challenge the character purely mechanically, but not socially.  The social construct of the character is entirely mental, and entirety of the character's personality is inside the player of that PC.  Others can interact with the character in the shared imagined space, but without some sort of active control over the PC in some way(mechanics), that's as far as it goes.



> The more I think about that the more I think that is not a challenge at all.




Which is not a challenge?  The original description of the maiden interaction, my description of the maiden interaction, or both?


----------



## FrogReaver

[MENTION=23751]Maxperson[/MENTION]

You said: "_You cannot challenge a character without simultaneously challenging the player. "

_Fog of war style challenges will challenge both the character and the player.  These are the challenges I propose as the most fun.

I believe there also contests like a game of basketball, a game of athletic ability and skill, that is very challenging (aka difficult to win) provided the opposing team is about equal to you.  A game of basketball is typically going to need to be resolved purely by mechanical randomization in an RPG.  In this instance your character can be challenged while the player is not.  That's not a particualarly interesting or fun challenge for the player but I think it's probably best to classify this as a challenge.

I still don't think a single sword swing or single basketball shot should be called a challenge though.
​


----------



## Maxperson

FrogReaver said:


> @_*Maxperson*_
> 
> You said: "_You cannot challenge a character without simultaneously challenging the player. "
> 
> _Fog of war style challenges will challenge both the character and the player.  These are the challenges I propose as the most fun.​





I said that in the context of the social challenge, though.  Socially, I don't believe it is possible.



> I believe there also contests like a game of basketball, a game of athletic ability and skill, that is very challenging (aka difficult to win) provided the opposing team is about equal to you.  A game of basketball is typically going to need to be resolved purely by mechanical randomization in an RPG.  In this instance your character can be challenged while the player is not.  That's not a particualarly interesting or fun challenge for the player but I think it's probably best to classify this as a challenge.
> 
> I still don't think a single sword swing or single basketball shot should be called a challenge though.



​

That depends.  If the PC is going to take a shot and the NPC goes for a steal or block, then it would be an opposed challenge in my opinion.  You could term it a mini-challenge if you want, but it's still a contest.


----------



## FrogReaver

Maxperson said:


> I said that in the context of the social challenge, though.  Socially, I don't believe it is possible.
> ​




I'm pretty much in agreement, though there are some that are insisting you can run social encounters the same way you run combat encounters.  I'm not 100% sure if you really can or not (I heavily lean toward not possible as well), but I'm more concerned with that's gained by running a social encounter as a combat encounter.  It seems to me that if even possible, that it's an inferior way of handling that situation?  Is there anything I'm missing?



> That depends.  If the PC is going to take a shot and the NPC goes for a steal or block, then it would be an opposed challenge in my opinion.  You could term it a mini-challenge if you want, but it's still a contest.




I like the term contest there


----------



## pemerton

Elfcrusher said:


> I do get that risk and uncertainty make (or can make) games more exciting.  But the consequence of a risk gone awry does matter.  Traditionally (at least in my experience) in an RPG some of the things exposed to risk are:
> - Health/Life
> - Treasure/Possessions
> - Allies
> - Reputation
> - XP/Levels (in older versions of D&D, for example)
> - Maybe some other stuff I'm not thinking off at the moment.
> 
> Sure, "Character Concept" could be added to this list.  But I'm not sure what that achieves, except to annoy people who think they should be in control of the concept.



It means that the RPG can have story arcs comparable to other dramatic mediums. In film, think eg Casblanca. In literature, think eg The Human Factor.

In genre fiction, think eg Han Solo (who, in Star Wars, turns out not to be the mercenary he thought he was) or Nameless, Jet Li's character in Hero (who in the end choose not to take the vengeance that he had pursued). Of course many other examples could also be given.


----------



## Ovinomancer

FrogReaver said:


> I really don't understand why @_*Ovinomancer*_ and others can't grasp this simple concept.
> 
> Challenges are about risk.  Risk is based on uncertainity.  However, even in a perfectly deterministic world, there is still uncertainty which means there is still risk which means there's still challenges.  Thus, you don't need a randomization method like dice to produce uncertainty.
> 
> Chess actually makes a great example.  Chess is a deterministic game and it's very challenging.  It's challenging because there's always uncertainty because as a human we don't possess the knowledge of all game states.  That lack of knowledge causes uncertainty which causes risk which causes challenge.
> 
> Now consider a simple game of a coin flip where you win if a heads is flipped.  There's uncertainty there.  You have a great chance to lose the game and no control over winning or losing (without cheating).  That kind of a game doesn't present a challenge even though there could potentially be risk and uncertainty.  The real challenge with such a game is the betting aspect.  Do you continue to bet to try to win one more time or do you walk away.  That's where the challenge in such a game really lies.
> 
> In RPG terms.  I struggle to see a challenge simply resulting from the DM saying random maiden approaches you, make a save.  That's not a challenge, even though there's risk and uncertainty IMO, as there's no decision point for the character or the player.




I do, too.  Weird, huh, that I'd agree with this last bit so easily, like maybe you've missed something fundamental?


----------



## FrogReaver

Ovinomancer said:


> I do, too.  Weird, huh, that I'd agree with this last bit so easily, like maybe you've missed something fundamental?




Maybe you took my meds this time


----------



## Ovinomancer

FrogReaver said:


> Maybe you took my meds this time




Dude, irony.  Those comments were made about taking things either out-of-context or imagined and then trying to pin those arguments on other posters.  Like you just did to me.  You cannot find anywhere in this thread (or others) where I've gotten even close to saying that telling a player to make a saving throw out of the blue is a challenge.  You've erected a strawman.  Have fun with it.


----------



## Umbran

Maxperson said:


> The character is really just a sheet of paper.  It's the player inhabiting the idea of the character that gives it life.  That's why I don't understand this idea that you can challenge the character socially, without challenging the player.




That's because you are again swapping between different kinds of "challenge" willy-nilly. 

We typically talk about "challenge the player" and "challenge the character" in a rather game-centered* manner.  If I had you a sudoku puzzle to solve, with no reference to the mechanics your character uses, I am challenging you, the player.  If I give a strictly constructed skill challenge (make skill check one, make skill check 2...), I can challenge the character build, with the player agency front-loaded back in character generation and advancement, and little found at game runtime.  In a complex combat, with many tactical options, I can challenge the combination.

But, this branch started as we were talking about *challenging the core concepts* of the character.  And, honestly, this is nothing like the other challenges we were talking about - this is about psychology and narrative, not about skills and tactical game play like the other challenges are.  You can't elide from one to the other and expect the conversation to make much sense.  So, yes, if you keep doing this, you will not understand.  

You are the only one who can stop you from doing this.  When you stop the bait-and-switching, maybe we can have a cogent discussion.




*We might even say "gamist", but that's going to open another can of worms.


----------



## Ovinomancer

Aebir-Toril said:


> Yes, it's not a real challenge.  Exactly.
> 
> Maybe [MENTION=16814]Ovinomancer[/MENTION] means that it's mechanical challenge, which it is (your character's probability of succeeding is tested, but that makes it less of a challenge and more of a "save or get charmed", which is honestly more of an attack than something that challenges the player.




Actually, I think save or be charmed isn't much of a challenge, either.  My argument has been that making a choice isn't a challenge if you can chose between all the choices.  Even the unknown repercussions don't make it a challenge, just a guessing game.  A challenge requires that something be staked and that you have a risk of losing your stakes.  There's lots and lots of ways to do this, even without dice.  In an RPG, though, it pretty much requires some kind of mechanic to determine the uncertainty, even if that mechanic is "DM chooses."  I think that's a lousy mechanic, but there you go.


----------



## FrogReaver

Ovinomancer said:


> Dude, irony.  Those comments were made about taking things either out-of-context or imagined and then trying to pin those arguments on other posters.  Like you just did to me.  You cannot find anywhere in this thread (or others) where I've gotten even close to saying that telling a player to make a saving throw out of the blue is a challenge.  You've erected a strawman.  Have fun with it.




Okay Mr Grumpy - can't take a joke - but can belittle others


----------



## pemerton

I agree with  [MENTION=16814]Ovinomancer[/MENTION] and  [MENTION=177]Umbran[/MENTION] that making a choice - even a hard choice - isn't a challenge to character and character concept of the sort that has been raised in this thread.

Whether you need mechanics (social mechanics, emotional mechanics, whatever they might be) to generate that sort of challenge is a further question. My view is that you don't, although obviously they might help. To expain why I think you don't need such mechanics, I want to quote a recent post:



Campbell said:


> If I am playing or running a game that is supposed to be more character focused I absolutely do make aesthetic judgments of other players and I expect the same in kind. We should all be invested in each others' characters - be fans of them. For that to happen players should play their characters as if they were real people with real passions and real relationships. Players should play their characters with integrity and want to find out who they really are. They shouldn't try to drive play to some preferred outcome. Still ultimately their decisions to make, but they have responsibilities to what we are creating together.



The key idea I take away from this is one of _fidelity_ - to the fiction, and to what is revealed about the character in the fiction.

In order to get the sort of fiction that will generate such demands of fidelity, I think we need (at least) _mutiple scenes_ that _put the character under pressure_ - these are choices in which _the player knows what is at stake_ and in which _the GM is prepared to hold the character (and thereby the player) to account_.

This relates to the notion of _uncertainty_. I don't think uncertainty is important at the moment of choice, especially if it means _uncertainty as to what the GM will decide in the future_. For a choice to be hard in the sense at issue, there needs to be _certainty_: certainty as to the hard outcome for the character (and thereby the player).

But a single choice, even a hard one, won't generate a fiction that generates a demand for fidelity. We need multiple scenes, an unfolding trajectory, the generation of pressure, perhaps mulitple sources of pressure. And as a result there will be uncertainty about how a collectively-established ficiton will arise over time.

This also brings it back to mechanics. Mechanics are one useful way for helping determine outcomes of situations. And they can modulate pressure. HeroQuest revised is probably the clearest expression of this in RPG design, but it can also be scene in (say) MHRP/Cortex+ Heroic and Burning Wheel.


----------



## FrogReaver

Ovinomancer said:


> Actually, I think save or be charmed isn't much of a challenge, either.  My argument has been that making a choice isn't a challenge if you can chose between all the choices.  Even the unknown repercussions don't make it a challenge, just a guessing game.  A challenge requires that something be staked and that you have a risk of losing your stakes.  There's lots and lots of ways to do this, even without dice.  In an RPG, though, it pretty much requires some kind of mechanic to determine the uncertainty, even if that mechanic is "DM chooses."  I think that's a lousy mechanic, but there you go.




In real life - What about chess?  Is Chess a challenge?  (assuming two nearly equally skilled players)


----------



## FrogReaver

pemerton said:


> I agree with  @_*Ovinomancer*_ and  @_*Umbran*_ that making a choice - even a hard choice - isn't a challenge to character and character concept of the sort that has been raised in this thread.
> 
> Whether you need mechanics (social mechanics, emotional mechanics, whatever they might be) to generate that sort of challenge is a further question. My view is that you don't, although obviously they might help.




Those 2 sentences appear to contradict each other.  Let me elaborate:

At first you say a hard choice isn't a challenge.  Then you say you believe a challenge can be made without mechanics.  What other method could possibly result in a challenge besides either mechanics or a hard choice?


----------



## Campbell

I have already spoken on how social mechanics can serve as an immersion tool to help players feel what their characters should be feeling in the moment. 

Another crucial function can be to deliberately welcome the wholly unwelcome. It introduces outcomes which no one at the table would deliberately choose, but are nonetheless compelling. Vincent Baker calls this the fundamental purpose of RPG mechanics. Like as a GM and a player you are fond of this character. You like want the best for them, but in order for dramatic tension to exist there needs to exist the possibility things will not turn out the way you hope. Think of it like PC death in combat.

With the sort of character focused play I am talking about here character concept as an idealized version of who your character is and how you expect their story to play out has absolutely no place. Your job is to play a character. Not a concept.  We're creative collaborators. The expectation is that our contributions will impact each other.

I also think there is a measure of talking past each other because most people are viewing social mechanics through the specter of charm person and 3e's horrible Diplomacy rules. I personally favor games where player choice of decisions is preserved as much as possible, but where those decisions are colored by the mechanical impact of social mechanics. This weekend I'll get into details from actual games.


----------



## Ovinomancer

Maxperson said:


> By making the hard choice obviously.  I you can't fail to pick a choice, but none of the choices may be what you want, so there is no success. Challenge has more than one definition and not of them are binary.  Trying to limit a challenge to success or failure is a False Dichotomy.




What do you have if there's no failure, and no success, though?  Not a challenge.  If you can't fail, if there's no risk, then it's not a challenge.  Does it have to be abject, absolute failure?  No, of course not, but there has to be something at risk and that risk has to be losing that something.

And here's where we're having a disconnect:  you insist that the player has 100% sole authority over characterizations.  Taken as given, then nothing is ever risked if the player is making a choice about that characterization.  If you chose to change your character, then you've chosen it.  That characterization was never at risk -- there's no way you can lose the characterization.  What I'm seeing is an argument that a choice can be offered that risks the player's characterization, but this fails at first contact because the player is making the choice about the characterization -- it's still exactly what the player wants.  If you, personally, exhibit difficulty in making a choice to change your characterization, this doesn't make the choice special or suddenly a challenge -- you're still the only one exercising your 100% authority, and you cannot lose this or have it reduced (again, taking the initial premise for granted).

It's not that a choice can't be part of a challenge.  A choice to enter a room full of monsters usually kicks off a challenge and becomes part of it, but that challenge isn't "do I decide to go in or not" it's "do I overcome this room full of monsters" and your choice is many-fold for how you might do this.  I think that some mechanic is necessary for an RPG, because we have no other way to resolve uncertainty, and uncertainty is necessary for challenge to exist.  Just as the chance to fail must exist or there is no challenge.  And, again, you cannot fail to exercise your authority over characterization because you make a choice about your characterization.


----------



## Ovinomancer

FrogReaver said:


> Okay Mr Grumpy - can't take a joke - but can belittle others




Dude, irony, again.


----------



## Ovinomancer

FrogReaver said:


> In real life - What about chess?  Is Chess a challenge?  (assuming two nearly equally skilled players)




Is there a mechanic?  Can you fail?  Can you succeed?  There's your answer, three times over.

If you play chess against yourself, is there a challenge?  This is more akin to using your sole authority to determine characterization to make a choice about your characterization.  You can't fail this challenge, you can just choose which side you win on.


----------



## Umbran

pemerton said:


> Whether you need mechanics (social mechanics, emotional mechanics, whatever they might be) to generate that sort of challenge is a further question. My view is that you don't, although obviously they might help.




I tend to agree.  "Need" is an absolute, and there are few absolutes that actually hold for us.  Mechanics may make it easier to make such challenges, and/or make them eaiser for players to accept.



> The key idea I take away from this is one of _fidelity_ - to the fiction, and to what is revealed about the character in the fiction.




"Fidelity" has two connotations.  One is "strict adherence" - this is like a "high-fidelity recording".  I don't think that's the sense meant here.  The sense intended here is probably "faithful".

And that's important.  Because if we use the first, then fidelity is, "You wrote that your character is Lawful Good, so you cannot take that action."  Fidelity, meaning faithfulness, is more about making the character a real person - who can make errors and change over time..


----------



## FrogReaver

Ovinomancer said:


> Is there a mechanic?  Can you fail?  Can you succeed?  There's your answer, three times over.




Then I'm confused.  In chess you can choose between all choices.  Earlier you said that meant something wasn't a challenge


----------



## Ovinomancer

FrogReaver said:


> Then I'm confused.  In chess you can choose between all choices.  Earlier you said that meant something wasn't a challenge




Yes, you are confused.  Finally, agreement.


----------



## FrogReaver

Ovinomancer said:


> Yes, you are confused.  Finally, agreement.




This is a discussion board.  If your not going to discuss with me then stop talking to me.


----------



## Ovinomancer

FrogReaver said:


> This is a discussion board.  If your not going to discuss with me then stop talking to me.




Dude, _irony_.


----------



## Umbran

FrogReaver said:


> At first you say a hard choice isn't a challenge.  Then you say you believe a challenge can be made without mechanics.  What other method could possibly result in a challenge besides either mechanics or a hard choice?




It is late, but let me see if I can construct one...  I will use example presented before - the chaste knight is offered Excalibur in exchange for their chastity.  We can call this... "The Maiden and the Sword".

On the face of this, it is just a hard question - and only hard in the sense of our having put a stake in the ground in claiming the character was chaste, and we often dislike being put in a position where we turn out to have been wrong.  Even if there's a mechanical loss in no longer being chaste, there's a mechanical gain in having Excalibur.  It is still just a choice.

But, we can re-position this, so that it becomes a challenge: "Knight, do you have what it takes to remain chaste *and* keep the realm safe?"  This is not a choice - they can't just say, "yes" and have it be true.  They have to prove it.  It is a test that one can pass of fail.  It does not have a specific mechanic associated with it.  This is a place where the core concept of the character (chaste protector of the realm) is challenged.  If the character does not pass this challenge, they effectively lose one or both of those aspects - they are either not chaste, or not really a protector of the realm.


----------



## FrogReaver

Umbran said:


> It is late, but let me see if I can construct one...  I will use example presented before - the chaste knight is offered Excalibur in exchange for their chastity.  We can call this... "The Maiden and the Sword".
> 
> On the face of this, it is just a hard question - and only hard in the sense of our having put a stake in the ground in claiming the character was chaste, and we often dislike being put in a position where we turn out to have been wrong.  Even if there's a mechanical loss in no longer being chaste, there's a mechanical gain in having Excalibur.  It is still just a choice.
> 
> But, we can re-position this, so that it becomes a challenge: "Knight, do you have what it takes to remain chaste *and* keep the realm safe?"  This is not a choice.  It is a test that one can pass of fail.  It does not have a specific mechanic associated with it.  This is a place where the core concept of the character (chaste protector of the realm) is challenged.  If the character does not pass this challenge, they effectively lose one or both of those aspects - they are either not chaste, or not really a protector of the realm.




I appreciate the attempt.  I guess I'm stuck thinking - If that's his test - and the player is the one that has full control over his chastity then that part isn't really part of the test to begin with as it's never in doubt.  Presumably for this test you would need something to entice the player to give up chastity (in which case we are back at my Excalibur example), or to force him via a mechanic to do so.  Protecting the realm on the other hand I imagine has a test related to it that highly involves mechanics.


----------



## Umbran

Folks,

There comes a time when folks no longer willing to budge or learn from each other butt heads, and can move forward no further.  However, humans are built to not give up, so the head-butting can go on for some time.

I can make it so neither one of you has to give up.  You probably don't want me to do that.  But if you do, by all means, continue in this same manner.  I will take that as a sign that I should step in and resolve the conflict for you.


----------



## Sadras

I'm eagerly awaiting  [MENTION=16586]Campbell[/MENTION]'s next post which promised some colourful social mechanics so I'd rather not have this thread end abruptly.


----------



## pemerton

Umbran said:


> "Fidelity" has two connotations.  One is "strict adherence" - this is like a "high-fidelity recording".  I don't think that's the sense meant here.  The sense intended here is probably "faithful".
> 
> And that's important.  Because if we use the first, then fidelity is, "You wrote that your character is Lawful Good, so you cannot take that action."  Fidelity, meaning faithfulness, is more about making the character a real person - who can make errors and change over time..



Yes, I mean _faithfulness_ to what the unfolding fiction reveals about the character. Not _accuracy_. I was trying to build on what [MENTION=16586]Campbell[/MENTION] had said.



Ovinomancer said:


> What I'm seeing is an argument that a choice can be offered that risks the player's characterization, but this fails at first contact because the player is making the choice about the characterization -- it's still exactly what the player wants.  If you, personally, exhibit difficulty in making a choice to change your characterization, this doesn't make the choice special or suddenly a challenge -- you're still the only one exercising your 100% authority, and you cannot lose this or have it reduced (again, taking the initial premise for granted).
> 
> It's not that a choice can't be part of a challenge.  A choice to enter a room full of monsters usually kicks off a challenge and becomes part of it, but that challenge isn't "do I decide to go in or not" it's "do I overcome this room full of monsters" and your choice is many-fold for how you might do this.  I think that some mechanic is necessary for an RPG, because we have no other way to resolve uncertainty, and uncertainty is necessary for challenge to exist.  Just as the chance to fail must exist or there is no challenge.  And, again, you cannot fail to exercise your authority over characterization because you make a choice about your characterization.





FrogReaver said:


> Those 2 sentences appear to contradict each other.  Let me elaborate:
> 
> At first you say a hard choice isn't a challenge.  Then you say you believe a challenge can be made without mechanics.  What other method could possibly result in a challenge besides either mechanics or a hard choice?



There's the example that's been given by [MENTION=177]Umbran[/MENTION].

Here's another example, which is based on an actual play experience I had many years ago now. The basic structure of the example is not too different from [MENTION=177]Umbran[/MENTION]'s.

One of the PCs was a paladin. He was a member of an order devoted to the relief of suffering and freeing victimes of torture and slavery The system was Rolemaster - for those not familiar with it, RM uses crit rolls as its main mechanic for resolving hurt in combat; and it's very common for foes to be defeated in combat without being killed - they're knocked out, or disabled, or stunned, or whatever.

At 5th level the player of the paladin hit an NPC in combat, and then rolled a 00  crit - decapitation. It was the first time he had killed a person. It caused a crisis of faith: _can I be the person of faith that I aspire to be, and be a killer_?

There is no mechanical test that will answer this question. It's been prompted by a mechanical resolution process, but not one that was intended to make this particular question salient. Future action declarations will also matter: for instance, if the character sets out to avoid killing he might fail to do so because of the vicissitudes of action resolution.

It also illustrates what I said above about the need for multiple scenes. You can't establish this character, generate the crisis, and then see what happens, in a single short episode of play.


----------



## Maxperson

pemerton said:


> One of the PCs was a paladin. He was a member of an order devoted to the relief of suffering and freeing victimes of torture and slavery The system was Rolemaster - for those not familiar with it, RM uses crit rolls as its main mechanic for resolving hurt in combat; and it's very common for foes to be defeated in combat without being killed - they're knocked out, or disabled, or stunned, or whatever.
> 
> At 5th level the player of the paladin hit an NPC in combat, and then rolled a 00  crit - decapitation. It was the first time he had killed a person. It caused a crisis of faith: _can I be the person of faith that I aspire to be, and be a killer_?
> 
> There is no mechanical test that will answer this question. It's been prompted by a mechanical resolution process, but not one that was intended to make this particular question salient. Future action declarations will also matter: for instance, if the character sets out to avoid killing he might fail to do so because of the vicissitudes of action resolution.
> 
> It also illustrates what I said above about the need for multiple scenes. You can't establish this character, generate the crisis, and then see what happens, in a single short episode of play.




This is what I have been saying.  Something happens outside of the control of the player that can have a profound effect on the PC.  Now the hard choice is happening.  

In this example, there is one difference from what I have been talking about, and one possible difference.  The difference is the multiple scene aspect.  I agree with that actually.  Generally(not always) it will take multiple examples of the PC going one way or the other to determine the answer or demonstrate that initial answer is set in stone.  The possible difference is whether or not you the DM forced the crisis of faith on the player or if the player chose it himself.  Your example doesn't say.  

I'm arguing that it's up to the player to decide whether a crisis of faith is happening.  I can see it going either way.  The paladin isn't torturing or enslaving those he is fighting, and those he kills won't be suffering any longer.  In the example above, it was actually a fairly quick death, so suffering would be very minimal.  The act might or might not spark a crisis of faith.  In fact, I would think a longer combat with more wounds and an enemy that lives, would be more likely to spark the crisis, as cuts, bruises, broken bones, chopped off hands, etc. would inflict far more suffering on an enemy.


----------



## generic

Ovinomancer said:


> Actually, I think save or be charmed isn't much of a challenge, either.  My argument has been that making a choice isn't a challenge if you can chose between all the choices.  Even the unknown repercussions don't make it a challenge, just a guessing game.  A challenge requires that something be staked and that you have a risk of losing your stakes.  There's lots and lots of ways to do this, even without dice.  In an RPG, though, it pretty much requires some kind of mechanic to determine the uncertainty, even if that mechanic is "DM chooses."  I think that's a lousy mechanic, but there you go.




Oh, perhaps I didn't see you original comment.  

I seem to be working off quotes of your posts.

Sorry, that makes sense.


----------



## Ovinomancer

pemerton said:


> Yes, I mean _faithfulness_ to what the unfolding fiction reveals about the character. Not _accuracy_. I was trying to build on what [MENTION=16586]Campbell[/MENTION] had said.
> 
> 
> There's the example that's been given by [MENTION=177]Umbran[/MENTION].
> 
> Here's another example, which is based on an actual play experience I had many years ago now. The basic structure of the example is not too different from [MENTION=177]Umbran[/MENTION]'s.
> 
> One of the PCs was a paladin. He was a member of an order devoted to the relief of suffering and freeing victimes of torture and slavery The system was Rolemaster - for those not familiar with it, RM uses crit rolls as its main mechanic for resolving hurt in combat; and it's very common for foes to be defeated in combat without being killed - they're knocked out, or disabled, or stunned, or whatever.
> 
> At 5th level the player of the paladin hit an NPC in combat, and then rolled a 00  crit - decapitation. It was the first time he had killed a person. It caused a crisis of faith: _can I be the person of faith that I aspire to be, and be a killer_?
> 
> There is no mechanical test that will answer this question. It's been prompted by a mechanical resolution process, but not one that was intended to make this particular question salient. Future action declarations will also matter: for instance, if the character sets out to avoid killing he might fail to do so because of the vicissitudes of action resolution.
> 
> It also illustrates what I said above about the need for multiple scenes. You can't establish this character, generate the crisis, and then see what happens, in a single short episode of play.




Your example is fun play.  I like it, and I enjoy when such things happen in my game.  What I don't see, though, is how your example illuminates the discussion about choice not being a challenge or risk to characterization.  You player decided that this crisis happened, and, absent a scene or scenes where this crisis is tested in a way that the player risks their characterization, it remains just a choice the player made about their character.  The player could have, in this instance, chosen to not enter a crisis of faith for their character, and that would also have been fine.  In other words, the play here is good, it's engaging, and I have no problems with it, but I don't see how it engages the aspect of my arguments that you've quoted -- it's still just a choice.

To clarify, I think choices like these are critical to the game.  Players must have ownership of their characters such that they can make these kinds of decisions.  It isn't risking the characterization in play, though, but, as I've said, this isn't necessary unless we're talking about a game where the player can and does risk this.  I'm not familiar enough with RM to say either way.


----------



## Ovinomancer

Aebir-Toril said:


> Oh, perhaps I didn't see you original comment.
> 
> I seem to be working off quotes of your posts.
> 
> Sorry, that makes sense.




Tsk-tsk.  Given your experience in the thread, you should know better.


----------



## pemerton

Ovinomancer said:


> Your example is fun play.  I like it, and I enjoy when such things happen in my game.  What I don't see, though, is how your example illuminates the discussion about choice not being a challenge or risk to characterization.  You player decided that this crisis happened, and, absent a scene or scenes where this crisis is tested in a way that the player risks their characterization, it remains just a choice the player made about their character.



I can see why you say this. But for me, this brings us back to [MENTION=16586]Campbell[/MENTION]'s remarks:



Campbell said:


> Players should play their characters with integrity and want to find out who they really are. They shouldn't try to drive play to some preferred outcome.



The absence of choice in the example I provided occurred at the point of the killing. At that point, thie player learns - without having any say over it - that his PC is a killer. At that point, playing the character with integrity generates the crisis. There were subsequent events, too, that played on the crisis. That's part of the GM's job (in my view) - once the pressure point is clear, the GM needs to work it, not relax it, so that the player isn't spared the consequence of what has happened. This isn't quite _GM decides_, but it's a definite demand on the GM that puts the GM in a very different role from (say) the impartial GMing of Gygaxian D&D, or the most common approach to Classic Traveller.

The example of play invovling Nighcrawler that I posted upthread is somewhat similar in these respects. Events unfold which are not fully under the player's control (due to the use of action resolution mechanics). And as a result, the player, playing the character with integrity, finds that the character is changed. (In that case, Nightcrawler discovers that he is not as romantic and perhaps not as devout as everyone, including the player, thought.)

I appreciate that this does not unfold the same way - in terms of the interplay of choice and mechanics - as what you've had in mind in your posts. I think it's also very different from the example of choosing chastity or Excalibur. In that example - as it has been presented - there is no moment of crisis. There is nothing that has happened to the character that forces a reconsideration of who s/he is.

Here is also another angle on it. As presented, the Excalibur choice can come down to mere expedience - and has been framed as that by some posters: is the short-term gain of the Excalibur power-up worth the long-term loss of (say) fellowship with members of the knightly order, or the king's respect, or whatever else is forfeited along with the chastity.

Whereas in the sorts of examples I am putting forward, expedience is not a consideration. The player is forced to choose a way forward for the character, and is not guaranteed to be able to succeed in the way chosen.



Ovinomancer said:


> I'm not familiar enough with RM to say either way.



RM is in many ways a D&D variant. But it has a few points that differentiate it from straightforward D&D of the era. The possibility of non-fatal victory in combat is one; aspirations towards a non-combat resolution system is another. The latter rests on a skill system which has - as a side-effect - the generation of PCs who are far richer in detail and hence implicit characterisation than an AD&D PC.

There are also some features of the actual resolution system which - while there is nothing like "fate points" - allows a player to decide in what sorts of ways his/her PC tries hard to succeed and what risks s/he takes, both when fighting and when casting spells.

So while it's easy to bundle RM into the pile of late-70s/early-80s ultra-sim games, it has these features that make it a distinctive vehicle for character-oriented RPGing.

When I look at a system like Burning Wheel, it has a lot of tech that RM doesn't: a system for metagame currency (Beliefs, and the fate points etc that are related to them); much much better action resolution (intent and task, let it ride, "fail forward"); and PC development that is much more tightly integrated with player choices. But the basic devices for putting pressure on the character, and driving change, are the same as what I've described in my examples of play.


----------



## Campbell

Let me start off by saying I do not like viewing game mechanics through the lens of necessity. No mechanics are actually necessary. Anything can be resolved through consensus. That's what the online freeformers do. However, sometimes consensus is like boring and stuff.

I'm going to start with an example of a system that I consider to have the most impact on player agency of the games I like to play, , but also the richest in terms of representing highly dynamic characters. Exalted 3e's social influence system is built off of *intimacies *that represent a character's beliefs, philosophies, and relationships. They come in 3 strengths - minor, major, and defining. In order to convince a character (PC or NPC) to do something they would not otherwise do you must target one of their intimacies that supports what you are trying to convince them of. The strength of that intimacy determines what you can convince them to do. Regardless you cannot convince them to do something that would cause them to abandon a *Defining Intimacy*. They can also bolster their defenses with a intimacy of the same strength or better that they possess.

In play it works like this usually: Two parties are trying to convince each other that their course is right. They play a cat and mouse game trying to discover what the other values while concealing their own intimacies. Your first defense is your *Guile *which represents how well your able to conceal your emotions and motivations. Then the parties will try to bolster or weaken intimacies through social influence in order to put themselves in a position to convince the other party. This can become quite interesting if multiple parties are involved. Then finally arguments get made and attempts are made to *persuade.*All attempts to influence must go through *Resolve *which represents your ability to hold steadfast to your beliefs. This is modified by the intimacies at play. Even if successful you are forced to a *Decision Point* allowing you to point to another sufficiently strong intimacy and spend a *Willpower *to reject it. It takes a lot to convince someone to do something in this system, especially if they are built for the social game at all.

Here's what I like about this system:

It allows for grand confrontations at court that are every bit as tense as the most pitched of battles.
It can be used in the midst of combat allowing for a duel of wits that parallels the one on the ground. This is one of my favorite tropes.
It allows multiple PCs to have meaningful impacts on social encounters by deploying different levels of expertise and supporting and bolstering each other against attempts to influence them.
You can be changed through the course of a social encounter even if you ultimately succeed. Like wounds on the battlefield. You risk your beliefs by arguing for them.
Everything you do must still be based on your fictional positioning.
Sometimes the best person to socially engage in a situation is based on intimacies rather than who is the most socially gifted.


----------



## pemerton

Campbell said:


> Sometimes the best person to socially engage in a situation is based on intimacies rather than who is the most socially gifted.



I think this is very important when approaching social/emotional conflict in RPGs. Otherwise there is a significant risk of all the characters turning out to be the same ie merely expedient. That's fine for Dying Earth but not desirable in general, in my view.



Campbell said:


> You can be changed through the course of a social encounter even if you ultimately succeed. Like wounds on the battlefield. You risk your beliefs by arguing for them.



Can you explain this further in relation to the system you've described? Is this the depletion of Willpower, or something else as well?



Campbell said:


> No mechanics are actually necessary. Anything can be resolved through consensus. That's what the online freeformers do. However, sometimes consensus is like boring and stuff.



Between (i) conensus and (ii) mechanics that directly attack PC beliefs/convictions lies (iii) scenes/situations framed with genuine stakes and binding outcomes.

In mentioning (iii) I'm not meaning at all to downplay (ii). But because historically D&D as a system, and as played, has had very little of (iii) there can be a tendency to skip over it in these discussions.


----------



## Tony Vargas

Campbell said:


> I'm going to start with an example of a system that I consider to have the most impact on player agency of the games I like to play, , but also the richest in terms of representing highly dynamic characters. Exalted 3e's social influence system is ...



I've never glanced at Exalted.  All I've heard about, 2nd-hand, is that it was WWGS's ST-like stab at fantasy, the PCs are demigods, and most of all, in a very derogatory way, that it's wild, over-the-top superheroics.  "...then you might as well be playing Exalted!"  Like it was the RPG equivalent of Godwins Law or something.


----------



## FrogReaver

Campbell said:


> Let me start off by saying I do not like viewing game mechanics through the lens of necessity. No mechanics are actually necessary. Anything can be resolved through consensus. That's what the online freeformers do. However, sometimes consensus is like boring and stuff.
> 
> I'm going to start with an example of a system that I consider to have the most impact on player agency of the games I like to play, , but also the richest in terms of representing highly dynamic characters. Exalted 3e's social influence system is built off of *intimacies *that represent a character's beliefs, philosophies, and relationships. They come in 3 strengths - minor, major, and defining. In order to convince a character (PC or NPC) to do something they would not otherwise do you must target one of their intimacies that supports what you are trying to convince them of. The strength of that intimacy determines what you can convince them to do. Regardless you cannot convince them to do something that would cause them to abandon a *Defining Intimacy*. They can also bolster their defenses with a intimacy of the same strength or better that they possess.
> 
> In play it works like this usually: Two parties are trying to convince each other that their course is right. They play a cat and mouse game trying to discover what the other values while concealing their own intimacies. Your first defense is your *Guile *which represents how well your able to conceal your emotions and motivations. Then the parties will try to bolster or weaken intimacies through social influence in order to put themselves in a position to convince the other party. This can become quite interesting if multiple parties are involved. Then finally arguments get made and attempts are made to *persuade.*All attempts to influence must go through *Resolve *which represents your ability to hold steadfast to your beliefs. This is modified by the intimacies at play. Even if successful you are forced to a *Decision Point* allowing you to point to another sufficiently strong intimacy and spend a *Willpower *to reject it. It takes a lot to convince someone to do something in this system, especially if they are built for the social game at all.
> 
> Here's what I like about this system:
> 
> It allows for grand confrontations at court that are every bit as tense as the most pitched of battles.
> It can be used in the midst of combat allowing for a duel of wits that parallels the one on the ground. This is one of my favorite tropes.
> It allows multiple PCs to have meaningful impacts on social encounters by deploying different levels of expertise and supporting and bolstering each other against attempts to influence them.
> You can be changed through the course of a social encounter even if you ultimately succeed. Like wounds on the battlefield. You risk your beliefs by arguing for them.
> Everything you do must still be based on your fictional positioning.
> Sometimes the best person to socially engage in a situation is based on intimacies rather than who is the most socially gifted.




It seems to me that while the mechanics mentioned are miles ahead D&D's mechanics for NPC interaction, that such mechanics when used on PCs will do 2 things

1.  Because a human will always be able to outperform a rather simplistic algorithm in judging what is more true to the character in question then this simple mechanical algorithm will inherently produce less fidelity than a PC under player control in those moments.
2.  Limit the characters you can play to the ones specifically allowed by such a system, which is far fewer than is allowed by a system where the player is in control of their PC's thoughts, emotions and actions.


----------



## FrogReaver

Consider a D&D game.  An NPC is trying to persuade a PC to do something.  The DM states the NPC's case with a high level overview.  To provide some context for the players into how persuasive the NPC argument was the DM rolls the NPC's persuasion skill just so they players can gauge how convincing said NPC would be to the average person.  Then the players take the NPC's specific argument and the persuasion skill roll and filter that through the character they are playing and come to a conclusion of how to have their PC react.

In this situation what is gained from actually requiring a persuasion contest with binding results for the PC in order to determine if he was persuaded?


----------



## Lanefan

Ovinomancer said:


> Is there a mechanic?  Can you fail?  Can you succeed?  There's your answer, three times over.
> 
> If you play chess against yourself, is there a challenge?  This is more akin to using your sole authority to determine characterization to make a choice about your characterization.  You can't fail this challenge, you can just choose which side you win on.



However - and this seems to be getting ignored here - in choosing which side you win on you're also choosing which side you lose on (which, to reverse your words above, also means you cannot succeed this challenge); and in the RPG sense it's most likely the chosen loss that'll have the consequences attached.

And yet again I ask you: does every challenge have to be a binary succeed-fail affair?  And if so, why?


----------



## Ovinomancer

pemerton said:


> I can see why you say this. But for me, this brings us back to [MENTION=16586]Campbell[/MENTION]'s remarks:
> 
> ​
> The absence of choice in the example I provided occurred at the point of the killing. At that point, thie player learns - without having any say over it - that his PC is a killer. At that point, playing the character with integrity generates the crisis. There were subsequent events, too, that played on the crisis. That's part of the GM's job (in my view) - once the pressure point is clear, the GM needs to work it, not relax it, so that the player isn't spared the consequence of what has happened. This isn't quite _GM decides_, but it's a definite demand on the GM that puts the GM in a very different role from (say) the impartial GMing of Gygaxian D&D, or the most common approach to Classic Traveller.
> 
> The example of play invovling Nighcrawler that I posted upthread is somewhat similar in these respects. Events unfold which are not fully under the player's control (due to the use of action resolution mechanics). And as a result, the player, playing the character with integrity, finds that the character is changed. (In that case, Nightcrawler discovers that he is not as romantic and perhaps not as devout as everyone, including the player, thought.)
> 
> I appreciate that this does not unfold the same way - in terms of the interplay of choice and mechanics - as what you've had in mind in your posts. I think it's also very different from the example of choosing chastity or Excalibur. In that example - as it has been presented - there is no moment of crisis. There is nothing that has happened to the character that forces a reconsideration of who s/he is.
> 
> Here is also another angle on it. As presented, the Excalibur choice can come down to mere expedience - and has been framed as that by some posters: is the short-term gain of the Excalibur power-up worth the long-term loss of (say) fellowship with members of the knightly order, or the king's respect, or whatever else is forfeited along with the chastity.
> 
> Whereas in the sorts of examples I am putting forward, expedience is not a consideration. The player is forced to choose a way forward for the character, and is not guaranteed to be able to succeed in the way chosen.
> 
> RM is in many ways a D&D variant. But it has a few points that differentiate it from straightforward D&D of the era. The possibility of non-fatal victory in combat is one; aspirations towards a non-combat resolution system is another. The latter rests on a skill system which has - as a side-effect - the generation of PCs who are far richer in detail and hence implicit characterisation than an AD&D PC.
> 
> There are also some features of the actual resolution system which - while there is nothing like "fate points" - allows a player to decide in what sorts of ways his/her PC tries hard to succeed and what risks s/he takes, both when fighting and when casting spells.
> 
> So while it's easy to bundle RM into the pile of late-70s/early-80s ultra-sim games, it has these features that make it a distinctive vehicle for character-oriented RPGing.
> 
> When I look at a system like Burning Wheel, it has a lot of tech that RM doesn't: a system for metagame currency (Beliefs, and the fate points etc that are related to them); much much better action resolution (intent and task, let it ride, "fail forward"); and PC development that is much more tightly integrated with player choices. But the basic devices for putting pressure on the character, and driving change, are the same as what I've described in my examples of play.




I'm 100% for playing with integrity.  But, this thread has largely been about three things -- the proposition you posed in the the OP about the difference between two types of action declaration, if a GM should have authority over the characterization at any time, and what constitutes a challenge.  Your example does address integrity of characterization, but doesn't touch on any of the previous discussion.  That was the end of my point.


----------



## Ovinomancer

Lanefan said:


> However - and this seems to be getting ignored here - in choosing which side you win on you're also choosing which side you lose on (which, to reverse your words above, also means you cannot succeed this challenge); and in the RPG sense it's most likely the chosen loss that'll have the consequences attached.
> 
> And yet again I ask you: does every challenge have to be a binary succeed-fail affair?  And if so, why?




It wasn't ignored.  I'm saying it's not a challenge, and you're here adding support for that.

As for why a challenge has to be binary, well... if you don't risk anything, ie, there's nothing you can lose, then you're not being challenged.  If you can't win something, then it's also not a challenge, because you're just engaged in a choice between two bad things proposed by someone else.  It's only when you're motivated to stake something to achieve something that a challenge exists.

To be blunt, I'm seeing a lot of GM proposed alternatives that the player then chooses from being presented as a challenge.  You get A or B, pick.  This doesn't ask the player what they want to stake, or if this is a situation they'd engage anyway, but is, instead, the GM intervening and forcing a change in character.  An action that is anathema at the point of resolution, apparently, but just fine and tolerable if it's just narrowing the available choices beforehand.


----------



## Ovinomancer

FrogReaver said:


> Consider a D&D game.  An NPC is trying to persuade a PC to do something.  The DM states the NPC's case with a high level overview.  To provide some context for the players into how persuasive the NPC argument was the DM rolls the NPC's persuasion skill just so they players can gauge how convincing said NPC would be to the average person.  Then the players take the NPC's specific argument and the persuasion skill roll and filter that through the character they are playing and come to a conclusion of how to have their PC react.
> 
> In this situation what is gained from actually requiring a persuasion contest with binding results for the PC in order to determine if he was persuaded?




This reads very much like someone without experience in other play trying to suggest that other play must be more limited because, obviously, their play isn't limited at all!

But, let's look at the outcomes that are okay in this example above.  

The PCs ignore the NPC.
The PCs initiate combat with the NPC.
The PCs agree with the NPC.
The PCs do something else entirely.

All of the above are good outcomes to your example because it's that person engine deciding, and they're the best deciderers.  But, I'm absolutely certain that the above is not what you meant.  Instead, you have a list of unspoken additional requirements.  [MENTION=23751]Maxperson[/MENTION]'s social contract probably shows up, in that you're expected to play within the social contract.  Here, this would be that the players should accept the proposition and the roll and use the table's understanding (read GM's) of how their character acts to figure out a path that doesn't violate these things while still accomplishing something the player wants.  But, this is all just a hidden set of controls on the game that you're ignoring -- it doesn't actually work how you describe, there's a huge number of unspoken limits in place.  So, you argument boils down to "why speak the limits out loud."  Lots of reasons.  Everyone understands them, for one.  Everyone can agree to them, for two.  And, on the gripping hand, the GM is also held to them, something that isn't usually true in D&D.

But, that's not to say that the above is bad.  It's not, else the majority of gamers are bad.  It isn't the best way, though, it's just the D&D way, and, even there, you're find plenty of arguments on these very boards about social skill use against PCs.  So, it's not even that cut and dried in D&D.  But, other ways exist, and enable play in ways you're not familiar with.  You should assume that because it's different it's lesser.  That's like saying the combat rules for 5e are better than the combat rules for Basic.  They are different, they result in a different game, but one isn't necessarily better than the other -- it's a personal choice.


----------



## FrogReaver

It's interesting to me that a hard decision for a player is being referred to as "not a challenge".  To me that's the greatest kind of challenge in an RPG.  That said, I'm going to avoid defining challenge and simply look at various situations whether they be challenges or not and how they effect play.

Consider a persuasion attempt on a PC.  Whether there is risk or not will depend on the thing the PC is being persuaded to do.  So for this example, let's assume there is a risk to being persuaded.  That would mean we could define success as not being persuaded and remaining in the status quo and failure as being persuaded.

So then what happens when that persuasion is resolved mechanically
-The player sits out of the loop and has no input on how their character would react (which also means they have no conflict of interest in how their character is reacting)

What if the persuasion is resolved by player decision based on the actual argument provided and any other aids (such as an NPC persuasion roll to indicate how well orated the argument was)
-The player is solely responsible for choosing whether their PC succeeds or fails, which runs the risk of a player making the determination for out of character reasons, but when the player avoids out of character motivations and attempts to reach the decision to pass or fail, they are facing nearly the same mental challenge that their PC in the game is facing.

I can see where for some the style I'm advocating for would be impossible.  Some would always rely on out of character motivations if given the opportunity.  But for those that can avoid that, I cannot see how the style I advocate for isn't far superior.


----------



## pemerton

FrogReaver said:


> It seems to me that while the mechanics mentioned are miles ahead D&D's mechanics for NPC interaction, that such mechanics when used on PCs will do 2 things
> 
> 1.  Because a human will always be able to outperform a rather simplistic algorithm in judging what is more true to the character in question then this simple mechanical algorithm will inherently produce less fidelity than a PC under player control in those moments.
> 2.  Limit the characters you can play to the ones specifically allowed by such a system, which is far fewer than is allowed by a system where the player is in control of their PC's thoughts, emotions and actions.



I'll leave the fidelity claim to one side. But the second claim is an empirical one. I'd be curious to see if it's true. Personally I doubt it - I don't have experience with Exalted, but in my experience with other systems that provide various sorts of systematic support for engagement with PC motivations and emotions the range of characters played - when considered in proportion to the overall number played - tends to be increased, not narrowed.



FrogReaver said:


> Consider a D&D game.  An NPC is trying to persuade a PC to do something.  The DM states the NPC's case with a high level overview.  To provide some context for the players into how persuasive the NPC argument was the DM rolls the NPC's persuasion skill just so they players can gauge how convincing said NPC would be to the average person.  Then the players take the NPC's specific argument and the persuasion skill roll and filter that through the character they are playing and come to a conclusion of how to have their PC react.
> 
> In this situation what is gained from actually requiring a persuasion contest with binding results for the PC in order to determine if he was persuaded?



Now I haven't yet read  [MENTION=16814]Ovinomancer[/MENTION]'s post not far below, where I am guessing (maybe I'm wrong?) that he is going to press the issue with me about choice vs challenge.

But in this post I want to make clear that what I am talking about, in trying to convey my view as to how a character conception can be challenged in the absence of mechanics of the sort that  [MENTION=16586]Campbell[/MENTION] has described, is - at least to my eyes - nothing like what you (Frogreaver) describe here.

I'll put to one side the GM making a Persuasion roll and telling the player that result, as I don't see what that adds to the situation - mechanics work as mechanics, but I don't see what work they are meant to do as guidelines.

With that put to one side, what we have is simply the GM telling the player that a NPC wants such-and-such from the PC. I can't see any pressure there. Any tension. Any challenge.

The player can weigh pros and cons, try and calculate consequences, even decide non-rationally based on feeling if s/he likes, or a coin toss, what to do. But I can't see how this puts the least bit of pressure on the player's conception of his/her PC's character.



FrogReaver said:


> Consider a persuasion attempt on a PC.  Whether there is risk or not will depend on the thing the PC is being persuaded to do.  So for this example, let's assume there is a risk to being persuaded.  That would mean we could define success as not being persuaded and remaining in the status quo and failure as being persuaded.
> 
> So then what happens when that persuasion is resolved mechanically
> -The player sits out of the loop and has no input on how their character would react (which also means they have no conflict of interest in how their character is reacting)
> 
> What if the persuasion is resolved by player decision based on the actual argument provided and any other aids (such as an NPC persuasion roll to indicate how well orated the argument was)
> -The player is solely responsible for choosing whether their PC succeeds or fails, which runs the risk of a player making the determination for out of character reasons, but when the player avoids out of character motivations and attempts to reach the decision to pass or fail, they are facing nearly the same mental challenge that their PC in the game is facing.
> 
> I can see where for some the style I'm advocating for would be impossible.  Some would always rely on out of character motivations if given the opportunity.  But for those that can avoid that, I cannot see how the style I advocate for isn't far superior.



Your notion of "risk" here seems so narrow that it's hard to engage with from the persepctive of the sort of play I've been trying to articulate over my past several posts.

And the focus on "out-of-character" reasons is very strange. No one in this thread (as far as I can tell) is talking about the source of motivations that the player draws on. What's at issue is whether or not the character conception can be challenged. I don't see that it's possible in the approach you describe for the player to discover (as opposed to _decide_) that his/her PC is different from what s/he thought.

So you will never have moments of play that evoke such classic narratives as Lancelot discovering that he values his love for Guinevere over his loyalty to Arthur. Or Rick (in Casablanca) discovering something like the opposite.


----------



## Ovinomancer

FrogReaver said:


> It's interesting to me that a hard decision for a player is being referred to as "not a challenge".  To me that's the greatest kind of challenge in an RPG.  That said, I'm going to avoid defining challenge and simply look at various situations whether they be challenges or not and how they effect play.
> 
> Consider a persuasion attempt on a PC.  Whether there is risk or not will depend on the thing the PC is being persuaded to do.  So for this example, let's assume there is a risk to being persuaded.  That would mean we could define success as not being persuaded and remaining in the status quo and failure as being persuaded.
> 
> So then what happens when that persuasion is resolved mechanically
> -The player sits out of the loop and has no input on how their character would react (which also means they have no conflict of interest in how their character is reacting)
> 
> What if the persuasion is resolved by player decision based on the actual argument provided and any other aids (such as an NPC persuasion roll to indicate how well orated the argument was)
> -The player is solely responsible for choosing whether their PC succeeds or fails, which runs the risk of a player making the determination for out of character reasons, but when the player avoids out of character motivations and attempts to reach the decision to pass or fail, they are facing nearly the same mental challenge that their PC in the game is facing.
> 
> I can see where for some the style I'm advocating for would be impossible.  Some would always rely on out of character motivations if given the opportunity.  But for those that can avoid that, I cannot see how the style I advocate for isn't far superior.




You're imagining bad play, and so it is bad.  Go back to the example I presented about the knight and the maiden.  All the results of that were from the knight attempting to do things -- ie, player initiated.  All of the outcomes were due to what the player explicitly had up as stakes -- ie, player initiated.  These are in game where the GM's authority is much more limited and the players have greater authorities -- but they tend to move the boundaries around.  If you're imagining D&D where the GM gets to declare player actions as well as having the authority over everything else, then, yes, this is a problem and should be avoided -- we agree wholeheartedly.

But, outside of that kind of D&D framework, things work.  Hence the reason I keep bringing up the D&D framework and people not looking outside of it as being an impediment to understanding.  

But, to go back to choice not being a challenge -- you can't lose a choice.  You've not staked anything prior to the choice (at least in the examples given).  You're just choosing between options.  And, as I noted above, there's a heavy sense of these options being GM imposed anyway.  I mean, your chastity or Excalibur example -- who set those stakes?  Did the player decide that they'd risk their chastity to get the sword or was it, as presented, the GM saying that you can have the sword if your break your chastity?  If it's anything at all like the latter, isn't this just the GM using force to set stakes for you?


----------



## chaochou

FrogReaver said:


> So then what happens when that persuasion is resolved mechanically
> -The player sits out of the loop and has no input on how their character would react (which also means they have no conflict of interest in how their character is reacting)




This is entirely ignorant of the range and applications of mechanics available and written into rpgs. You've clearly never read, far less used, any of them and yet seem completely certain of the impact of every one of them on the play experience.

Explain how your persuasion situation is resolved in Burning Wheel's Duel of Wits. Then explain how it is resolved in Blades in the Dark. Then in Apocalypse World.

You can't, though, can you? Because you haven't got a clue what you're talking about. You're just blerting out guff.



FrogReaver said:


> What if the persuasion is resolved by player decision based on the actual argument provided...




Then it isn't persuasion. I simply choose whatever is most expedient and justify my choice however I please.


----------



## FrogReaver

Ovinomancer said:


> This reads very much like someone without experience in other play trying to suggest that other play must be more limited because, obviously, their play isn't limited at all!




I appreciate the actual response!  Thank you.  I think if what you suggest here is the case then it will be easy for you to show I'm wrong.  So let's see what you said.



> But, let's look at the outcomes that are okay in this example above.
> 
> The PCs ignore the NPC.
> The PCs initiate combat with the NPC.
> The PCs agree with the NPC.
> The PCs do something else entirely.




Sounds good so far



> All of the above are good outcomes to your example because it's that person engine deciding, and they're the best deciderers.  But, I'm absolutely certain that the above is not what you meant.




Remember how frustrated you got when you thought I was putting words in your mouth.  Please have some empathy and don't inadvertently do the same to me.  



> Instead, you have a list of unspoken additional requirements.  @​_*Maxperson*'s social contract probably shows up, in that you're expected to play within the social contract.​_



_* 

Sure, there are additional requirements to table play.  No argument there.  ​



			Here, this would be that the players should accept the proposition and the roll​

Click to expand...



Not in the example I provided.  There is no additional requirement from any source that the NPC's persuasion attempt succeed even if he rolled well.




			and use the table's understanding (read GM's) of how their character acts
		
Click to expand...



this isn't a requirement in the example I provided.  The player is free to have his or her character act as he sees without relying on the table or Gm's understanding of his character.




			to figure out a path that doesn't violate these things
		
Click to expand...



The example was a simple persuasion scenario that could easily occur in D&D.  There's no path at the moment of persuasion, just are you persuaded or not.  In either system I imagine you can roleplay that persuasion quite a bit differently without invalidating the initial determination that you were persuaded to do something.





			while still accomplishing something the player wants.
		
Click to expand...


​
Ideally the players primary goal is to have their character act like their character would act.




			But, this is all just a hidden set of controls on the game that you're ignoring -- it doesn't actually work how you describe, there's a huge number of unspoken limits in place.
		
Click to expand...



Most of the restrictions you wanted to place on my example aren't actually necessary.  It does work as described.  I am getting the impression that your argument is that if it did work as described that I would be totally right in my assessment that adding the additional mechanical resolution step would add nothing?
​*_


> But, that's not to say that the above is bad.  It's not, else the majority of gamers are bad.  It isn't the best way, though, it's just the D&D way, and, even there, you're find plenty of arguments on these very boards about social skill use against PCs.  So, it's not even that cut and dried in D&D.  But, other ways exist, and enable play in ways you're not familiar with.  You should assume that because it's different it's lesser.  That's like saying the combat rules for 5e are better than the combat rules for Basic.  They are different, they result in a different game, but one isn't necessarily better than the other -- it's a personal choice.




I tried to ask what was gained by doing this the way you are proposing.  I would love to know the answer to that so I could form the same conclusion you just did - because if there is something gained I can get to the neither is better or worse, just different.

EDIT:  Formatting borked and can't turn off bold (that I never turned on in the first place)


----------



## Nagol

FrogReaver said:


> It's interesting to me that a hard decision for a player is being referred to as "not a challenge".  To me that's the greatest kind of challenge in an RPG.  That said, I'm going to avoid defining challenge and simply look at various situations whether they be challenges or not and how they effect play.




Because fundamentally, regardless of how much agony a player feels over making a choice, any choice provides absolute fidelity of play if the chooser is also the only arbiter.



> Consider a persuasion attempt on a PC.  Whether there is risk or not will depend on the thing the PC is being persuaded to do.  So for this example, let's assume there is a risk to being persuaded.  That would mean we could define success as not being persuaded and remaining in the status quo and failure as being persuaded.
> 
> So then what happens when that persuasion is resolved mechanically
> -The player sits out of the loop and has no input on how their character would react (which also means they have no conflict of interest in how their character is reacting)



  Not true.  A lot of systems provide the player tools to alter the result (a la a negotiation system) or alter the stakes of the argument.



> What if the persuasion is resolved by player decision based on the actual argument provided and any other aids (such as an NPC persuasion roll to indicate how well orated the argument was)
> -The player is solely responsible for choosing whether their PC succeeds or fails, which runs the risk of a player making the determination for out of character reasons, but when the player avoids out of character motivations and attempts to reach the decision to pass or fail, they are facing nearly the same mental challenge that their PC in the game is facing.




Sure, it can happen.  But NPCs are continuously limited by the charisma, eloquence, and amount of forethought provided of the GM.    The player is faced with a whole bunch of additional out-of-character motivations too.  'Bob doesn't like adventures on the water, let's skip this pirate hunt.', 'Didn't Tim say he doesn't like her?  What is he up to?',  'I'm bored, let's move the situation along.  I say "Yes"',  "This pizza is really good.  What was the NPC saying again?"



> I can see where for some the style I'm advocating for would be impossible.  Some would always rely on out of character motivations if given the opportunity.  But for those that can avoid that, I cannot see how the style I advocate for isn't far superior.




It isn't superior in very many instances most of which boil down to player/table preference regarding the type of game played and the type of challenges explored.


----------



## FrogReaver

chaochou said:


> Then it isn't persuasion. I simply choose whatever is most expedient and justify my choice however I please.




Herein lies the problem.  You are so convinced you must keep a player from cheating (choosing the expedient option) that you have invented mechanics that police the game to such a degree that those players who won't simply choose the expedient have a far less enjoyable time.  

If your players need policing to ensure they aren't just choosing the expedient option then those systems you describe certainly work better.  If they don't then they are limiting.


----------



## Maxperson

Ovinomancer said:


> It wasn't ignored.  I'm saying it's not a challenge, and you're here adding support for that.
> 
> As for why a challenge has to be binary, well... if you don't risk anything, ie, there's nothing you can lose, then you're not being challenged.




By one limited definition of challenge, sure.  By other definitions of challenge that's simply wrong.   You can in fact be challenged without a win/lose scenario happening.

_verb_
verb: *challenge*; 3rd person present: *challenges*; past tense: *challenged*; past participle: *challenged*; gerund or present participle: *challenging*



1.
invite (someone) to engage in a contest.
"he challenged one of my men to a duel"
enter into competition with or opposition against.
"incumbent Democrats are being challenged in the 29th district"
make a rival claim to or threaten someone's hold on (a position).
"they were challenging his leadership"
*invite (someone) to do something that one thinks will be difficult or impossible; dare.*
*"I challenged them to make up their own minds"*





As you can see, all it takes is a difficult situation.  Without some serious brain damage going on, everyone is capable of making up their mind on something, so the bolded example is not one that is a success/failure situation, as no failure is actually possible.  When I have a social challenge to my PC that results in a difficult decision to the core of the character, it is in fact a challenge even though there is no win/loss condition.


----------



## pemerton

Duel of Wits from Burning Wheel has been mentioned.

It's an interesting example, because it permits PCs to be persuaded (by other PCs, or by NPCs) but doesn't change their underlying motivations/orientations.

In the context of (say) a maiden trying to persuade a PC to help her, it can certainly permit that. And if the maiden is charming or flirty that can factor into her checks (eg FoRK Seduction and/or Soothing Platitudes into Persuasion). The PC may not have his/her heart fully melted, but can find himself unable to deny the maiden's demands.

Personally, based on my own play experience, I see this as different from (say) MHRP or (if I understood it right) the Exalted mechanic that was described upthread - because the fundamental convictions of the PC can't be changed in this way.

I see it as much closer to my paladin example - just as the paladin in my RM game learned (didn't choose) that he was a killer, and had to somehow deal with this, so in BW the PC can learn that he is someone who will aid a winking maiden, and has to somehow integrate this into his self-conception. If this happens enough times the PC can change pretty significantly.

To me, what seems fundamental in these sorts of cases is that _the PC does or becomes something that the player didn't get to choose_, and that something matters to the PC's self-conception. But nor is it just GM force. It's the mechanics at work that produce these results, and hence force the crisis upon the PC.

_Having to choose between chastity and Excalibur_, or _having to choose whether to be persuaded by the GM's NPC_, does not have this structure at all. It's a choice, and nothing more. The PC has not unexpectedly done or become something different or troubling.


----------



## pemerton

FrogReaver said:


> Herein lies the problem.  You are so convinced you must keep a player from cheating (choosing the expedient option) that you have invented mechanics that police the game to such a degree that those players who won't simply choose the expedient have a far less enjoyable time.
> 
> If your players need policing to ensure they aren't just choosing the expedient option then those systems you describe certainly work better.  If they don't then they are limiting.



This completely misunderstands [MENTION=99817]chaochou[/MENTION]'s point.

As I posted upthread, "cheating" or acting on out-of-game motivations has nothing to do with what anyone is talking about in this thread.

The basic point is that, in the scenarios you keep putting forward, _nothing happens to the PC's inner being or self-conception that the player did not choose_. So the player choose that which s/he prefers. Depending on mood, table practices, etc, this might be the thing most likely to produce victory in the quest, or the thing most likely to be seen as entertaining, or even the thing s/he thinks is truest to the character as s/he conceives of it.

Whatever the player chooses, s/he is not forced to confront something new or unexpected about his/her PC.


----------



## Maxperson

Ovinomancer said:


> This reads very much like someone without experience in other play trying to suggest that other play must be more limited because, obviously, their play isn't limited at all!
> 
> But, let's look at the outcomes that are okay in this example above.
> 
> The PCs ignore the NPC.
> The PCs initiate combat with the NPC.
> The PCs agree with the NPC.
> The PCs do something else entirely.
> 
> All of the above are good outcomes to your example because it's that person engine deciding, and they're the best deciderers.  But, I'm absolutely certain that the above is not what you meant.  Instead, you have a list of unspoken additional requirements.  @_*Maxperson*_'s social contract probably shows up, in that you're expected to play within the social contract.  Here, this would be that the players should accept the proposition and the roll and use the table's understanding (read GM's) of how their character acts to figure out a path that doesn't violate these things while still accomplishing something the player wants.




All of those ARE valid responses and within the social contract depending what it is that the supper suggester is suggesting.  If for example, he's suggesting that the paladin murder his own sister, that suggesting is going to fail no matter how persuasive the NPC(barring magic of course).  It could also result in being ignored, combat or something else entirely.

Without an actual scenario, with detailed background on the PC or PCs, their experiences in the game, etc., I can't know what would or would not be valid and/or outside the bounds of the social contract.  That's why the player is the only person who can accurately come up with social responses, such as whether his PC's heart warms or not.  He's the only one who will have the requisite level of knowledge of everything it takes to come up with the correct response.  The DM can only give an educated guess and hope he gets lucky.


----------



## Aldarc

Maxperson said:


> By one limited definition of challenge, sure.  By other definitions of challenge that's simply wrong.   You can in fact be challenged without a win/lose scenario happening.
> 
> _verb_
> verb: *challenge*; 3rd person present: *challenges*; past tense: *challenged*; past participle: *challenged*; gerund or present participle: *challenging*



Ah, there we go. It's not a pemerton megathread until Maxperson gets into a debate of semantics and pulls out a lexicon so that he can argue definitions. We are also just missing Maxperson broadening the sense of a term such that it becomes meaningless in the discourse; let's say, something akin to "Everything is a challenge."


----------



## Maxperson

Aldarc said:


> Ah, there we go. It's not a pemerton megathread until Maxperson gets into a debate of semantics and pulls out a lexicon so that he can argue definitions. We are also just missing Maxperson broadening the sense of a term such that it becomes meaningless in the discourse; let's say, something akin to "Everything is a challenge."




Nor is it one unless you falsely accuse me of semantics and engage in an Ad Hominem attack against me like this one.  Semantics is not different ways to define something.  It's saying the same thing in a different way, which I did not do.  The distinctly different definitions of challenge do not end up at the same place.  They are different kinds of challenges. Take your false semantics accusation elsewhere.


----------



## chaochou

FrogReaver said:


> Herein lies the problem.  You are so convinced you must keep a player from cheating (choosing the expedient option) that you have invented mechanics that police the game to such a degree that those players who won't simply choose the expedient have a far less enjoyable time.
> 
> If your players need policing to ensure they aren't just choosing the expedient option then those systems you describe certainly work better.  If they don't then they are limiting.




Again, using the mechanics of Burning Wheel's Duel of Wits, then Blades in the Dark, then Apocalypse World demonstrate how these claims manifest themselves in actual play.

Again, you can't and won't because your claims are a) completely empty and false and b) the product of complete ignorance of the available mechanics.


----------



## Aldarc

Maxperson said:


> Nor is it one unless you falsely accuse me of semantics and engage in an Ad Hominem attack against me like this one.  *Semantics is not different ways to define something.*  It's saying the same thing in a different way, which I did not do.  The distinctly different definitions of challenge do not end up at the same place.  They are different kinds of challenges. Take your false semantics accusation elsewhere.



Actually, it is as "semantics" is fundamentally about 'meaning,' and you are currently doing what is referred to in the field of linguistics as 'lexical semantics.' For someone who likes to drop lexical entries into arguments, I'm surprised you don't know that.  



chaochou said:


> Again, using the mechanics of Burning Wheel's Duel of Wits, then Blades in the Dark, then Apocalypse World demonstrate how these claims manifest themselves in actual play.
> 
> Again, you can't and won't because your claims are a) completely empty and false and b) the product of complete ignorance of the available mechanics.



Yeah, but what about imagining a persuasion roll in D&D?!


----------



## FrogReaver

pemerton said:


> I'll leave the fidelity claim to one side. But the second claim is an empirical one. I'd be curious to see if it's true. Personally I doubt it - I don't have experience with Exalted, but in my experience with other systems that provide various sorts of systematic support for engagement with PC motivations and emotions the range of characters played - when considered in proportion to the overall number played - tends to be increased, not narrowed.




I think the best way to address that is to ask, what character from such a system can't be played identically in a D&D type system (assuming same overall setting etc).

On a side note: I do think the typical D&D character is likely more basic (maybe more cartoonish) than the ones such systems always produce.  So there is the degree of mandating a more complex character that is appealing.  But I don't think D&D is incapable of producing such complex characters even if the players playing it may fail to typically do so.

Anyways to answer the question - every system has characters it can't produce.  The more structured and formulaic the system, the more characters it can't produce.  For example, in the exalted example, I don't know 100% sure how it works, but likely players have to choose a set number of personality traits about their character for each category.  By doing this you have already excluded any character that has more or less personality traits than is mandated.  

Anyways, Since D&D largely leaves personality free form, then all the personalities allowable in exalted are available in D&D and all the ones not allowable in it are as well.





> But in this post I want to make clear that what I am talking about, in trying to convey my view as to how a character conception can be challenged in the absence of mechanics of the sort that  @_*Campbell*_ has described, is - at least to my eyes - nothing like what you (Frogreaver) describe here.




agreed



> I'll put to one side the GM making a Persuasion roll and telling the player that result, as I don't see what that adds to the situation - mechanics work as mechanics, but I don't see what work they are meant to do as guidelines.




I find it helpful at times when the DM doesn't orate the whole conversation word for word.  But sure, set that part aside.



> With that put to one side, what we have is simply the GM telling the player that a NPC wants such-and-such from the PC. I can't see any pressure there. Any tension. Any challenge.




To who?  The player?  The PC?  I think we are teetering back and forth between player and PC to often here.  

Anyways, one potential challenge for the player is determining if that is a persuasive argument to their PC.

For the PC, the persuasion attempt is a challenge only if it makes the PC stop a moment and debate back and forth on what the right course of action is.  

Often times, when the player is struggling to determine whether the NPC persuaded their PC, it's because the PC is having an internal struggle as well over what they should do.



> The player can weigh pros and cons, try and calculate consequences, even decide non-rationally based on feeling if s/he likes, or a coin toss, what to do. But I can't see how this puts the least bit of pressure on the player's conception of his/her PC's character.




How could it not?  If the player is playing in character then the only reason the determination of what his character would do would be difficult for him is if the attempt framed the situation to the PC such that it put two motivations/traits/etc in opposition.  That then becomes a defining moment of the PC's character.



> And the focus on "out-of-character" reasons is very strange. No one in this thread (as far as I can tell) is talking about the source of motivations that the player draws on. What's at issue is whether or not the character conception can be challenged. I don't see that it's possible in the approach you describe for the player to discover (as opposed to _decide_) that his/her PC is different from what s/he thought.




When I play I discover many things about my character due to what I decide.  I don't think those two things are mutually exclusive as you appear to suggest.  If my character is faced with a hard choice due to multiple traits/goals/etc being put at odds then whatever I decide is also a discovery as it's a situation I've not thought about before.



> So you will never have moments of play that evoke such classic narratives as Lancelot discovering that he values his love for Guinevere over his loyalty to Arthur. Or Rick (in Casablanca) discovering something like the opposite.




Of course you can!  That's the whole point.  Why do you think that narrative can't be had by the player choosing?


----------



## FrogReaver

chaochou said:


> Again, using the mechanics of Burning Wheel's Duel of Wits, then Blades in the Dark, then Apocalypse World demonstrate how these claims manifest themselves in actual play.
> 
> Again, you can't and won't because your claims are a) completely empty and false and b) the product of complete ignorance of the available mechanics.




I don't need to know much specific about China to know there aren't elves there.  Nor Do I need to know the specifics of a bunch of game systems to draw general conclusions about them.  In short, I can be ignorant on specifics without being wrong.


----------



## FrogReaver

pemerton said:


> This completely misunderstands @_*chaochou*_'s point.
> 
> As I posted upthread, "cheating" or acting on out-of-game motivations has nothing to do with what anyone is talking about in this thread.




Right, but it did have to do with what [MENTION=99817]chaochou[/MENTION] said.  In fact he didn't even defend it after I called him out on it.



chaochou said:


> Then it isn't persuasion. I simply choose whatever is most expedient and justify my choice however I please.



That was his rebuttal to the player choosing.  There's nothing else that can be referring to except players that always make the most expedient decision (aka cheating)


----------



## Maxperson

Aldarc said:


> Actually, it is as "semantics" is fundamentally about 'meaning,' and you are currently doing what is referred to in the field of linguistics as 'lexical semantics.' For someone who likes to drop lexical entries into arguments, I'm surprised you don't know that.




Regardless of whether or not it was "semantics," and it wasn't, the two definitions of challenge are still of great importance to this thread.  The claim that a challenge can't happen unless there is a win/loss scenario going on is outright false.  You can in fact have a challenge of the difficult choice where there is no win/loss possibility.  

 Your Ad Hominems bore me.  Either respond to the arguments I make or don't respond to me or talk about me.


----------



## FrogReaver

pemerton said:


> The basic point is that, in the scenarios you keep putting forward, _nothing happens to the PC's inner being or self-conception that the player did not choose_.




Right.  Did you expect me to disagree with that?  That's precisely what I'm saying.



> So the player choose that which s/he prefers. Depending on mood, table practices, etc, this might be the thing most likely to produce victory in the quest, or the thing most likely to be seen as entertaining




Yes those are possibilities (and occasionaly the last has it's place IMO), but not necessities



> or even the thing s/he thinks is truest to the character as s/he conceives of it.




Well that would be the ultimate goal.  If that's not being done at least most of the time then maybe a different system would be better for that player.



> Whatever the player chooses, s/he is not forced to confront something new or unexpected about his/her PC.




Yes you are.  When the choice is between two opposed goals/personality traits/etc then you are most certainly being confronted with something new or unexpected about your PC.  You are learning which goal/personality trait/etc is more defining (or at least more defining in this moment).


----------



## pemerton

FrogReaver said:


> I don't need to know much specific about China to know there aren't elves there.  Nor Do I need to know the specifics of a bunch of game systems to draw general conclusions about them.  In short, I can be ignorant on specifics without being wrong.



I guess you can assert things in ignorance, yet avoid error, if you get lucky.

On this occasion though, your luck has failed you. The claims you make aren't plausible even within the compass of D&D, which includes the 4e skill challenge mechanic. They are completely wrong when it comes to other systems such as the ones that [MENTION=99817]chaochou[/MENTION] has mentioned.


----------



## FrogReaver

pemerton said:


> I guess you can assert things in ignorance, yet avoid error, if you get lucky.




Not ignorance to know a general truth.  

They are completely wrong when it comes to other systems such as the ones that @_*chaochou*_ has mentioned.[/QUOTE]

One example works wonders.  If it's that easy to disprove me then provide an example that does so.


----------



## pemerton

FrogReaver said:


> I think the best way to address that is to ask, what character from such a system can't be played identically in a D&D type system (assuming same overall setting etc).
> 
> <snip>
> 
> Since D&D largely leaves personality free form, then all the personalities allowable in exalted are available in D&D and all the ones not allowable in it are as well.



This is missing the point.

One may as well ask, _What story can't D&D produce?_ Well, if the players and the GM all get together and agree on it then you can play out Casablanca in D&D, can't you? (That was [MENTION=16586]Campbell[/MENTION]'s point about consensus.) But the current topic of discussion is _how_ that might be done, and _what sort of play experience_ might be involved.

The example of Exalted, for instance, was not about _what personalities can be played_. It was about _how personality might put under pressure, and perhaps change_. And the play experience that results from that.



FrogReaver said:


> Anyways, one potential challenge for the player is determining if that is a persuasive argument to their PC.





FrogReaver said:


> When the choice is between two opposed goals/personality traits/etc then you are most certainly being confronted with something new or unexpected about your PC.  You are learning which goal/personality trait/etc is more defining (or at least more defining in this moment).
> 
> <snip>
> 
> If the player is playing in character then the only reason the determination of what his character would do would be difficult for him is if the attempt framed the situation to the PC such that it put two motivations/traits/etc in opposition.  That then becomes a defining moment of the PC's character.



You're not learning it. You're deciding it - as seems evident in your use of the verb _determining_ in the first quote.

Maybe it's a hard decision, but it's a decision, not a discovery. As I said, I can't see how this puts the least bit of pressure on the player's conception of his/her PC's character. (I guess it could if the player had said of his PC both _I am chaste_ and _I will do whatever it takes to preserve the kingdome_. But the conflict there is so obvious and so shallow that I think we can discount it as a working example.)

Contrast that with the example I posted of the paladin: he learns he is a killer. Or the examples of Duel of Wits, or Exalted social conflict: the PC (and player) learn that the character is capable of being persuaded in such-and-such a fashion.

Those are not choices made by the player; they're the results of putting things at risk, and then losing them. (This is, roughly, [MENTION=16814]Ovinomancer[/MENTION]'s definition of a challenge.)



FrogReaver said:


> For the PC, the persuasion attempt is a challenge only if it makes the PC stop a moment and debate back and forth on what the right course of action is.
> 
> Often times, when the player is struggling to determine whether the NPC persuaded their PC, it's because the PC is having an internal struggle as well over what they should do.



But in the examples you provide this "internal struggle" is all just colour - like in D&D combat if the GM narrates the hp loss as a blow to the arm or a blow to the leg. It doesn't actually matter to resolution, or to the unfolding of the fiction.

It's epiphenomenal.

Contrast the paladin example: the killing isn't epiphenomenal. It's an actual thing that has occurred in the fiction, which refutes the paladin's self-conception (_I'm not a killer_) which has been held up until that point. Similarly for the outcome of a Duel of Wits.

Which goes back to the point about play experience. _Thinking really hard about what you want your character to do_, and then choosing it, is not the same play experience as _being forced to recognise that your character is not who you thought they were_. And this is where the issue of familiarity with other systems and other techniques comes in. Your posts in this thread give the impression that your RPG experience does not extend far beyond AD&D 2nd ed and similar sorts of systems (eg a fairly common approach to 3E and 5e D&D; maybe a bit of GURPS or HERO or even DragonQuest played in a similar style; but not a lot else).

If that impression is a mistaken one than I apologise - but I certainly don't get the feel that you've played (say) HeroWars/Quest, or DitV, or Burning Wheel, or any PbtA game, or even AD&D Oriental Adventures with the GM pushing hard on the honour and family systems that are part of that.


----------



## generic

pemerton said:


> It's epiphenomenal.
> 
> Contrast the paladin example: the killing isn't epiphenomenal. It's an actual thing that has occurred in the fiction, which refutes the paladin's self-conception (_I'm not a killer_) which has been held up until that point. Similarly for the outcome of a Duel of Wits.
> 
> Which goes back to the point about play experience. _Thinking really hard about what you want your character to do_, and then choosing it, is not the same play experience as _being forced to recognise that your character is not who you thought they were_. And this is where the issue of familiarity with other systems and other techniques comes in. Your posts in this thread give the impression that your RPG experience does not extend far beyond AD&D 2nd ed and similar sorts of systems (eg a fairly common approach to 3E and 5e D&D; maybe a bit of GURPS or HERO or even DragonQuest played in a similar style; but not a lot else).
> 
> If that impression is a mistaken one than I apologise - but I certainly don't get the feel that you've played (say) HeroWars/Quest, or DitV, or Burning Wheel, or any PbtA game, or even AD&D Oriental Adventures with the GM pushing hard on the honour and family systems that are part of that.




Yes, this seems to be true for [MENTION=6795602]FrogReaver[/MENTION], but I wouldn't know, and it doesn't really matter.

After all, I believe that we're talking about the fundamental qualities of what a character is and how character challenges should be resolved in general, not in systems like Burning Wheel, which, to be honest, while fun, are far from as common as D&D.

As is always true in these discussions, about half of the participants assume D&D as a baseline, because D&D defines the RPG market.

Are you saying that players should not have total control over their characters in every system?

To me, both your argument and [MENTION=6795602]FrogReaver[/MENTION] 's seem hollow and grasping, maybe it's time we agree to disagree after 59 pages.


----------



## pemerton

FrogReaver said:


> One example works wonders.  If it's that easy to disprove me then provide an example that does so.



You posted this not too far upthread:



FrogReaver said:


> So then what happens when that persuasion is resolved mechanically
> -The player sits out of the loop and has no input on how their character would react (which also means they have no conflict of interest in how their character is reacting)



Before you posted that, [MENTION=16586]Campbell[/MENTION] already posted on outline of mechanics from Exalted which contradict what you said: the player in Exalted (i) does not sit out of the loop, and (ii) does have input on how his/her PC would react.

Further upthread I posted the Apocalypse World mechanics for PvP seduction/maipulation. In that system the player gets to decide exacty how his/her PC reacts, but is also subject to mechanical effects depending upon the persuading player's degree of success on the check.

And I've also mentioned (several times) the MHRP/Cortex+ Heroic mechanics, which allow the placing of a complication, or emotional or mental stress, on a PC - and when the player has his/her PC attempt an action which would be hindered by that stress or complication then the relevant die is added to the opposing pool. (Before you ask, _what if it's an unopposed check_, all checks in that sysemt are opposed.) The player is never "out of the loop" because s/he builds his/her own pull to resist any attempt to impose such stress/complication, and until s/he is "stressed out" - the stress or complication reaches 12+ in size - then s/he gets to choose what s/he does (but obviously has an incentive to choose one way rather than another).

These systems produce different play experiences on from the other, but all are different from the _player always chooses_ that you are advocating for. And none has the characteristics that you have said such different systems must have.


----------



## FrogReaver

pemerton said:


> …
> 
> Maybe it's a hard decision, but it's a decision, not a discovery. As I said, I can't see how this puts the least bit of pressure on the player's conception of his/her PC's character. (*I guess it could if the player had said of his PC both **I am chaste* *and *_*I will do whatever it takes to preserve the kingdome*__...
> _​_
> ​_




I find it amazing how that when you really dig in deep that you agree with me


----------



## generic

pemerton said:


> Before you posted that, @_*Campbell*_ already posted on outline of mechanics from Exalted which contradict what you said: the player in Exalted (i) does not sit out of the loop, and (ii) does have input on how his/her PC would react.
> 
> Further upthread I posted the Apocalypse World mechanics for PvP seduction/maipulation. In that system the player gets to decide exacty how his/her PC reacts, but is also subject to mechanical effects depending upon the persuading player's degree of success on the check.
> 
> And I've also mentioned (several times) the MHRP/Cortex+ Heroic mechanics, which allow the placing of a complication, or emotional or mental stress, on a PC - and when the player has his/her PC attempt an action which would be hindered by that stress or complication then the relevant die is added to the opposing pool. (Before you ask, _what if it's an unopposed check_, all checks in that sysemt are opposed.) The player is never "out of the loop" because s/he builds his/her own pull to resist any attempt to impose such stress/complication, and until s/he is "stressed out" - the stress or complication reaches 12+ in size - then s/he gets to choose what s/he does (but obviously has an incentive to choose one way rather than another).
> 
> These systems produce different play experiences on from the other, but all are different from the _player always chooses_ that you are advocating for. And none has the characteristics that you have said such different systems must have.




No offense, but Exalted is a terrible system.  In terms of dice pools, character control, and such, it's not at all either standard or well-designed.  

To each  his or her own, buy Exalted isn't everyone's cup of Healing Potion, and shouldn't be used to make a point.


----------



## pemerton

Aebir-Toril said:


> I believe that we're talking about the fundamental qualities of what a character is and how character challenges should be resolved in general, not in systems like Burning Wheel, which, to be honest, while fun, are far from as common as D&D.
> 
> As is always true in these discussions, about half of the participants assume D&D as a baseline, because D&D defines the RPG market.
> 
> Are you saying that players should not have total control over their characters in every system?



(1) This thread is in general RPG. Not D&D. There's a reason for that.

(2) I'm not saying that players _should_ or _shouldn't_ do anything in every system. The OP invites discussion about various ways in which true descriptions of PC actions might be established. The current discussion has moved on a bit from that, to also talk about how true descriptions of PC choices, PC emotional states, etc might be established.

(3) If someone's answer to the questions posed in the OP is _the way D&D does it, end of story_ then they're welcome not to participat in the thread. If they're going to make ungrounded assertions that nothing else is really possible, well that's not very helpful either and is fair game for clarification or correction.

(4) The most interesting thing for me at the moment - obviously I can't speak for others - is _what are the necessary conditions for a genuine challenge to character concept_? This is what [MENTION=16814]Ovinomancer[/MENTION] and I have disagreed about - I believe without undue acrimony! I would be very interested to hear what [MENTION=16586]Campbell[/MENTION], [MENTION=99817]chaochou[/MENTION] and/or [MENTION=5142]Aldarc[/MENTION] thinks about it, should they care to weigh in. (Of course it's their prerogatibe not to.) My own views on this are heavily influenced by a certain conception of GM role in terms of framing scenes that put players under pressure by putting things that matter to the PC at stake. I don't know Exalted at all except from Campbell's accounts in this and other threads; and my experience with PbtA games is fairly limited, although I know the rulesets for DW and AW fairly well.


----------



## Maxperson

pemerton said:


> You're not learning it. You're deciding it - as seems evident in your use of the verb _determining_ in the first quote.
> 
> Maybe it's a hard decision, but it's a decision, not a discovery. As I said, I can't see how this puts the least bit of pressure on the player's conception of his/her PC's character. (I guess it could if the player had said of his PC both _I am chaste_ and _I will do whatever it takes to preserve the kingdome_. But the conflict there is so obvious and so shallow that I think we can discount it as a working example.)




This is where you go very wrong.  Before the hard decision, I did not know X about my character.  Until I made the decision, X was still unknown to me.  After the decision, X is now known to me.  That's a discovery about the character, which makes it something I learned.  

How many times over the years after someone ends up in a unique situation and makes a hard decision, have we heard, "So and so really learned something about himself."?

The idea that decisions cannot result in discovery is absurd.  If decisions prevent discovery, then we shouldn't make any decisions at all.  Let the dice randomly determine everything and make tons of discoveries.


----------



## chaochou

FrogReaver said:


> Not ignorance to know a general truth.




But you don't know anything. You just blithely assert factless, empty garbage.

You even accept, when challenged, total ignorance of the subject matter. As such, the key point in this exhange has been to demonstrate that your opinions are worthless.


----------



## Campbell

Aebir-Toril said:


> No offense, but Exalted is a terrible system.  In terms of dice pools, character control, and such, it's not at all either standard or well-designed.
> 
> To each  his or her own, buy Exalted isn't everyone's cup of Healing Potion, and shouldn't be used to make a point.




I would be more than willing to discuss the merits of Exalted 3e elsewhere. It is a fundamentally different game that I feel delivers on the promise of previous versions of the game.

Here I would like to focus on social mechanics, their effects, and implications.


----------



## hawkeyefan

FrogReaver said:


> Right, but it did have to do with what @_*chaochou*_ said.  In fact he didn't even defend it after I called him out on it.
> 
> 
> That was his rebuttal to the player choosing.  There's nothing else that can be referring to except players that always make the most expedient decision (aka cheating)




In the absence of rules, how do you determine what’s cheating?

If the rules state that a character decision is entirely up to the player, then how can there be a preferred choice? 

I mean, in most situations, I’d expect a player to pick whatever he wanted and then justify that choice in any way he felt was suitable. If he’s the sole authority on what his character thinks or feels, then how can a GM or any other participant decide that a choice he’s made is cheating? 

It all seems very self-contradictory, no?


----------



## generic

pemerton said:


> (1) This thread is in general RPG. Not D&D. There's a reason for that.
> 
> (2) I'm not saying that players _should_ or _shouldn't_ do anything in every system. The OP invites discussion about various ways in which true descriptions of PC actions might be established. The current discussion has moved on a bit from that, to also talk about how true descriptions of PC choices, PC emotional states, etc might be established.
> 
> (3) If someone's answer to the questions posed in the OP is _the way D&D does it, end of story_ then they're welcome not to participat in the thread. If they're going to make ungrounded assertions that nothing else is really possible, well that's not very helpful either and is fair game for clarification or correction.
> 
> (4) The most interesting thing for me at the moment - obviously I can't speak for others - is _what are the necessary conditions for a genuine challenge to character concept_? This is what @_*Ovinomancer*_ and I have disagreed about - I believe without undue acrimony! I would be very interested to hear what @_*Campbell*_, @_*chaochou*_ and/or @_*Aldarc*_ thinks about it, should they care to weigh in. (Of course it's their prerogatibe not to.) My own views on this are heavily influenced by a certain conception of GM role in terms of framing scenes that put players under pressure by putting things that matter to the PC at stake. I don't know Exalted at all except from Campbell's accounts in this and other threads; and my experience with PbtA games is fairly limited, although I know the rulesets for DW and AW fairly well.




Yes...

But I'm not making ungrounded assertions.  I specifically said that Burning Wheel is fun, but not the average experience.  This is not ungrounded, it is, in fact, grounded by any statistical study on RPGs you can find.

My point was not that you are a wrongfunnotmywaydonogooder, but that D&D is (though not necessarily should be) the baseline assumption.  If we can't argue from a base of some sort, then there is no argument.


----------



## FrogReaver

hawkeyefan said:


> In the absence of rules, how do you determine what’s cheating?
> 
> If the rules state that a character decision is entirely up to the player, then how can there be a preferred choice?
> 
> I mean, in most situations, I’d expect a player to pick whatever he wanted and then justify that choice in any way he felt was suitable. If he’s the sole authority on what his character thinks or feels, then how can a GM or any other participant decide that a choice he’s made is cheating?
> 
> It all seems very self-contradictory, no?



 @_*chaochou*_ obviously feels always choosing what's expedient is not a good way to play.  I happen to agree with him on that as I believe you do as well.  The overall point is that the playstyle I suggest doesn't lead to that unless a player ignores their character conceptualization.

You are way to hung up on my definition of always choosing what's expedient as cheating.


----------



## Tony Vargas

pemerton said:


> The most interesting thing for me at the moment - is _what are the necessary conditions for a genuine challenge to character concept_?



 Brief side observation/perspective:  Even just being able to model a valid genre character concept is still a challenge RPGs aren't exactly all up to, even though some have been doing it for a long time.



FrogReaver said:


> I think the best way to address that is to ask, what character from such a system can't be played identically in a D&D type system (assuming same overall setting etc).
> ...
> Anyways, Since D&D largely leaves personality free form, then all the personalities allowable in exalted are available in D&D and all the ones not allowable in it are as well.



 Even if that were true (D&D class & alignment, among other things, do put constraints on PC personality), it wouldn't be comparing Exalted to D&D, but Exalted to freestyle RP.


----------



## hawkeyefan

FrogReaver said:


> @_*chaochou*_ obviously feels always choosing what's expedient is not a good way to play.  I happen to agree with him on that as I believe you do as well.  The overall point is that the playstyle I suggest doesn't lead to that unless a player ignores their character conceptualization.
> 
> You are way to hung up on my definition of always choosing what's expedient as cheating.




I’m questioning your definition because I don’t know how it works. I can’t comment on what [MENTION=99817]chaochou[/MENTION] thinks, but I expect that it would likely depend on the system in place. He probably views things one way for Burning Wheel, and another for Blades in the Dark, and yet another for D&D. 

It sounds to me like you want players to play true to their character, right? So if someone’s playing a paladin whose vows include a vow of chastity, you’d expect the player to roleplay the character accordingly. Now, he could be devoutly chaste or it could be something he struggles with...really, it’s up to the player how he decides to play it. Right?

If the above is all true, then how can you ever say a player is “cheating” in what they decide? So yeah, if the player always takes the most expedient route, always makes the easiest choice...how is this a negative? 

It is simply what the player decided for their character and they are the sole authority of that character’s thoughts and feelings and decisions. How can the player ever ignore their character conceptualization when they alone can make decisions about it?  

In the absence of rules of some sort, how can any decision the player makes be cheating? There are literally no rules to break.


----------



## Umbran

I see several signs of people getting snippy, personal, and being far more interested in being right than exploring ideas.  Folks are looking dug in, defending positions rather than thinking about whether the other guy has a point.

That's a good sign that the thread's about done.  

Keep it respectful, keep it constructive, or find another topic, folks.


----------



## Lanefan

To save quoting a bunch of recent posts and replying line by line, I'll just sum up with this:

The title of the thread - "Players choose what their PCs do" - almost sums the whole thing up before we start.

Put it instead as "Barring external pressures e.g. magic or game mechanics, players always choose what their PCs (attempt to) do and always choose what/how their PC thinks and-or feels" and we probably could have all agreed, stopped right there, and saved an awful lot of electrons from an untimely demise.

And sometimes those choices do represent challenges, be it to the PC or player or both; and sometimes choices force a challenge onto a player or PC or both.  But the player still gets to choose, unless mechanics or magic get in the way, and I can't see anything even mildly controversial about that.


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## Aldarc

Maxperson said:


> Your Ad Hominems bore me.  Either respond to the arguments I make or don't respond to me or talk about me.



Ad Hominem? I don't care about your argument. It was a dry comment that it would not be a pemerton megathread without your usual appeal to the lexicon at some point in this discussion.


----------



## Ovinomancer

Aebir-Toril said:


> Yes...
> 
> But I'm not making ungrounded assertions.  I specifically said that Burning Wheel is fun, but not the average experience.  This is not ungrounded, it is, in fact, grounded by any statistical study on RPGs you can find.
> 
> My point was not that you are a wrongfunnotmywaydonogooder, but that D&D is (though not necessarily should be) the baseline assumption.  If we can't argue from a base of some sort, then there is no argument.




Why, when discussing the ways that you can do something in RPGs, should D&D be the baseline assumption?  Because it's popular?  That seems a silly assertion to make, that you have to assume the popular way to do something in order to talk about ways you can do something.

The base here is RPGs.  D&D is a big contender -- how it does things should definitely be in-bounds.  But, D&D being in-bounds doesn't mean everything else is out-of-bounds.  Or that just understanding how D&D does things means you have an understanding of how it can be done.  D&D does social pillar stuff very poorly.  So poorly that it's either been broken (3.x diplomancers) or almost non-existent (every other edition except, maybe, 4e, and then only if you squinted and imported some non-D&D ideas).  Locking the discussion into having to baseline with D&D's bad performance seems like a tremendous way to handicap any useful discussion.  Let's not.

I'm happy to talk about how D&D works.  I'm happy to talk about where I find it does okay, where it shines, and where I avoid because it's terrible.  I'm running my weekly 5e game right now (on dinner break), and enjoying it.  So, I'm obviously not hostile to D&D.  I just don't believe it's the best thing since sliced bread, either -- I look at it a lot more honestly these days.


----------



## FrogReaver

hawkeyefan said:


> I’m questioning your definition because I don’t know how it works. I can’t comment on what @_*chaochou*_ thinks, but I expect that it would likely depend on the system in place. He probably views things one way for Burning Wheel, and another for Blades in the Dark, and yet another for D&D.
> 
> It sounds to me like you want players to play true to their character, right? So if someone’s playing a paladin whose vows include a vow of chastity, you’d expect the player to roleplay the character accordingly. Now, he could be devoutly chaste or it could be something he struggles with...really, it’s up to the player how he decides to play it. Right?
> 
> If the above is all true, then how can you ever say a player is “cheating” in what they decide? So yeah, if the player always takes the most expedient route, always makes the easiest choice...how is this a negative?
> 
> It is simply what the player decided for their character and they are the sole authority of that character’s thoughts and feelings and decisions. How can the player ever ignore their character conceptualization when they alone can make decisions about it?
> 
> In the absence of rules of some sort, how can any decision the player makes be cheating? There are literally no rules to break.




How about you ask the guy that suggested it was a problem to begin with... your buddy [MENTION=99817]chaochou[/MENTION]


----------



## generic

Ovinomancer said:


> Why, when discussing the ways that you can do something in RPGs, should D&D be the baseline assumption?  Because it's popular?  That seems a silly assertion to make, that you have to assume the popular way to do something in order to talk about ways you can do something.
> 
> The base here is RPGs.  D&D is a big contender -- how it does things should definitely be in-bounds.  But, D&D being in-bounds doesn't mean everything else is out-of-bounds.  Or that just understanding how D&D does things means you have an understanding of how it can be done.  D&D does social pillar stuff very poorly.  So poorly that it's either been broken (3.x diplomancers) or almost non-existent (every other edition except, maybe, 4e, and then only if you squinted and imported some non-D&D ideas).  Locking the discussion into having to baseline with D&D's bad performance seems like a tremendous way to handicap any useful discussion.  Let's not.
> 
> I'm happy to talk about how D&D works.  I'm happy to talk about where I find it does okay, where it shines, and where I avoid because it's terrible.  I'm running my weekly 5e game right now (on dinner break), and enjoying it.  So, I'm obviously not hostile to D&D.  I just don't believe it's the best thing since sliced bread, either -- I look at it a lot more honestly these days.




Yes, all true, but can we not have a baseline?

D&D is that baseline, and yes, because it is the most popular.  Thus, the largest number of people will be able to engage in the conversation.

Other systems are great, and D&D might not be everyone's favorite system.  Furthermore, it's not like I'm saying that other RPGs are doing things incorrectly, I'm merely stating that D&D should be our baseline in these discussions.  I don't think D&D is perfect.  In fact, it's far from it, but it is the baseline, whether you want to admit it or not.

If we attempt to address every system , there will be no place for conversation.


----------



## aramis erak

Maxperson said:


> The character is really just a sheet of paper.  It's the player inhabiting the idea of the character that gives it life.  That's why I don't understand this idea that you can challenge the character socially, without challenging the player.  When [MENTION=177]Umbran[/MENTION] said that I was switching the challenge from the character to the player, I had a vision of Leslie Nielson in an interrogation room with a character sheet sitting on a chair, demanding that it confess.  After a few minutes he turns to Nordberg and says, "I never thought it would be so hard to challenge a character."
> 
> You cannot challenge a character without simultaneously challenging the player.  A challenge where the DM takes control and informs the player that his PC's heart warms is no less a challenge to the player than what we are describing.  It's just a different sort of challenge.




There are a great many challenges for the character that are not for the player, and best resolved with simple mechanical considerations.

Some are just not things that players need to know, but the appropriate skill provides needed praxis the character needs. 
EG: 

which fork to use for dinner in the duke's hall.
which of the swords in the blacksmith's are suitable for the character
Some are things that are not possible due to the mode of play being aural, rather than visual:

Identifying which of the maidens lying dead and naked is the duke's daughter
deciding which dress looks better when prepping to attend court.
Some things are simply too boring, gory, or technical to narrate out in detail:
The making of the sword.
searching 100 volumes  in the library for clues
the repair of the warp drive
The only way these test the player is whether or not the character has the needed skills, and that is a challenge already made and in the "done deal" category... but the rolls involved are in the present.



Ovinomancer said:


> Actually, I think save or be charmed isn't much of a challenge, either.  My argument has been that making a choice isn't a challenge if you can chose between all the choices.  Even the unknown repercussions don't make it a challenge, just a guessing game.  A challenge requires that something be staked and that you have a risk of losing your stakes.  There's lots and lots of ways to do this, even without dice.  In an RPG, though, it pretty much requires some kind of mechanic to determine the uncertainty, even if that mechanic is "DM chooses."  I think that's a lousy mechanic, but there you go.



Given that one can always choose to fail the saves in D&D... it's part of the larger challenge, which may require a bevy of tests... The hostile person is the challenge, usually not the individual attacks, tho' those may also be both mechanical and player-creativity-challenges.

I treat the term challenge as referring to a situation with at least two clear mutually exclusive outcomes, and the possibility of not attaining the desired one if it is chosen for the attempt.

Saving throws technically meet this some of the time... 

Undesired: hit by the spell for full damage
Desired: damage reduced 
highly desired: damage negated
Given the D&D premise that saves may always be intentionally failed...

Undesired is, in this case, the default - do nothing, and take the damage
Desired is a passed save. Chance of failure. Choosing it is the usual choice, because the default is also the undesired effect.
Highly desired is only possible if one uses a reaction ability. Not every character has such, but let's assume the character does. The challenge to the player is "do I use my 1 reaction?"  The answer has many conditionals to consider,  but most important is, "will I need to react to someone else?" coupled with, "will I lose my character if I don't?" The challenge to the character is the dive to cover or whatnot - resolved by the abstraction of the saving throw.



Lanefan said:


> The title of the thread - "Players choose what their PCs do" - almost sums the whole thing up before we start.
> 
> Put it instead as "Barring external pressures e.g. magic or game mechanics, players always choose what their PCs (attempt to) do and always choose what/how their PC thinks and-or feels" and we probably could have all agreed, stopped right there, and saved an awful lot of electrons from an untimely demise.



Except that some of us genuinely disagree with that premise, even caveated as it is...

In a game with a strong GM role, and a Gygaxian rule 0 (either _The GM can change the rules on a whim_ or _The GM is always right_), the player never has the surety that the GM won't impose conditions on the character's mental state. The character also has no surety that any action, even walking, won't require a roll or even outright fail.

The best the player can assuredly pick what they attempt - everything else is subject to GM approval.

I've chased away players in the past by using conditions upon their characters that reduced the player's choice drastically. 1 unintended, 2 others much intended. A fourth attempted, but the player enjoyed the challenge. ≤Sigh≥...

The thing is, if a GM wants to keep players, they don't take away agency (control over the character) too easily nor too often, but the social contract of rules implies (at least in most Traditional table top RPGs) that there are 3 portions of control over a character - the player's, the GM, and the mechanics. 


The same is true in videogames - the player determines the attempt (by triggering the action); the program determines the success/failure. I spent hours trying to climb certain peaks in Breath of the Wild... but, due to the mechanics and the setting choices of the designer, I could keep trying, but never succeed.


----------



## Aldarc

Aebir-Toril said:


> Yes, all true, but can we not have a baseline?



Got you covered. Done and done.


----------



## Ovinomancer

Aebir-Toril said:


> Yes, all true, but can we not have a baseline?
> 
> D&D is that baseline, and yes, because it is the most popular.  Thus, the largest number of people will be able to engage in the conversation.
> 
> Other systems are great, and D&D might not be everyone's favorite system.  Furthermore, it's not like I'm saying that other RPGs are doing things incorrectly, I'm merely stating that D&D should be our baseline in these discussions.  I don't think D&D is perfect.  In fact, it's far from it, but it is the baseline, whether you want to admit it or not.
> 
> If we attempt to address every system , there will be no place for conversation.




How do you have a baseline of doing something one way so that you can talk about doing it another way?  Take cooking, for instance.  If the baseline is using the oven, because that's the most popular, is it worthwhile to have to refer to using an oven every time you want to talk about microwaving?  No, you just talk about microwaving and skip referencing everything to the oven because how you do things in the oven is utterly useless when talking about the microwave.

Same here.  D&D does things one way, with one set of assumptions.  If I want to talk about a different way to do things, I'll talk about how that works and what assumptions are in place there.  Having to point out every deviation from D&D disrupts this because it's just a long list of what we're not doing to talk about what we are doing.

And, frankly, D&D is a lousy baseline.  For social challenges, it's literally just "however your DM does it."  There's not enough in the rules to do much else, and what's there is endlessly argued over -- just pay attention to the D&D pages here and you'll see argument after argument erupt over how the social mechanics work or even just how the the play loop is adjudicated.  D&D is a terrible baseline to use to talk intelligently about how your can do a thing in RPGs.  It's the 800-lb gorilla, to be sure, and it's going to be discussed, as it has been, but there's no basis to put it as the baseline except to be comfortable and familiar and not need to engage in how it actually does a pretty bad job at most of what it tries to do.

Again, I love D&D, and just finished a great session (almost all social interaction, one 5 minute fight).  Now, I used a skill challenge backend to manage the social interactions, and didn't have a predetermined outcome (I surprised myself at one point) for play.  I attacked things my players have put up as pressure points for their characters to see how they'd react, but, this being D&D, they had the full freedom to choose their reactions.  There were a number of points, though, that I noticed a distinct difference how D&D, that doesn't have a fair way to put characterization at stake, worked vice other games.  In one scene, a player that has a backstory as a mind-flayer thrall and has staked his lack of recollection of his past as at risk met with a mind flayer.  The mind flayer proposed that what the player thought their memories were are false memories, and that, instead, there's something about the character that caused him to be recruited rather than enslaved.  That the character was a dangerous tool that the elder brain thought it could control.  Is this true?  I don't know, maybe.  That really depends on how the player chooses to interact with it.  So far, the player has chosen to enter into a temporary agreement for mutual benefit (the mind flayer wishes to disrupt some plans of the player's former masters -- different mind flayer factions at play here), but not to trust the mind flayer.  Meanwhile, I've planted seeds of doubt, as what the mind flayer has said may come true.  But, again, because D&D, it's the player that will decide if his character is swayed or not.

If I were playing a different game, then the stakes of the player's background would have been directly challenged, and, if the player lost, I'd have been able to establish alternate truths that the player would then have to engage with.  If the player won, they'd have been able to get their goals, which, in this case, would have been some concessions from the mind flayer for other information, which would have been both useful and beneficial to the player (because you honor successes and don't walk them back with negative outcomes).  But, that would have been the player putting things at stake and choosing to risk them on an action declaration, so it would be fair.  D&D lacks this ability to use your character itself as a stake to try to win a victory -- in D&D, if it was the baseline, then there'd be no challenge here -- the player couldn't force a concession from the mind flayer by risking their characteriztion.


----------



## Ovinomancer

aramis erak said:


> Given that one can always choose to fail the saves in D&D... it's part of the larger challenge, which may require a bevy of tests... The hostile person is the challenge, usually not the individual attacks, tho' those may also be both mechanical and player-creativity-challenges.



Let me clarify, I find saving throws against charm to be "not much of a challenge" because they're boring and are heavy with force.  The GM decides to have an NPC with charm, and the GM decides when to use it an on whom, and then the player gets one roll to see if they can prevent this GM chain from continuing to putting limits on their character.  In other words, the only thing the player stakes is playing in the game at all.

As such, it's technically a challenge, but it's a weak example of a good challenge and full of the things I'm not happy about.  That said, I did use a dominate monster on a player tonight, and I felt bad about it.  But, they had set some stakes in the character development that the character has enmity with creatures that do this, and the player had not taken action against repeated sightings and foreshadowings of such creatures making an appearance, and, then, the player not only failed his save, but his party, who detected he was whammied, didn't follow up on it (it's an odd dynamic, but full of playing their characters to the hilt).  Even so, the result was to take a challenge that was to be for the party and limit it to the player, but that was my choice at that point, not the player's.  So, yeah, when I play D&D I'll use these mechanics, but I don't like them much.

I treat the term challenge as referring to a situation with at least two clear mutually exclusive outcomes, and the possibility of not attaining the desired one if it is chosen for the attempt.

Saving throws technically meet this some of the time... 

Undesired: hit by the spell for full damage
Desired: damage reduced 
highly desired: damage negated
Given the D&D premise that saves may always be intentionally failed...

Undesired is, in this case, the default - do nothing, and take the damage
Desired is a passed save. Chance of failure. Choosing it is the usual choice, because the default is also the undesired effect.
Highly desired is only possible if one uses a reaction ability. Not every character has such, but let's assume the character does. The challenge to the player is "do I use my 1 reaction?"  The answer has many conditionals to consider,  but most important is, "will I need to react to someone else?" coupled with, "will I lose my character if I don't?" The challenge to the character is the dive to cover or whatnot - resolved by the abstraction of the saving throw.
[/quote]

A reasonable definition, but unless there's a chance to fail to get what you want, it's just a choice, even if the options are mutually exclusive.  The player maintains full control -- nothing is risked.  Again, situations that come up where there are mutually exclusive options are usually put there by the GM, not the players.  So, this is really just front loading the GM making changes to the PC characterization.  If the choice really is something like maintain your chastity or get Excalibur, this is a thinly-veiled use of GM force to cause a situation where the player has to make a hard choice -- and change their characterization in doing so.  The GM may not pick which avenue is selected, but he drew the map.  And, if the GM foreshadows that one path has worse consequences, then the force gets even stronger.

So, I like my definition of a challenge to be where the player has something at stake and can fail to achieve it.

Oddly, this pairs okay with my usual positions re: how to run D&D.  The core play loop alongside the Middle Path for dice use leads to never asking for a roll unless there's a clear approach, clear goal, and a chance and consequence for failure.  Maybe it's not so odd.  If I know that many in this thread that are arguing against my position here also argue against that one.  Even though I can give page numbers for the rule references.  But, this method says that it's not worth even going to mechanics unless there's a chance and consequence for failure -- that, unless it's a challenge as I've defined it, don't roll, just narrate.


----------



## Ovinomancer

Maxperson said:


> By one limited definition of challenge, sure.  By other definitions of challenge that's simply wrong.   You can in fact be challenged without a win/lose scenario happening.
> 
> _verb_
> verb: *challenge*; 3rd person present: *challenges*; past tense: *challenged*; past participle: *challenged*; gerund or present participle: *challenging*
> 
> 
> 
> 1.
> invite (someone) to engage in a contest.
> "he challenged one of my men to a duel"
> enter into competition with or opposition against.
> "incumbent Democrats are being challenged in the 29th district"
> make a rival claim to or threaten someone's hold on (a position).
> "they were challenging his leadership"
> *invite (someone) to do something that one thinks will be difficult or impossible; dare.*
> *"I challenged them to make up their own minds"*
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> As you can see, all it takes is a difficult situation.  Without some serious brain damage going on, everyone is capable of making up their mind on something, so the bolded example is not one that is a success/failure situation, as no failure is actually possible.  When I have a social challenge to my PC that results in a difficult decision to the core of the character, it is in fact a challenge even though there is no win/loss condition.




Dang it. I had yesterday in the dictionary pool.  

But, to address your bolded part above, the invitation is to do something.  Can you fail to do something?  Yes, especially if it's difficult or impossible.  So, yeah, you, um, supported my argument with the dictionary.  Even in the example, one can fail to make up one's mind.  I'm keenly aware of this every time I have the marital "what do you want for dinner" argument.


----------



## Maxperson

Aldarc said:


> Ad Hominem? I don't care about your argument. It was a dry comment that it would not be a pemerton megathread without your usual appeal to the lexicon at some point in this discussion.




At was an attack and uncalled for.  If you don't have a constructive response to my arguments, don't mention or respond to me.


----------



## Maxperson

aramis erak said:


> There are a great many challenges for the character that are not for the player, and best resolved with simple mechanical considerations.
> 
> Some are just not things that players need to know, but the appropriate skill provides needed praxis the character needs.
> EG:
> 
> which fork to use for dinner in the duke's hall.
> which of the swords in the blacksmith's are suitable for the character
> Some are things that are not possible due to the mode of play being aural, rather than visual:
> 
> Identifying which of the maidens lying dead and naked is the duke's daughter
> deciding which dress looks better when prepping to attend court.
> Some things are simply too boring, gory, or technical to narrate out in detail:
> 
> The making of the sword.
> searching 100 volumes  in the library for clues
> the repair of the warp drive
> The only way these test the player is whether or not the character has the needed skills, and that is a challenge already made and in the "done deal" category... but the rolls involved are in the present.




Okay.  Again, I was talking in the context social interactions, since that's what pretty much the entire thread has been about.  None of those examples is a social interaction.  The social aspect of a PC is inextricably intertwined with the player.  You can't separate the two in order to challenge the PC, but not the player.



> Given that one can always choose to fail the saves in D&D... it's part of the larger challenge, which may require a bevy of tests... The hostile person is the challenge, usually not the individual attacks, tho' those may also be both mechanical and player-creativity-challenges.




It used to be the case that you could choose to fail saves.  5e doesn't have that rule.  I would personally allow it, but it's a house rule now.


----------



## aramis erak

Ovinomancer said:


> So, I like my definition of a challenge to be where the player has something at stake and can fail to achieve it.
> 
> Oddly, this pairs okay with my usual positions re: how to run D&D.  The core play loop alongside the Middle Path for dice use leads to never asking for a roll unless there's a clear approach, clear goal, and a chance and consequence for failure.  Maybe it's not so odd.  If I know that many in this thread that are arguing against my position here also argue against that one.  Even though I can give page numbers for the rule references.  But, this method says that it's not worth even going to mechanics unless there's a chance and consequence for failure -- that, unless it's a challenge as I've defined it, don't roll, just narrate.




Yours is a little too Burning Wheel for general adoption, as it will result in not rolling a great many things that the D&D rules require.


----------



## Ovinomancer

aramis erak said:


> Yours is a little too Burning Wheel for general adoption, as it will result in not rolling a great many things that the D&D rules require.



Like? I mean, you do know that the above method for D&D is straight from the rules, right?


----------



## Umbran

Aldarc said:


> Ad Hominem? I don't care about your argument. It was a dry comment that it would not be a pemerton megathread without your usual appeal to the lexicon at some point in this discussion.






Maxperson said:


> At was an attack and uncalled for.  If you don't have a constructive response to my arguments, don't mention or respond to me.





Both of you decided to continue a personal dispute despite the warning.  Time for both of you to take a walk - find another thread where you're not going to engage in personal sniping.  Don't post in this one any further.

Despite how clear this case is, one or both of you will likely disagree and want to argue with me.  Take it to PM, please, and leave the thread alone.

Anyone else?


----------



## aramis erak

Maxperson said:


> It used to be the case that you could choose to fail saves.  5e doesn't have that rule.  I would personally allow it, but it's a house rule now.




Actually, the text is ambiguously worded.



			
				PBR v3.4 said:
			
		

> *Saving Throws*
> Many spells specify that a target can make a saving throw to avoid some or all of a spell’s effects.




Generally, can is a choice word. If the save was obligatory, it should say "must," "shall," "will," or "neets to"...

Noting that the PBR text is an exact subset of the PHB... and is electronically searchable... 

it can be interpreted either direction.


----------



## Manbearcat

So I've skimmed the recent bits of the thread. In a follow-up post, I'm going to relay a recent PCC social conflict in Strike (!) and invite folks to chime in on how they perceive this anecdote (a) contrasts with gameplay where social conflict isn't formalized and (b) there are neither mechanical feedbacks nor PC build components involved.

But first, I want to post some text from Strike (!) and Dogs in the Vineyard as I think it relates to the conversation.  What do people think about the below as they pertain to _Decide vs/and Discovery_ and how systematized incentive and constraints can hook into that (augmenting or delineating):

On Strike (!) Twists and related (and a bit of Dogs):



> *Twists*
> 
> A Twist means that something threw off your plans. Your task may or may not have been successful, but something somewhere has gone wrong. It may or may not be your fault. It might not even be a bad thing, though it often is.
> 
> 
> When you get a Twist, the GM gets to narrate how you came to the Twist—in the course of their narration they might say something your character does. This is part of the game. If the GM oversteps their bounds, speak up and talk to them like an adult, but in general your job as a player is to roll with it and make it real. Maybe your character screwed up. People do that. You don’t get to say “no, my character would never make a mistake like that!” Sorry, the dice disagree. That’s part of life and part of the game. *Remember, you don’t know everything there is to know about your character and part of the fun of playing a character is finding out new things about them. Twists are a vital part of that process.
> 
> *Quick note on Action Points - you can deploy one of your Complications against you to net a Twist, which will, in turn, earn you an Action Point.  Action Points can be deployed to help your character (a) succeed in the future and simultaneously (b) earn the system's analogue to xp toward advancement.
> 
> 2nd note - Dogs in the Vineyard has a similar schema, though there are distinguishing subtleties based on the system...but, principally, its the same.




On sin and worse (Dogs):



> Either way, the characters will uproot it, judge it, and enact upon it the will of God.  God's mercy?  God's justice?  God's vengeance?  That's theirs to decide.




On revealing (Dogs):



> The game's rules job is to help you, the GM, reveal the pride, sin, and corruption in the towns you create, and provoke the characters' judgement...
> 
> Over time, the players (through the playing of the game and the system) will reveal their characters in depth.
> 
> They'll choose where to stand, where to give way, and whats worth killing or dying for (this is a the narrative created by the Poker-derived dice mechanics of the game which involves Seeing, Raising, <effectively> Folding, or Escalating...and the attendant Fallout for the characters, which is both setback and advancement).
> 
> Reflection (after any/all situations in a Town have been resolved and we're travelling to the next Town - this is a component of the advancement scheme where players pick 2 things that will help them or hinder them or both)
> 
> What did the events of the town reveal about your characters (especially regarding duty, obedience,  responsibility, sin, love)?
> 
> What are you saying about people through the actions of your characters?


----------



## pemerton

FrogReaver said:


> the playstyle I suggest doesn't lead to that unless a player ignores their character conceptualization.



If the player is avoiding expedience by sticking to conceptualisation, how is that conceptualisation going to be challenged? Or changed?

If the player is at liberty to change conceptuatlisation in response to choices, what governs those choices? Self-evidently it can't be conceptualisation. You don't want it to be expedience. Is it whim?

Do you have actual play examples to post that illustrate the point you are trying to make?



Maxperson said:


> Before the hard decision, I did not know X about my character. Until I made the decision, X was still unknown to me. After the decision, X is now known to me. That's a discovery about the character, which makes it something I learned.
> 
> How many times over the years after someone ends up in a unique situation and makes a hard decision, have we heard, "So and so really learned something about himself."?



As [MENTION=177]Umbran[/MENTION] pointed out way upthread, we are not talking here about actual people living actual lives. We're talking about actual people authoring imagined lives. When an author chooses to have his/her protagonist do X rather than Y, _perhaps_ s/he learns something about him-/herself. (Eg I empathise more with an X-er than a Y-er.) But s/he doesn't learn anything about the protagonist. S/he makes a decision that the protagonist is an X-er rather than a Y-er.

The idea that decisions cannot result in discovery is absurd. If decisions prevent discovery, then we shouldn't make any decisions at all. Let the dice randomly determine everything and make tons of discoveries.[/quote]Discovery implies _externality_. That's why, for instance, philosophers once spoke about _our knowledge of the external world_, and why one of my teachers once glossed idealist theories of knowledge in this way: _you can't get more out of knowledge than you put in_.

To discover something about my character requires something external to take place. I've given examples in this thread. So have others.

It doesn't have to be done through random number generation. There are other resolution systems possible. But it does require some way of establishing salient elements of the fiction other than via decision-making by the player of the PC.

To my mind this is actually not a radical thesis about RPGing, given that this type of game has relied on resolution mechanics, including random number generation, to establish external constraints on player choices and interpretation of the fiction from the outset.



Aebir-Toril said:


> D&D is (though not necessarily should be) the baseline assumption. If we can't argue from a base of some sort, then there is no argument.



By my count, there are only three recurrent posters in this thread who make D&D the baseline assumption: [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION], [MENTION=6795602]FrogReaver[/MENTION] and [MENTION=23751]Maxperson[/MENTION].

I'm not interested in talking primarily about D&D. It's not a system I'm playing at the moment, and I doubt think that focusing on it is going to shed any particular light on the questions raised in the OP or subsequently in the thread. If you think that there is some aspect of D&D mechanics or play that _will_ help address those questions, then by all means post it.


----------



## pemerton

Ovinomancer said:


> a player that has a backstory as a mind-flayer thrall and has staked his lack of recollection of his past as at risk met with a mind flayer.  The mind flayer proposed that what the player thought their memories were are false memories, and that, instead, there's something about the character that caused him to be recruited rather than enslaved.  That the character was a dangerous tool that the elder brain thought it could control.  Is this true?  I don't know, maybe.  That really depends on how the player chooses to interact with it.  So far, the player has chosen to enter into a temporary agreement for mutual benefit (the mind flayer wishes to disrupt some plans of the player's former masters -- different mind flayer factions at play here), but not to trust the mind flayer.  Meanwhile, I've planted seeds of doubt, as what the mind flayer has said may come true.  But, again, because D&D, it's the player that will decide if his character is swayed or not.
> 
> If I were playing a different game, then the stakes of the player's background would have been directly challenged, and, if the player lost, I'd have been able to establish alternate truths that the player would then have to engage with.



This is an interesting question - in general, and about D&D play: To what extent is the GM permitted to rewrite player-authored PC backstory by drawing upon a combination of (i) situation and stakes and (ii) failed checks.

In BW (for instance) I think this is fair game. The only version of D&D I can think of able to handle this is 4e. I don't really see how it would be done in AD&D. And from what your saying it's not really feasible in 5e.


----------



## aramis erak

[MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION]

Many authors describe the process of authoring as letting the character speak to them, or even through them; dissociated from their own personality to some degree.

So, while they are just making the choices, the choices don't always feel like choices to the authors.


----------



## pemerton

Manbearcat said:


> I want to post some text from Strike (!) and Dogs in the Vineyard as I think it relates to the conversation.  What do people think about the below as they pertain to _Decide vs/and Discovery_ and how systematized incentive and constraints can hook into that (augmenting or delineating)



I'm not sure about incentives.

When I read the Strike(!) I think  of "intent and task" and failure narration in BW. Or the example from AW that I posted upthread. If the check fails, the GM is entitled to narrate the failure by imposing a new and unwanted description of the PC's action. But I don't think in any of the systems this could go as far as _you've fallen in love with the maiden_ unless that was the mere capstone to already-established fiction. More like _your eye is caught by the maiden's wink, and you fail to notice . . ._

When I read the DitV I think of the examples I've posted upthread about the paladin and Nightcrawler. At least as I recall it, there is no mechanic in DitV for making it true that (say) a PC loves another PC or an NPC. But it is quite possible to produce outcomes that the player didn't choose and that reveal the character as falling under a new unexpected description (eg _I'm a killer_). And these then provoke choice, reflection, crisis etc on the part of the PC as mediated through the player.


----------



## Ovinomancer

pemerton said:


> This is an interesting question - in general, and about D&D play: To what extent is the GM permitted to rewrite player-authored PC backstory by drawing upon a combination of (i) situation and stakes and (ii) failed checks.
> 
> In BW (for instance) I think this is fair game. The only version of D&D I can think of able to handle this is 4e. I don't really see how it would be done in AD&D. And from what your saying it's not really feasible in 5e.




I think, in D&D, it would be a serious overstep to do so.  In the scene above, the player threw me for a loop.  Previously, the player had established that the character had no recollection of their time before being a thrall.  But, in the scene, the player revealed that they dud recall.  I had been planning to offer a way to recover memory in exchange for helping this mindflayer, but that went right out the window (hold on lightly!).  Instead, I had the mindflayer insinuate that these memories may well be false and dangled a deeper mystery as maybe existing (refering to the character as a dangerous tool).  At the same time, i introduced that the mindflayer isn't trustworthy.  So, now, the player can engage on "do I have false memories?" or assume the mindflayer is lying and keep ahold of their idyllic memories.  It will, however, be the player's choice.  I have no tools in D&D to bring this into a challenge for characterization nor to resolve such a challenge.

In another system the player could have challenged the mind flayer's assertions, but would be risking finding out they might be true.  I don't see how that could work in D&D without crossing the one bright line of authority in the game.

EDIT:  So, to sum up the above, in D&D, the way this works is the the GM can ask for a change, but it's the player's authority to accept or refuse.

As an aside, I had sketched up this scene a few weeks ago, but we've been unable to play for awhile due to life.  So, when I had a bunch of cranium rats deliver the PC to a mindflayer in the basement of an abandoned wharehouse, it wasn't until I was doing it I realized the uncanny simularity to a recent Netflix show.  I had to laugh.


----------



## Sadras

Ovinomancer said:


> In another system the player could have challenged the mind flayer's assertions, but would be risking finding out they might be true.  I don't see how that could work in D&D without crossing the one bright line of authority in the game.
> 
> EDIT:  So, to sum up the above, in D&D, the way this works is the the GM can ask for a change, but it's the player's authority to accept or refuse.




I have been leveraging the characters Ideals/Bond/Flaws in D&D, essentially I as DM bribe them with an Inspiration Point if they do or not-do a course of action which is supported by their Ideal/Bond/Flaw. To be clear my bribe is an incentive to complicate matters in game. And as you say it is the players' right to choose.

But I'm wondering if I could then also offer a player their character an auto success in an intricate Social Encounter with minimal to no risk to the PCs at the cost of a change in a character's Ideal/Blond/Flaw (Of course this change would need make sense storywise). Player could always choose to roll ofcourse, but then something in-game would be stake.


----------



## generic

pemerton said:


> _This is an interesting question - in general, and about *D&D* play: To what extent is the GM permitted to rewrite player-authored PC backstory by drawing upon a combination of (i) situation and stakes and (ii) failed checks._
> 
> _In BW (for instance) I think this is fair game. The only version of *D&D* I can think of able to handle this is 4e. I don't really see how it would be done in *AD&D*. And from what your saying it's not really feasible in 5e._




If we cannot agree to argue from some base point, then you cannot assume that everyone will know every system.  Realistically, almost every RPG player knows D&D, not because it's the best, but because it is the definitive RPG.  Thus, D&D is not the only thing we should discuss, but you have to remember that it is what many people assume as the base.  If you would like to have a different base, please say so.


----------



## Ovinomancer

Aebir-Toril said:


> If we cannot agree to argue from some base point, then you cannot assume that everyone will know every system.  Realistically, almost every RPG player knows D&D, not because it's the best, but because it is the definitive RPG.  Thus, D&D is not the only thing we should discuss, but you have to remember that it is what many people assume as the base.  If you would like to have a different base, please say so.




Using D&D as tge baseline, how can I, as GM, have an NPC mauden wink at a PC and melt the PC's heart without it being an ask of the player?

This is why the baseline argument fails -- D&D is a specific model, not a general one.  You can't logically argue from the specific to the general.  This is amplified in cases where the model is of poor skill, such as D&D and social skills.  As I said before, the D&D way is akready endlessly argued from within the ruleset, so hiw can it be an effective model for general discussion.

This, frankly, smells of "but if you just agree with me upfront, you'll see that you agree with me."


----------



## pemerton

Ovinomancer said:


> I have no tools in D&D to bring this into a challenge for characterization nor to resolve such a challenge.
> 
> In another system the player could have challenged the mind flayer's assertions, but would be risking finding out they might be true.  I don't see how that could work in D&D without crossing the one bright line of authority in the game.



Do you have much experience with 4e D&D?

It's a bit of an open question exactly what tools 4e provides, because the skill challenge is - as presented - such an open-ended or un-nailed-down framework that (experience suggests) needs users to bring ideas and/or experience from outside to really get the best out of it.

I think a skill challenge might be able to handle the scenario you're describing. Of course it would depend on table norms - and of course so does everything, but for this sort of thing among D&D players the need for clear norms I think is especially important.

In my long-running 4e game - currently on hiatus while one of the players finishes renovating a house, which is a multi-year project! - we've had memory stuff happen with the PC wizard/invoker who turned out to be a deva invoker/wizard and who has memories of 1000 lifetimes. There's been GM narration as well as PC narration of memories, but not quite as confronting/contested as what you're describing. So I can't say I've actually done what you describe in a skill challenge. But I think it could be done. Salient skills would include History and Arcana (knowing stuff), Insight (sifting wheat from chaff in one's own mind) and Bluff and Diplomacy (vs the Mindflayer). Failure narration would probably be a mixture of straightforward causal failure and introduction of the undesired plot points/backstory. And of course as each false memory falls away, the PC would also suffer level-appropriate psychic damage!

(I see there being three rationales for the damage. (1) It's D&D, and furthermore it's 4e D&D which means all gonzo all the time. (2) It connects the failures to the most robust resolution currency system in the game - hp and healing surges. (3) At least the way we play at my table, it would provide a type of assurance that this trick isn't going to be pulled again - the fact that the PC suffers that mental trauma as s/he loses his/her false memories is something of a validation that it really is his/her true mind that is being revealed via the process. This third thing is a bit amorphous and I don't know if I've eplained it properly, but to me at least it feels quite important.)


----------



## pemerton

Aebir-Toril said:


> If we cannot agree to argue from some base point, then you cannot assume that everyone will know every system.  Realistically, almost every RPG player knows D&D, not because it's the best, but because it is the definitive RPG.  Thus, D&D is not the only thing we should discuss, but you have to remember that it is what many people assume as the base.  If you would like to have a different base, please say so.



In your case, you seem to know both BW and D&D, which are the two systems I referenced in the post of mine that you quoted. Do you have any thoughts about this mind flayer and false memories example that might draw on either of the systems?

Or if you want to engage it by reference to another system, that would be interesting too!


----------



## Ovinomancer

pemerton said:


> Do you have much experience with 4e D&D?
> 
> It's a bit of an open question exactly what tools 4e provides, because the skill challenge is - as presented - such an open-ended or un-nailed-down framework that (experience suggests) needs users to bring ideas and/or experience from outside to really get the best out of it.
> 
> I think a skill challenge might be able to handle the scenario you're describing. Of course it would depend on table norms - and of course so does everything, but for this sort of thing among D&D players the need for clear norms I think is especially important.
> 
> In my long-running 4e game - currently on hiatus while one of the players finishes renovating a house, which is a multi-year project! - we've had memory stuff happen with the PC wizard/invoker who turned out to be a deva invoker/wizard and who has memories of 1000 lifetimes. There's been GM narration as well as PC narration of memories, but not quite as confronting/contested as what you're describing. So I can't say I've actually done what you describe in a skill challenge. But I think it could be done. Salient skills would include History and Arcana (knowing stuff), Insight (sifting wheat from chaff in one's own mind) and Bluff and Diplomacy (vs the Mindflayer). Failure narration would probably be a mixture of straightforward causal failure and introduction of the undesired plot points/backstory. And of course as each false memory falls away, the PC would also suffer level-appropriate psychic damage!
> 
> (I see there being three rationales for the damage. (1) It's D&D, and furthermore it's 4e D&D which means all gonzo all the time. (2) It connects the failures to the most robust resolution currency system in the game - hp and healing surges. (3) At least the way we play at my table, it would provide a type of assurance that this trick isn't going to be pulled again - the fact that the PC suffers that mental trauma as s/he loses his/her false memories is something of a validation that it really is his/her true mind that is being revealed via the process. This third thing is a bit amorphous and I don't know if I've eplained it properly, but to me at least it feels quite important.)




I think that the default for D&D is that the GM can ask the player for a change to the mental state of the PC.  I think this is important to D&D because the GM enjoys broad authority to directly change the PC's physical state, and has control over the fictional positioning at all times.  Therefore, this narrow player authority is both important and essentially the third rail of D&D.

I agree 4e opened the door through the vague nature of skill challenges to alter this, both by giving players the ability to encroach into fictional authorities and the GM into PC mental authorities.  This requires importing a form of play otherwise lacking in 4e, and, IMO, was a key part of the difficulty of adaptation to 4e.  I played 4e for awhile before leaving it for a game that did even more narrative sharing, just more explicitly.  Had I realized at the time that 4e worked well in tgat style, I'd have played it more/longer.


----------



## hawkeyefan

FrogReaver said:


> How about you ask the guy that suggested it was a problem to begin with... your buddy @_*chaochou*_




Because it seemed like you might have the answer based on your posts in this thread. 

I play plenty of D&D, so I know how my table handles the lack of mechanics in this area, but my group also holds much less tightly to the player being the sole authority on their character. So given your statements about players being sole authority, I was curious how your group handled a player who always made the easy decision.


----------



## Lanefan

aramis erak said:


> I treat the term challenge as referring to a situation with at least two clear mutually exclusive outcomes, and the possibility of not attaining the desired one if it is chosen for the attempt.



This to me is a false premise, in that not all (or even all that many) challenges need only have two clear mutually-exclusive outcomes to still be defined as challenges.  Outcomes often run on a scale, with highly-desireable at one end and highly-undesireable at the other and a whole lot of other options in between.



> Except that some of us genuinely disagree with that premise, even caveated as it is...
> 
> In a game with a strong GM role, and a Gygaxian rule 0 (either _The GM can change the rules on a whim_ or _The GM is always right_), the player never has the surety that the GM won't impose conditions on the character's mental state.



Which is fine provided it's done within the framework of the game mechanics.  An NPC charms or dominates my character?  Cool - I can run with that.

But if the GM declares my PC's actions or thoughts by fiat then at that point I think (at least 98% of the time) I've probably got a bad GM.



> The character also has no surety that any action, even walking, won't require a roll or even outright fail.



As long as you-the-player retain control over declaring the attempted action, this doesn't conflict with what I said...though again it probably points to a bad GM unless there is in the fiction some difficulty in walking e.g. on an icy slope.



> The best the player can assuredly pick what they attempt - everything else is subject to GM approval.



And the player can decide what and how the character thinks, and what its emotions are, unless that control has been removed as above.



> I've chased away players in the past by using conditions upon their characters that reduced the player's choice drastically. 1 unintended, 2 others much intended. A fourth attempted, but the player enjoyed the challenge. ≤Sigh≥...
> 
> The thing is, if a GM wants to keep players, they don't take away agency (control over the character) too easily nor too often, but the social contract of rules implies (at least in most Traditional table top RPGs) that there are 3 portions of control over a character - the player's, the GM, and the mechanics.



To me the latter two of those three are concatenated: the GM gains control only when the mechanics allow her to.

The exception, of course, arises if a player is absent but that player's PC is still being played (e.g. it just doesn't make in-fiction sense to have that PC disappear for a while).  Some GMs take over the PC as an NPC in those cases, others (like us) give the missing player's PC to another player - or a committee of the whole table - to look after.



			
				Ovinomancer said:
			
		

> How do you have a baseline of doing something one way so that you can talk about doing it another way? Take cooking, for instance. If the baseline is using the oven, because that's the most popular, is it worthwhile to have to refer to using an oven every time you want to talk about microwaving? No, you just talk about microwaving and skip referencing everything to the oven because how you do things in the oven is utterly useless when talking about the microwave.



Not quite, in fact.

If someone's baseline familiarity is cooking with an oven, when talking about microwaving you're going to want to frequently reference the oven as a point of comparison in order to give what you're saying a context that makes sense to the listener.


----------



## generic

pemerton said:


> In your case, you seem to know both BW and D&D, which are the two systems I referenced in the post of mine that you quoted. Do you have any thoughts about this mind flayer and false memories example that might draw on either of the systems?
> 
> Or if you want to engage it by reference to another system, that would be interesting too!




I'm not familiar wiht the example in question, mind elucidating it for me?


----------



## generic

pemerton said:


> In your case, you seem to know both BW and D&D, which are the two systems I referenced in the post of mine that you quoted. Do you have any thoughts about this mind flayer and false memories example that might draw on either of the systems?
> 
> Or if you want to engage it by reference to another system, that would be interesting too!




I'm not familiar with the example in question, what page was this on?


----------



## Lanefan

pemerton said:


> By my count, there are only three recurrent posters in this thread who make D&D the baseline assumption: [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION], [MENTION=6795602]FrogReaver[/MENTION] and [MENTION=23751]Maxperson[/MENTION].
> 
> I'm not interested in talking primarily about D&D. It's not a system I'm playing at the moment, and I doubt think that focusing on it is going to shed any particular light on the questions raised in the OP or subsequently in the thread. If you think that there is some aspect of D&D mechanics or play that _will_ help address those questions, then by all means post it.



Even though this thread's in 'General RPG', given that historically D&D has represented more or less 80% of the RPG market and player base (and still does) talking primarily about anything else is going to quickly send much of the potential readership off elsewhere.

Using other systems for comparison is great.  Ignoring the primary system, however, seems a bit foolish.



> This is an interesting question - in general, and about D&D play: To what extent is the GM permitted to rewrite player-authored PC backstory by drawing upon a combination of (i) situation and stakes and (ii) failed checks.



Good question.

To me I'd say it comes down to whether or not the player has already come up wth a viable backstory.  If yes, I'd say the GM (and by extension the game) is largely expected to leave it intact - or at least not subtract from it or overly alter it - though nothing stops her from adding to it in ways consistent with what's already there.  For example, if in my character's backstory I have her serving a tour of duty with the 14th Legion before she started adventuring (assuming such makes sense in the setting) then the serving of that tour is locked in; but the GM is free to fill in details of what her unit did during that time, what her commanders and-or inferiors were like, what the general troop morale was, and so forth.

But if the player hasn't come up with a backstory, or only the most bare-bones verison of one - a common enough case in old-school D&D where characters weren't always expected to last very long - then the GM is free to fill in any level of details as needed.  Some players even prefer this, and are quite willing to trust the GM to fill in those blanks if and when required for the story.


----------



## pemerton

Aebir-Toril said:


> I'm not familiar wiht the example in question, mind elucidating it for me?



Reposted:



Ovinomancer said:


> a player that has a backstory as a mind-flayer thrall and has staked his lack of recollection of his past as at risk met with a mind flayer.  The mind flayer proposed that what the player thought their memories were are false memories, and that, instead, there's something about the character that caused him to be recruited rather than enslaved.  That the character was a dangerous tool that the elder brain thought it could control.  Is this true?  I don't know, maybe.  That really depends on how the player chooses to interact with it.  So far, the player has chosen to enter into a temporary agreement for mutual benefit (the mind flayer wishes to disrupt some plans of the player's former masters -- different mind flayer factions at play here), but not to trust the mind flayer.  Meanwhile, I've planted seeds of doubt, as what the mind flayer has said may come true.  But, again, because D&D, it's the player that will decide if his character is swayed or not.
> 
> If I were playing a different game, then the stakes of the player's background would have been directly challenged, and, if the player lost, I'd have been able to establish alternate truths that the player would then have to engage with.





pemerton said:


> This is an interesting question - in general, and about D&D play: To what extent is the GM permitted to rewrite player-authored PC backstory by drawing upon a combination of (i) situation and stakes and (ii) failed checks.
> 
> In BW (for instance) I think this is fair game. The only version of D&D I can think of able to handle this is 4e. I don't really see how it would be done in AD&D. And from what your saying it's not really feasible in 5e.


----------



## pemerton

Lanefan said:


> Even though this thread's in 'General RPG', given that historically D&D has represented more or less 80% of the RPG market and player base (and still does) talking primarily about anything else is going to quickly send much of the potential readership off elsewhere.
> 
> Using other systems for comparison is great.  Ignoring the primary system, however, seems a bit foolish.



I believe many more people have watched The Avengers than have watched The Seventh Seal. But that doesn't mean that every time I want to talk about the latter I talk about the former instead or as well.

If people who only want to talk about D&D, or who have no interest in talking or reading about how other systems do things, don't want to participate in this thread, that's a risk I'm prepared to take. I'm posting on a discussion board, not producing a community information notice.


----------



## aramis erak

Lanefan said:


> This to me is a false premise, in that not all (or even all that many) challenges need only have two clear mutually-exclusive outcomes to still be defined as challenges.  Outcomes often run on a scale, with highly-desireable at one end and highly-undesireable at the other and a whole lot of other options in between.
> 
> Which is fine provided it's done within the framework of the game mechanics.  An NPC charms or dominates my character?  Cool - I can run with that.
> 
> But if the GM declares my PC's actions or thoughts by fiat then at that point I think (at least 98% of the time) I've probably got a bad GM.



True enough, but they are still operating within the rules of many RPGs, due to the ability to change the rules on a whim.


Lanefan said:


> As long as you-the-player retain control over declaring the attempted action, this doesn't conflict with what I said...though again it probably points to a bad GM unless there is in the fiction some difficulty in walking e.g. on an icy slope.
> 
> And the player can decide what and how the character thinks, and what its emotions are, unless that control has been removed as above.
> 
> To me the latter two of those three are concatenated: the GM gains control only when the mechanics allow her to.




THe default for many games, "The GM can change the rules on a whim,"  (not quite word for word, but expressed cogently in AD&D, both editions) means that the GM can literally justify any imposition. The only firm rule in AD&D is that the GM can alter the rules as they see fit.

I much prefer Burning Wheel's Rule 0... "Don't be a dick." (word for word.) Which said, BW is explicit about the attempt portion; it also requires players to state the method and the intent... at least outside combat...  and to agree before rolling on the outcome.


----------



## Lanefan

aramis erak said:


> True enough, but they are still operating within the rules of many RPGs, due to the ability to change the rules on a whim.
> 
> THe default for many games, "The GM can change the rules on a whim,"  (not quite word for word, but expressed cogently in AD&D, both editions) means that the GM can literally justify any imposition. The only firm rule in AD&D is that the GM can alter the rules as they see fit.



Technically true, though the 1e DMG also in various places says - in flowery Gygaxian prose, of course - the much-more-to-the-point Burning Wheel edict you quote below.

It also suggests (more than once, I think!) that rule changes be carefully thought through before implementation, wich rather goes against the notion of changing rules on a whim.



> I much prefer Burning Wheel's Rule 0... "Don't be a dick." (word for word.) Which said, BW is explicit about the attempt portion; it also requires players to state the method and the intent... at least outside combat...  and to agree before rolling on the outcome.



In general this is fine - 'don't be a dick' sums up about ten pages of the 1e DMG into 4 words. 

The only problem I have with the rest as an overarching rule is that it by forcing agreement on possible outcomes before rolling it straitjackets the GM (and the player, to some extent) into a much narrower field of possible results, particularly on a success.  Most of the time this won't matter - the action and intent and possible outcomes are rather obvious - but sometimes it's nice to be able to introduce a success outcome that isn't necessarily what the player/PC had in mind.  A simple (and probably not stellar) example of such:

_Player: I carefully open the desk drawer and, disturbing as little as I can, search for any financial records that might help prove the Duke is receiving payments from Southtor (an enemy state). (GM nods; player rolls well into the success range)
GM: Well, there don't appear to be any financial records or ledgers here at all but in a corner of the drawer you do find a seal and some wax; and the pattern on the seal is the twin dragons of Southtor._

So, search for one thing, find another just as good that the GM introduced just for fun.


----------



## Guest 6801328

For the record, I'm ok with a GM editing my backstory.  Or telling me my memories of it were implanted.  Or whatever.  The GM is allowed to tell me what happened to...what was imposed externally on...my character.
_
Just don't try to tell me how my character feels about it._


----------



## Tony Vargas

Ovinomancer said:


> This is why the baseline argument fails -- D&D is a specific model, not a general one.  You can't logically argue from the specific to the general.  This is amplified in cases where the model is of poor skill, such as D&D and social skills.  As I said before, the D&D way is akready endlessly argued from within the ruleset, so hiw can it be an effective model for general discussion.



It's Sisyphean, but starting with the familiar concepts of D&D, and explaining the broader alternatives in those terms, would be using it as a baseline, but not assuming it as the only thing. 

Maybe?



> This, frankly, smells of "but if you just agree with me upfront, you'll see that you agree with me."



There's some of that in "if you'd just master this other system and accept it's paradigm, you'd understand..."  



pemerton said:


> This is an interesting question - in general, and about D&D play: To what extent is the GM permitted to rewrite player-authored PC backstory *by drawing upon a combination of (i) situation and stakes and (ii) failed checks.*
> In BW (for instance) I think this is fair game. The only version of D&D I can think of able to handle this is 4e. I don't really see how it would be done in AD&D. And from what your saying it's not really feasible in 5e.



Yeah, I can't see it by those mechanisms.  Arbitrarily, though, sure.  Your character could always believe he was the son of a navigator on a spice freighter, only to find out later...



Ovinomancer said:


> I think that the default for D&D is that the GM can ask the player for a change to the mental state of the PC.  I think this is important to D&D because the GM enjoys broad authority to directly change the PC's physical state, and has control over the fictional positioning at all times.  Therefore, this narrow player authority is both important and essentially the third rail of D&D.



This feels like kinda a new idea to me.  In the WotC era, until 5e, the privilege of the DM was being challenged. In 5e, it's restored.

So I can see how, from other WotC eds, to 5e, the idea might have evolved that the agency left to the player is decisions, and that implies 'mental state' (except magic, as always), and that must be sacred, because it's the last little sliver of agency they have left...

But, IMX of old-school D&D, the DM would often feel fine trampling all over your character's backstory, mental state, decisions and whatever else.  You have an alignment, you must act accordingly.  You're an Elf, you have to hate orcs.  You would never use that, because of your class.  Etc...

Agency?  If you want to work for "The Agency" play Top Secret.



> I agree 4e opened the door through the vague nature of skill challenges to alter this, both by giving players the ability to encroach into fictional authorities and the GM into PC mental authorities.



Any number of class and monster powers also did that sort of thing in little ways (often abstracted as something as simple as forced movement).


----------



## uzirath

Lanefan said:


> To me I'd say it comes down to whether or not the player has already come up wth a viable backstory.  If yes, I'd say the GM (and by extension the game) is largely expected to leave it intact - or at least not subtract from it or overly alter it - though nothing stops her from adding to it in ways consistent with what's already there. For example, if in my character's backstory I have her serving a tour of duty with the 14th Legion before she started adventuring (assuming such makes sense in the setting) then the serving of that tour is locked in; but the GM is free to fill in details of what her unit did during that time, what her commanders and-or inferiors were like, what the general troop morale was, and so forth.
> 
> But if the player hasn't come up with a backstory, or only the most bare-bones version of one - a common enough case in old-school D&D where characters weren't always expected to last very long - then the GM is free to fill in any level of details as needed.  Some players even prefer this, and are quite willing to trust the GM to fill in those blanks if and when required for the story.




This is congruent with the way most of my groups handle it. As GM, I wouldn't invalidate a character's preexisting (and pre-approved) backstory. Despite not playing much D&D these days, I still run games in the style of D&D in terms of player and GM roles. In GURPS, these sorts of things come up when characters succumb to disadvantages that create conflicts with their goals or other advantages or disadvantages. For example, a character's alcoholism might create a conflict with a patron or an ally or create an opening for an enemy, all of which have mechanical aspects. If one of these story elements created a situation where it might be cool to change the backstory (a false memory, etc.), I would consult with the player rather than impose it unilaterally. My groups (at least the mature, adult folks I game with, as opposed to children and teens) tend to be pretty collaborative about character stories, too. So it's common for other players to suggest new elements that are then woven in. It's not unheard of, either, for a player to declare it based on a die roll: "I'm going to make an IQ check... if I fail [or succeed, depending], I realize that my backstory has holes that don't make sense! Who am I, really?"


----------



## pemerton

Lanefan said:


> aramis erak said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> BW is explicit about the attempt portion; it also requires players to state the method and the intent... at least outside combat... and to agree before rolling on the outcome.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> The only problem I have with the rest as an overarching rule is that it by forcing agreement on possible outcomes before rolling it straitjackets the GM (and the player, to some extent) into a much narrower field of possible results, particularly on a success.  Most of the time this won't matter - the action and intent and possible outcomes are rather obvious - but sometimes it's nice to be able to introduce a success outcome that isn't necessarily what the player/PC had in mind.  A simple (and probably not stellar) example of such:
> 
> _Player: I carefully open the desk drawer and, disturbing as little as I can, search for any financial records that might help prove the Duke is receiving payments from Southtor (an enemy state). (GM nods; player rolls well into the success range)
> GM: Well, there don't appear to be any financial records or ledgers here at all but in a corner of the drawer you do find a seal and some wax; and the pattern on the seal is the twin dragons of Southtor._
> 
> So, search for one thing, find another just as good that the GM introduced just for fun.
Click to expand...


Your example doesn't show any narrowing of possible results. The scenario you describe is a possible failure narration; and it could be a success narration if that is what the player decides his/her PC searches for.


----------



## Hussar

pemerton said:


> Your example doesn't show any narrowing of possible results. The scenario you describe is a possible failure narration; and it could be a success narration if that is what the player decides his/her PC searches for.




But, what it cannot be is a success narration if the player decided that is not what the PC searches for.  IOW, [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION]'s point about narrowing possible resolutions does stand.  A success can only be what the player decides.


----------



## pemerton

[MENTION=22779]Hussar[/MENTION], [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION] - if _narrowing of possible resolutions_ = _the GM being bound by the results of checks_, than sure, any system other than "GM decides" will have that consequence.

But unless the dice are rigged then fails are possible, in which case fail scenarios are possible resolutions, and there is no narrowing of the range of possible resolution.


----------



## Umbran

pemerton said:


> [MENTION=22779]
> But unless the dice are rigged then fails are possible, in which case fail scenarios are possible resolutions, and there is no narrowing of the range of possible resolution.




What part of "particularly _on a success_" didn't connect for you?  Your response to that is to note that the _failure_ case is always infinite, so there's no narrowing at all?  Really?


----------



## Lanefan

pemerton said:


> [MENTION=22779]Hussar[/MENTION], [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION] - if _narrowing of possible resolutions_ = _the GM being bound by the results of checks_, than sure, any system other than "GM decides" will have that consequence.



Not quite, in my view.

When the roll shows 'success' the GM is bound by that to narrate a successul outcome...of some sort.  This successful outcome doesn't (or at least IMO shouldn't) necessarily have to directly match what the player had in mind* as long as the narration reflects an overall success for the PC.

My example above, though not the best, tries to show this: the search doesn't find the incriminating financial records the PC was looking for but does find something else that's every bit as incriminating: the Southtor seal, which no loyal noble would normally have anything to do with.  Specific goal of finding financial records: not met.  Overall goal of finding incriminating evidence agains tthe Duke: met in spades.

* - though most often it will anyway, as much of the time the success-failure outcomes of a given action are fairly obvious.



> But unless the dice are rigged then fails are possible, in which case fail scenarios are possible resolutions, and there is no narrowing of the range of possible resolution.



This gets back to our old argument regarding what 'failure' represents; here you'd have a failure just become a different type of success, which isn't a failure at all.


----------



## Ovinomancer

Lanefan said:


> Not quite, in my view.
> 
> When the roll shows 'success' the GM is bound by that to narrate a successul outcome...of some sort.  This successful outcome doesn't (or at least IMO shouldn't) necessarily have to directly match what the player had in mind* as long as the narration reflects an overall success for the PC.
> 
> My example above, though not the best, tries to show this: the search doesn't find the incriminating financial records the PC was looking for but does find something else that's every bit as incriminating: the Southtor seal, which no loyal noble would normally have anything to do with.  Specific goal of finding financial records: not met.  Overall goal of finding incriminating evidence agains tthe Duke: met in spades.
> 
> * - though most often it will anyway, as much of the time the success-failure outcomes of a given action are fairly obvious.
> 
> This gets back to our old argument regarding what 'failure' represents; here you'd have a failure just become a different type of success, which isn't a failure at all.




This goes right back to the OP where the question was about the difference between what your character does, as in proposes an action that the DM then determines the result of, or what you character does, as in you get to say the action and the outcome.  This is firmly in that former group, the thin declaration, whereby the player is essentially asking the GM to do something nice if they succeed at the mechanic (that the GM likely picks, and sets the parameters of).

to go back to your earlier example, you swapped out papers showing guilt for a seal that may show guilt.  Assuming that the result of the find aren't already in the GM's notes and the GM decides this at the moment, this is a weakening of the play the player does -- the GM is reducing the level of success to something that the player wasn't asking for.  Yet, it's presented as a good because it doesn't fetter the GM from softening outcomes like this and fettering the GM is... bad, I guess.  It's also presented as if the softening of outcome is a good as well -- that's it's cool to reduce the asked for success because the GM wants it that way.  This thinking, to me, goes hand in hand with structured GM stories that the players play through -- the GM is acting this way to protect their idea of what should happen rather than playing to find out.  It's a valid way to play, obviously, and popular, also obviously, but it really puts the entire load on the GM to run in a principled enough manner to keep players.  Judging by the many threads, this may not be the most common outcome.


----------



## chaochou

pemerton said:


> The most interesting thing for me at the moment - obviously I can't speak for others - is _what are the necessary conditions for a genuine challenge to character concept_? This is what @_*Ovinomancer*_ and I have disagreed about - I believe without undue acrimony! I would be very interested to hear what @_*Campbell*_, @_*chaochou*_ and/or @_*Aldarc*_ thinks about it, should they care to weigh in.




You want each player to have created for their character a number of clearly defined relationships, beliefs, allegiances, dependencies and responsibilities. The creation of these should, of itself, create the arena for the game's action. The 'world' is a backdrop, the crucible in which the players' creations spark into life.

Then you set the character's individual drives in opposition to each other, such that it's not possible to maintain or improve one element without cost or harm to another. You can also take each character's relationships, attitudes, allegiances, dependencies and responsibilities and set them in fractured alignment or semi-opposition of those of the other characters, to create a shifting, fluid situation of alliances and betrayals, ugly compromises, faustian pacts and devil's bargains.

Mechanically, the game has to support challenges which require clear, evident and binding stakes, the loss of which (by definition) force a reappraisal of relationships, attitudes, allegiances, dependencies or responsibilities in the event of failure. 

Values for these things, or points of their own humanity, bits of their soul, closeness to their ancestors - all these are very useful as currency for challenges. They act as a focus, and a catalyst for the creativity of the player to reappraise the character. And they allow other players to recognise, appreciate and enjoy the development of characters which are not their own.

Finally, I think a genuine challenge to the character is completely seperate from one which challenges the player. That's a red herring, a totally false equivalence. Ideally, the player is comfortable, relaxed and relishing the process of authoring the character as it burns, and the creativity it affords them.


----------



## FrogReaver

pemerton said:


> @_*Hussar*_, @_*Lanefan*_ - if _narrowing of possible resolutions_ = _the GM being bound by the results of checks_, than sure, any system other than "GM decides" will have that consequence.
> 
> But unless the dice are rigged then fails are possible, in which case fail scenarios are possible resolutions, and there is no narrowing of the range of possible resolution.




You are looking before the dice were ever rolled and saying see this system covers all possible resolutions.
The rest of us are looking at it after the dice are already rolled - and at that moment the range of possible resolutions are restricted.
But even in this belabored exchange, the more important point seems forgotten - that the GM typically has the power to call for a check or not call for a check and if he has that power then nothing is permitted that the GM doesn't permit.  Do some systems avoid giving the GM that level of control?  I'm sure some exist - but to what detriment?

But most importantly, the dice add nothing to my character conception (because as noted, every conceivable character possible in a dice based game is also possible without the dice), nor are they some divine tool which unlock the ability to challenge a PC (as if PC's cannot be challenged without dice or out of game randomization tools).  In fact one might ask, how can something we do in this world cause any challenge to a PC in a fictional world?  It seems far fetched to think that rolling dice in this world is the only way to challenge a PC in the fictional world no?  Or are challenges not real in our world?  Do we only misperceive them as challegnes when in fact they aren't because there's no god ordained dice roller for our universe?  Rant over!  

I mean it may even be fun to roll dice and they likely can be used to enhance the game part of an RPG, but all roleplay can be had without them.  In fact it should be obvious that dice and roleplaying are at odds - imagine a game that only ever used dice to determine everything about your character and everything they do and everything they think etc.  There is no room left to roleplay in that scenario.  That should make it obvious that the more you use the dice to determine the less room you have to roleplay.  Likewise the more the GM determines for you the less room you have to roleplay.

It seems to me these are obvious truths, or at least should be so.


----------



## Campbell

pemerton said:


> _What are the necessary conditions for a genuine challenge to character concept_? This is what @_*Ovinomancer*_ and I have disagreed about - I believe without undue acrimony! I would be very interested to hear what @_*Campbell*_, @_*chaochou*_ and/or @_*Aldarc*_ thinks about it, should they care to weigh in. (Of course it's their prerogative not to.) My own views on this are heavily influenced by a certain conception of GM role in terms of framing scenes that put players under pressure by putting things that matter to the PC at stake. I don't know Exalted at all except from Campbell's accounts in this and other threads; and my experience with PbtA games is fairly limited, although I know the rule sets for DW and AW fairly well.




I personally do not really care. I am not really interested in testing characters. I'm more interested in character exploration. Sometimes that means putting them through the crucible, but sometimes it does not. My own litmus test is if a scene will tell us something meaningful about a character. What's required is for everyone (GM included) to play with integrity and not put their creative vision above the shared narrative. I think it helps to have mechanics that help get us into the right head space for our characters. Here I prioritize emotional immersion over intellectual immersion. It also helps to have mechanics that have something to say because it helps ground us in the right mood and makes it easier for the tension to feel real in the moment.


----------



## Ovinomancer

FrogReaver said:


> You are looking before the dice were ever rolled and saying see this system covers all possible resolutions.
> The rest of us are looking at it after the dice are already rolled - and at that moment the range of possible resolutions are restricted.
> But even in this belabored exchange, the more important point seems forgotten - that the GM typically has the power to call for a check or not call for a check and if he has that power then nothing is permitted that the GM doesn't permit.  Do some systems avoid giving the GM that level of control?  I'm sure some exist - but to what detriment?



Wait, you're asking what detriment exists if you don't gate everything through the GM's approval?

I'm going to need to sit down awhile on that one.  I mean... but... really?  



> But most importantly, the dice add nothing to my character conception (because as noted, every conceivable character possible in a dice based game is also possible without the dice), nor are they some divine tool which unlock the ability to challenge a PC (as if PC's cannot be challenged without dice or out of game randomization tools).  In fact one might ask, how can something we do in this world cause any challenge to a PC in a fictional world?  It seems far fetched to think that rolling dice in this world is the only way to challenge a PC in the fictional world no?  Or are challenges not real in our world?  Do we only misperceive them as challegnes when in fact they aren't because there's no god ordained dice roller for our universe?  Rant over!
> 
> I mean it may even be fun to roll dice and they likely can be used to enhance the game part of an RPG, but all roleplay can be had without them.  In fact it should be obvious that dice and roleplaying are at odds - imagine a game that only ever used dice to determine everything about your character and everything they do and everything they think etc.  There is no room left to roleplay in that scenario.  That should make it obvious that the more you use the dice to determine the less room you have to roleplay.  Likewise the more the GM determines for you the less room you have to roleplay.
> 
> It seems to me these are obvious truths, or at least should be so.




This is, well, a bit philosophically confused.  I'll let [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] bring the big words, but you're doing a decent job pointing out that what happens in game is a fiction and therefore different from what happens in the real world.  You break up a bit when you assume that roleplaying a character has anything like the fidelity of being a Real Boy or that the roleplaying game can present a world as rich and uncertain as the real world.  The mechanics don't exist because dice are cool (but, you know, they are) but because of that lack of fidelity.  The game is a model of a world (fantastical, even) and, as such, it cannot be true to the real world.  Further, we are each our own island -- no man can know another and all that.  So, assuming that you, a person, can perfectly render a fictional character that is not you with any real fidelity is a bit silly-sounding.  We do our best, but for those cases where it's murky because of the lack of fidelity there are mechanics.

Otherwise, there's absolutely no need for any social mechanics in D&D -- no persuasion, no deception, no insight, heck, no Charm Person saving throws!  All of these things can be roleplayed, right, and roleplaying without dice is as faithful a rendering as possible because it uses the human decision machine, which never has a bias or agenda other than that of roleplaying the character to the fullest!  Ok, bit of snark there, but I really find this argument absolutely silly -- it's an attempt to lionize free-form roleplaying as the best form of role-playing.  And it's cool to do so, and all, but you've just said that kids playing cops-and-robbers are peak roleplayers because it's freeform.

And, all of that said, perhaps a player wishes to NOT be the sole arbiter and knower of their character, but might want to be occasionally surprised by this thing they're playing because that spurs them to even more imaginative levels by trying to reconcile the before and after of a change.  I know, heresy -- character concepts spring forth from the head of the slain GM fully formed and perfect.


----------



## Ovinomancer

Campbell said:


> I personally do not really care. I am not really interested in testing characters. I'm more interested in character exploration. Sometimes that means putting them through the crucible, but sometimes it does not. My own litmus test is if a scene will tell us something meaningful about a character. What's required is for everyone (GM included) to play with integrity and not put their creative vision above the shared narrative. I think it helps to have mechanics that help get us into the right head space for our characters. Here I prioritize emotional immersion over intellectual immersion. It also helps to have mechanics that have something to say because it helps ground us in the right mood and makes it easier for the tension to feel real in the moment.




I agree with this.  How a player makes a choice for the character can tell us something about that character without a challenge.  I've said this before -- choices are still good play, they just aren't challenges.  There's lots of tools in the box to get character out, but the nature of message boards is the hyper-focus on a point of disagreement until it looks like the whole point to begin with.


----------



## Campbell

I would hope this would be obvious, but a system which in no way constrains GM narration is offering nothing of value. It says nothing. Provides nothing. It has no teeth. If a die roll does not constrain GM narration what is the point except empty ritual?


----------



## Hussar

Campbell said:


> I would hope this would be obvious, but a system which in no way constrains GM narration is offering nothing of value. It says nothing. Provides nothing. It has no teeth. If a die roll does not constrain GM narration what is the point except empty ritual?




But, no one is saying that.

No one is saying that you can change a success into a failure.  What is being talked about is that if the Player defines success, then the GM cannot.  Which is a constraint on the game that some of us don't want.  

OTOH, it appears that Pemerton want's failure to always be some sort of success (fail forward) at all times.  Which again, is a restriction on the game that not all of us want.  Sometimes a failure is just that - a failure.  It's not required that the game forces the GM to always narrate in a certain fashion.


----------



## Manbearcat

pemerton said:


> I'm not sure about incentives.




Can you explain more what you mean about not being sure about incentives?  Not sure about incentives interfacing with the decision-tree in a moment of thematic choice?  Incentives that push back against the impetus to establish a win condition for a scene/arc or create extra obstacles to that win condition in exchange for advancement?  Something else?



pemerton said:


> When I read the Strike(!) I think of "intent and task" and failure narration in BW. Or the example from AW that I posted upthread. If the check fails, the GM is entitled to narrate the failure by imposing a new and unwanted description of the PC's action. But I don't think in any of the systems this could go as far as _you've fallen in love with the maiden_ unless that was the mere capstone to already-established fiction. More like _your eye is caught by the maiden's wink, and you fail to notice . . ._
> 
> When I read the DitV I think of the examples I've posted upthread about the paladin and Nightcrawler. At least as I recall it, there is no mechanic in DitV for making it true that (say) a PC loves another PC or an NPC. But it is quite possible to produce outcomes that the player didn't choose and that reveal the character as falling under a new unexpected description (eg _I'm a killer_). And these then provoke choice, reflection, crisis etc on the part of the PC as mediated through the player.




*Paragraph 1 Response:*

That makes sense as Strike (!) is basically a mash-up of Burning Wheel (mostly Mouse Guard), D&D 4e, and Apocalypse World.

Making a PC outright "Lovestruck" (a _Condition _that must be resolved) in Strike (!) as a _Twist _without any prior setup would almost surely run afoul of GM authority.  However, if a prior Conflict led to a _Complication _for a PC being captivated by an NPC, a _Twist With a Cost_ result on another related Conflict could easily have the result be a "Lovestruck" _Condition_.

*Paragraph 2 Response:*

Regarding Dogs and romantic love, its something that isn't very often a thematic focus (due to Dogs being teen/early 20s virgins devoted to and trained for being priests/justicars of The Faith).  Here is a quick excerpt of the only time it was relevant to a game I ran.

A PC from a troubled background had no family.  Due to this, a young girl named Tess Olsen made his coat for him.  Secretly, he was smitten by her and she by him.  In character creation, he had the (complicating at 2d4) Relationship with her; "When my service is done, I'm going to marry Tess Olsen."

The game featured multiple conflicts that were just him reading her received letters while he was on the road, me playing her desperation and his lovesickness and him playing his resolve and sense of duty.  My plays were basically him reading lines of the letter.  His plays were his reflections/visceral reactions after reading a sentence or two.

The Fallout effects of these conflicts were usually under 8 (being only d4 early on and you sum the two highest) so just short term effects, typically just subtracting 1 from the PC's Acuity or Heart for the next conflict (but which fed back into these future conflicts...and then Reflection on the ride to the next town and attendant PC change).

However, the Relationship dice and size with her increased over time, and eventually led to an "Itchy Trigger-finger" Trait d6 and higher Fallout with an 8+ result in one of those "Letter Conflicts" which changed their relationship permanently.  Eventually, he killed a man (an Idolater from the East who was soft-peddling paganism) in the street and it was related to that new Trait and short-term Fallout damage to his stats (forcing him to Escalate to guns).

The PC retired after that, disappearing during the night's camp, with a letter of regret left behind to his companions and a letter that he wished for them to give to Tess.


----------



## pemerton

Campbell said:


> I prioritize emotional immersion over intellectual immersion.



I agree with this. I use the phrase _inhabitation of the character_ to try and convey this idea.



chaochou said:


> I think a genuine challenge to the character is completely seperate from one which challenges the player. That's a red herring, a totally false equivalence. Ideally, the player is comfortable, relaxed and relishing the process of authoring the character as it burns, and the creativity it affords them.



I think, though, that some systems can be more demanding on the players than others, and challenging in that sense. To give examples: Prince Valiant and MHRP tend to be relatively light-hearted in the situations they throw up; whereas Burning Wheel (and I suspect Apocalypse World) can be much "heavier"/"deeper" (I'm not sure what the right word is).

Both are fun, but the latter is more likely to leave a participant feeling drained than is the former.


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## pemerton

Hussar said:


> it appears that Pemerton want's failure to always be some sort of success (fail forward) at all times.



I have neither said nor implied this.

All I said was that [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION]'s example, in which the PC doesn't achieve what the player hoped for, is not a success and hence might be a feasible failure narration.


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## Lanefan

pemerton said:


> I have neither said nor implied this.
> 
> All I said was that [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION]'s example, in which the PC doesn't achieve what the player hoped for, is not a success and hence might be a feasible failure narration.



Er...in my example the PC does achieve what she hoped for: she found incriminating evidence against the Duke.

That the evidence didn't take the exact form specified in the action declaration doesn't reduce the success, or turn it into a failure - and that's just my point: a roll of success gives success, but the GM should have some latitude to narrate what form that success takes if something workable other than the player's direct intent suggests itself: sometimes success can take many forms.  Ditto for a failure; the GM should have some latitude to narrate what form that failure takes other than just saying 'no'.

However, if a GM turns a success into a failure* or a failure into a success* with her narration she's not respecting the die roll.

* - a both-ways-at-once example would be in the search-the-drawer scenario the GM (on either a success or failure roll) narrates finding some love letters implying the Duke is having an affair; and whether I-as-GM already know those are there to be found or not I'd usually call for a second roll anyway in a situation like this: "While searching, do you happen to stumble onto anything else of interest?".


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## pemerton

Lanefan said:


> the GM should have some latitude to narrate what form that success takes if something workable other than the player's direct intent suggests itself



Why?



FrogReaver said:


> You are looking before the dice were ever rolled and saying see this system covers all possible resolutions.
> The rest of us are looking at it after the dice are already rolled - and at that moment the range of possible resolutions are restricted.



In a relatively traditional RPG a GM gets to establish a lot of fiction: much of the setting; many of the NPCs; the framing of many situations; the narration of failures; maybe other stuff too that I'm not thinking of at present.

What is the function of _successful checks_ if the GM also gets to establish what happens there too?



Lanefan said:


> in my example the PC does achieve what she hoped for: she found incriminating evidence against the Duke.
> 
> That the evidence didn't take the exact form specified in the action declaration doesn't reduce the success



I was just responding to what you posted:



Lanefan said:


> _Player: I carefully open the desk drawer and, disturbing as little as I can, search for any financial records that might help prove the Duke is receiving payments from Southtor (an enemy state). (GM nods; player rolls well into the success range)
> GM: Well, there don't appear to be any financial records or ledgers here at all_



In what you posted, the player declares an intent for his PC to find financial records containing information in the desk drawer. The GM narrates that the PC fails to find any such thing. I don't see how that counts as a success.

If the action declaration had been _I search the drawer for something that might incriminate the Duke_ then obviously we'd be having a different conversation.



FrogReaver said:


> the GM typically has the power to call for a check or not call for a check and if he has that power then nothing is permitted that the GM doesn't permit.  Do some systems avoid giving the GM that level of control?  I'm sure some exist - but to what detriment?



In some RPG systems certain actions declared by players automatically trigger checks. Insofar as players can declare those actions, they can thereby trigger the checks. Examples would include Classic Traveller, Rolemaster and PbtA games.

In some RPG systems the GM can say "yes" to an action declaration but otherwise - assuming that the action declaration isn't of something that violates the logic of the system or the genre r the fictional positioning - is obliged to call for a check. Examples include Burning Wheel and Marvel Heroic RP/Cortex+ Heroic.

I don't know of any RPG system in which the GM has the power to refuse to countenance an action declaration, although the declaration violates neither system nor genre nor fictional positioning, by both refusing to say "yes" and refusing to permit a check. In such a system, what is the function of the players?



FrogReaver said:


> how can something we do in this world cause any challenge to a PC in a fictional world?  It seems far fetched to think that rolling dice in this world is the only way to challenge a PC in the fictional world no?  Or are challenges not real in our world?  Do we only misperceive them as challegnes when in fact they aren't because there's no god ordained dice roller for our universe?
> 
> <snip>
> 
> it may even be fun to roll dice and they likely can be used to enhance the game part of an RPG, but all roleplay can be had without them.  In fact it should be obvious that dice and roleplaying are at odds - imagine a game that only ever used dice to determine everything about your character and everything they do and everything they think etc.  There is no room left to roleplay in that scenario.



The PCs in a RPG don't _really_ exist. They are elements in a fiction. That fiction is authored. Therefore whether or not the PCs are challenged is a result of authorship decisions taken in the real world. This is a significant difference from actual people in our actual world, who - subject to some theological speculation that I'll put to one side - are not authored entities "living" within an authored world.

Of course those authorship decisions which give rise to the fiction aren't typically part of the fiction. (Over the Edge is one RPG which is an exception to this - it allows for breaking the 4th wall. Maybe there are others too that I'm not familiar with.) So if we are talking about the imagined in-fiction causation then they don't figure. But if we're talking about what actually causes the fiction to have the content that it does, then we can't do that _except_ by referring to those authorship decisions.

Which brings us to the role of mechanics. I can't do any better on this than to quote Vincent Baker:

Roleplaying is negotiated imagination. In order for any thing to be true in game, all the participants in the game (players _and _GMs, if you've even got such things) have to understand and assent to it. When you're roleplaying, what you're doing is a) suggesting things that might be true in the game and then b) negotiating with the other participants to determine whether they're actually true or not. . . .

Mechanics might model the stuff of the game world, that's another topic, but they don't exist to do so. They exist to ease and constrain real-world social negotiation between the players at the table. That's their sole and crucial function.​
If the GM suggests that, as a result of the maiden winking, my PC is in love with her; and if I suggest that this is not so; then we have a disagrement as to what is actually true in the fiction. How do we resolve it? Via system. One possible system is _the GM is always right_. Another possible system is _the player is always right_. A third possible system is _they toss for it_. Rolling dice (be it a saving throw rolled by the player, a wink test rolled by the GM, or something else) is a more sophisticated version of that third possibility.

That's all. It neither increases nor reduces the amount of shared imagination taking place, and hence the amount of roleplaying. It does reduce the player's authorship authority compared to the second possible system. But even if one takes a fairly narrow definition of roleplaying that can hardly be relevant: actors play roles and typically they don't author the characters they are playing.

And for the curious who can't be bothered to follow the link, here is the whole of the Vincent Baker quote without ellision:

[sblock]Roleplaying is negotiated imagination. In order for any thing to be true in game, all the participants in the game (players _and _GMs, if you've even got such things) have to understand and assent to it. When you're roleplaying, what you're doing is a) suggesting things that might be true in the game and then b) negotiating with the other participants to determine whether they're actually true or not.

So you're sitting at the table and one player says, "[let's imagine that] an orc jumps out of the underbrush!"

What has to happen before the group agrees that, indeed, an orc jumps out of the underbrush?

1. Sometimes, not much at all. The right participant said it, at an appropriate moment, and everybody else just incorporates it smoothly into their imaginary picture of the situation. "An orc! Yikes! Battlestations!" This is how it usually is for participants with high ownership of whatever they're talking about: GMs describing the weather or the noncombat actions of NPCs, players saying what their characters are wearing or thinking.

2. Sometimes, a little bit more. "Really? An orc?" "Yeppers." "Huh, an orc. Well, okay." Sometimes the suggesting participant has to defend the suggestion: "Really, an orc this far into Elfland?" "Yeah, cuz this thing about her tribe..." "Okay, I guess that makes sense."

3. Sometimes, mechanics. "An orc? Only if you make your having-an-orc-show-up roll. Throw down!" "Rawk! 57!" "Dude, orc it is!" The thing to notice here is that the mechanics _serve the exact same purpose_ as the explanation about this thing about her tribe in point 2, which is to establish your credibility wrt the orc in question.

4. And sometimes, lots of mechanics and negotiation. Debate the likelihood of a lone orc in the underbrush way out here, make a having-an-orc-show-up roll, a having-an-orc-hide-in-the-underbrush roll, a having-the-orc-jump-out roll, argue about the modifiers for each of the rolls, get into a philosophical thing about the rules' modeling of orc-jump-out likelihood... all to establish one little thing. Wave a stick in a game store and every game you knock of the shelves will have a combat system that works like this.

(Plenty of suggestions at the game table don't get picked up by the group, or get revised and modified by the group before being accepted, all with the same range of time and attention spent negotiating.)

So look, you! Mechanics might model the stuff of the game world, that's another topic, but they don't exist to do so. They exist to ease and constrain real-world social negotiation between the players at the table. That's their sole and crucial function.[/sblock]


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## lowkey13

*Deleted by user*


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## Umbran

pemerton said:


> Why?




I say, slightly in jest, "I search the Duke's desk for a huge ancient red dragon...."  

Less in jest, I ask - what are we more interested in seeing - the players getting exactly what they ask for, or the players getting what they overall want?  Because they are not omniscient, and what they ask for may not actually be what they wanted, needed, or could best use.

There is a demonstrable effect in the software industry which generalizes - when you ask someone what their problem is, what they are more likely to tell you is not the problem, but their preferred solution.  That solution is generally either 1) the most common solution to similar problems or 2) the first solution that came to them when they had the problem, that's been rattling around in their head, so that their thinking is in a bit of a rut.  Neither case is innovative, nor necessarily a *good* solution to the problem at hand.

This is an important part about asking for the player's intent.  It isn't usually about asking for the players *detailed* goal, but for their *general* goal.  Do you want detailed financial paperwork with which to confront the Duke, or will any incriminating evidence do, such that you could pick the most interesting or effective evidence?


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## Ovinomancer

Umbran said:


> I say, slightly in jest, "I search the Duke's desk for a huge ancient red dragon...."
> 
> Less in jest, I ask - what are we more interested in seeing - the players getting exactly what they ask for, or the players getting what they overall want?  Because they are not omniscient, and what they ask for may not actually be what they wanted, needed, or could best use.
> 
> There is a demonstrable effect in the software industry which generalizes - when you ask someone what their problem is, what they are more likely to tell you is not the problem, but their preferred solution.  That solution is generally either 1) the most common solution to similar problems or 2) the first solution that came to them when they had the problem, that's been rattling around in their head, so that their thinking is in a bit of a rut.  Neither case is innovative, nor necessarily a *good* solution to the problem at hand.
> 
> This is an important part about asking for the player's intent.  It isn't usually about asking for the players *detailed* goal, but for their *general* goal.  Do you want detailed financial paperwork with which to confront the Duke, or will any incriminating evidence do, such that you could pick the most interesting or effective evidence?



Counter-point:  there's nothing preventing the asked for solution from being THE solution _in the fiction._  This is an important distiction from the real world.  In fiction, the solution is whatever we agree it is.  The real world, sadly, doesn't work this way.  As an engineer working with customer requirements, and the usually horrible state those are in, I see this all the time.  I have little interest dragging it into my games.

Then, from there, we need to determine how we arrive at that agreement.  Bob Says is a method, as is the player says, or we can use some form of mechanic.  This is the large point [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] is making.


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## Lanefan

pemerton said:


> Why?



For any number of reasons, some that you might like and some you might not:

 - to introduce new or unexpected elements to the fiction (whether pre-authored or generated on the fly)
 - to give the players (as their PCs) something new or different to think about; or to get them thinking a bit more outside the box
 - to, in the specific example given, point out there's more than one way to achieve the same ends



> In what you posted, the player declares an intent for his PC to find financial records containing information in the desk drawer. The GM narrates that the PC fails to find any such thing. I don't see how that counts as a success.



It counts as a success if you leave on the rest of the GM's narration which you conveniently snipped off, where incriminating evidence is found only in a different form than the player had in mind.

Otherwise the GM is very limited in what she can reply with: either yes, you find papers of the sort you're looking for (on success), or no you don't (on failure).  The GM can't introduce the seal or other incriminating evidence here on a failed roll as to do so would turn a failure into a success and thus disrespect the roll.



> If the action declaration had been _I search the drawer for something that might incriminate the Duke_ then obviously we'd be having a different conversation.



Where I simply look at the bigger goal (to incriminate the Duke) stated in the original declaration and base the success-fail narraton on that.  The specifics - papers vs seal - aren't much more than window dressing.



> In some RPG systems certain actions declared by players automatically trigger checks. Insofar as players can declare those actions, they can thereby trigger the checks. Examples would include Classic Traveller, Rolemaster and PbtA games.
> 
> In some RPG systems the GM can say "yes" to an action declaration but otherwise - assuming that the action declaration isn't of something that violates the logic of the system or the genre r the fictional positioning - is obliged to call for a check. Examples include Burning Wheel and Marvel Heroic RP/Cortex+ Heroic.



And irrespective of all of this, pretty much any action declaration by a player has to generate a response of some sort, almost always from the GM but occasionally from another player instead e.g. if the action declaration is "As Falstaffe has just been disarmed I try to pass him my spare mace while parrying against my own foe this round" the response would likely come - at some point - from Falstaffe's player.



> I don't know of any RPG system in which the GM has the power to refuse to countenance an action declaration, although the declaration violates neither system nor genre nor fictional positioning, by both refusing to say "yes" and refusing to permit a check. In such a system, what is the function of the players?



Easy counter-example here: instead of passing disarmed Falstaffe my spare mace my action declaration instead is "Aha!  Falstaffe is disarmed - now's my chance: I run him through while he's distracted searching for his sword".  Some GMs (who are not me) would smack this one down in a hurry...


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## Lanefan

Ovinomancer said:


> Counter-point:  there's nothing preventing the asked for solution from being THE solution _in the fiction._



Quite right, and most often it will be.

My point is simply to say that there's no good reason that it always *has* to be, hence my example of looking for one thing in the Duke's desk and finding another.


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## Ovinomancer

Lanefan said:


> Quite right, and most often it will be.
> 
> My point is simply to say that there's no good reason that it always *has* to be, hence my example of looking for one thing in the Duke's desk and finding another.



Yes, there is good reason -- to allow the player control over what happens on a success.  You may have a different preference, and that's fine, but there is a very good reason.  Coming from the D&D mindset, I can easily understand how this doesn't seem workable, but this is based on the thinking that it's the GM's story being uncovered by play.  Even in the sandbox play revolves around discovering the GM's built world.  So, in this, giving player's reign over what success neans doesnt work because outcomes must match the GM's prepared ideas (or, at least, be compatible with them for some spontenaety).

However, in a system where the player has authority over what success neabs, there are no such GM notes, or they are very malleable and shallow.  Play determines where things go.  To balance this, GM's have more control over PCs on a failure; control that is anathema to the weak player authority typified by D&D.

Again, I run 5e, 99% by the book.  I have a few bolt-ons (mostly downtime tweaks) but they are very minor.  I understand how 5e works -- that it is premised on thin action declarations, and so don't break the PC wall.  I also exercise the No to some PC actions.  This is how that system works, and so I don't fight it.  Play is about overcoming external dangers while having opportunities to decide who your character is.  But, I do not directly challenge the PC because 5e lacks any way to do this.

When I run BitD, though, who your PC is is as much at stake as the score.  I push hard on PCs.  Still mostly choices by players, but the occasional challenge makes for surprises all around the table.


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## Umbran

Ovinomancer said:


> Counter-point:  there's nothing preventing the asked for solution from being THE solution _in the fiction._




Broadly, that would depend upon what other parts of the fiction have already been determined.  Sometimes what the players ask for can become THE solution, and sometimes that would not be consistent with things already set in place.  I am often for not determining details unless/until you need them, specifically so you can flex for such things, but even if you only set any given detail at the moment it comes up, you eventually have a canon in which the past restricts what will plausibly reach the player's desired end.  

So, like, you want to incriminate the Duke.  You look for evidence of crooked finances.  You have forgotten that we have already determined that the Exchequer is in the Duke's pocket.  You can find the evidence of crooked finances, but they will not effectively incriminate the Duke!  That's a success on a very specific task, but a failure on the general intent.  



> Then, from there, we need to determine how we arrive at that agreement.  Bob Says is a method, as is the player says, or we can use some form of mechanic.  This is the large point [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] is making.




Yes.  And pemerton *asked* why a GM should have a bit of latitude in narrating results.  I am giving one class of reason - because sometimes what the player asks for, and what the player wants to achieve, are not well-aligned.   

I mean, if you have been working with engineering requests, you should understand the point of over-specifying:  "I want a thing that accomplishes X, and I want that thing to be precisely Y," is a requirement that is often very difficult to fulfill.  If we aren't in antagonistic stance between player and GM, then the GM is there in large part to help the player realize their cool stuff.  Over-specifying limits the GM's ability to help.  

Just as a customer is often well-served to allow an engineer or UX designer to figure out *how* a goal is reached, a player is often well-served to allow the GM to guide the specifics a bit.


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## chaochou

pemerton said:


> I think, though, that some systems can be more demanding on the players than others, and challenging in that sense. To give examples: Prince Valiant and MHRP tend to be relatively light-hearted in the situations they throw up; whereas Burning Wheel (and I suspect Apocalypse World) can be much "heavier"/"deeper" (I'm not sure what the right word is).
> 
> Both are fun, but the latter is more likely to leave a participant feeling drained than is the former.




I think some _games _can, but I don't know if that's a product of the system or the people. My Apocalypse World and Burning Wheel, FATE, Dogs... they all tend to the gritty and streetwise. It's why I want to run The Veil - cyberpunk is a natural genre for my style, and Gibson one of my favourite authors.

So my Prince Valiant might be a shade or two darker than yours, your Apocalypse World lighter than mine. I may push a character real hard at points where you'd ease off, and vice versa. But these are aesthetic choices.

Within that spectrum I maintain that it is important for players to feel relaxed, entertained, at ease. A creative experience can be a draining one, but it can just as easily be euphoric or invigorating.

Personally, I think these emotional responses are more about the authenticity brought by the players than anything system-specific. [MENTION=16586]Campbell[/MENTION] often talks about this quality of play, the integrity of the characterisation. I tend to assume it, but he's right to highlight the importance of it in character-driven play, which is where the challenge to character concept that you asked about is really located.


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## Umbran

chaochou said:


> Personally, I think these emotional responses are more about the authenticity brought by the players than anything system-specific.




I think that while a system in and of itself cannot produce such authenticity, it can certainly get in the way of it.  It can also likely encourage it - setting the players up in a good way to have such, to invite it.

Bluebeard's Bride (from Magpie Games), and Ten Candles (from Calvalry Games) come to mind in that sense - games designed to enable players to "have all the feels" as the young'uns these days would say.


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## pemerton

Umbran said:


> I say, slightly in jest, "I search the Duke's desk for a huge ancient red dragon...."



In one of my recent posts I referred to violations of genre, fictional positioning and system logic. In the Burning Wheel rulebooks Luke Crane makes the point by saying (something like) "no roll for beam weaponry in the duke's toilet".

But that is all about _vetoing_ or _refusing to entertain_ certain action declarations. [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION] was positing a _successful_ outcome.



Umbran said:


> what are we more interested in seeing - the players getting exactly what they ask for, or the players getting what they overall want?  Because they are not omniscient, and what they ask for may not actually be what they wanted, needed, or could best use.



As [MENTION=16814]Ovinomancer[/MENTION] has posted, this seems to assume that the fiction has a content that is independent of the players. But why would, or should, that be so?



Umbran said:


> There is a demonstrable effect in the software industry which generalizes - when you ask someone what their problem is, what they are more likely to tell you is not the problem, but their preferred solution.  That solution is generally either 1) the most common solution to similar problems or 2) the first solution that came to them when they had the problem, that's been rattling around in their head, so that their thinking is in a bit of a rut.  Neither case is innovative, nor necessarily a *good* solution to the problem at hand.



Why would the GM know any better than the players what is good for the fiction?



Lanefan said:


> For any number of reasons, some that you might like and some you might not:
> 
> - to introduce new or unexpected elements to the fiction (whether pre-authored or generated on the fly)
> - to give the players (as their PCs) something new or different to think about; or to get them thinking a bit more outside the box



But this can all be done on a failed check, or in framing new situations. Why does a _successful_ check also have to be a vehicle for this? What control are the players entitled to have over the fiction?



Lanefan said:


> - to, in the specific example given, point out there's more than one way to achieve the same ends



Couldn't the GM do this _before_ the action declaration is framed?

And why can the _players_ not make this point to the GM - they declare an action different from what the GM thought they might, thereby pointing out that there's more than one way to achieve the same end! Why does the GM's view of what might be interesting fiction take priority?



Lanefan said:


> It counts as a success if you leave on the rest of the GM's narration which you conveniently snipped off, where incriminating evidence is found only in a different form than the player had in mind.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> I simply look at the bigger goal (to incriminate the Duke) stated in the original declaration and base the success-fail narraton on that.  The specifics - papers vs seal - aren't much more than window dressing.[/qjuote]You yourself concede that it's nt success if one actualy takes seriously the expressed intent - to find financial records that incude certain entries. It's only success if you ignore that, and substitute some other, more generic intent. So what is the point of the action declaration being more detailed than _we look for evidence_ if the GM is going to interpret it as that?
> 
> Or to put it another way, what is the point of the players trying to introduce content into the fiction if the system treats it as mere "window-dressing"?
> 
> 
> 
> Lanefan said:
> 
> 
> 
> Otherwise the GM is very limited in what she can reply with: either yes, you find papers of the sort you're looking for (on success), or no you don't (on failure).  The GM can't introduce the seal or other incriminating evidence here on a failed roll as to do so would turn a failure into a success and thus disrespect the roll.[/
> 
> 
> 
> Lanefan said:
> 
> 
> 
> Otherwise the GM is very limited in what she can reply with: either yes, you find papers of the sort you're looking for (on success), or no you don't (on failure).  The GM can't introduce the seal or other incriminating evidence here on a failed roll as to do so would turn a failure into a success and thus disrespect the roll.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> But this is just begging the question. If the player wants to find financial records, and doesn't, that's a failure. What form the failure takes is a further thing.
> 
> You are simply substituting a different intent. On what basis?
> 
> Click to expand...
Click to expand...


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## Manbearcat

pemerton said:


> In one of my recent posts I referred to violations of genre, fictional positioning and system logic. In the Burning Wheel rulebooks Luke Crane makes the point by saying (something like) "no roll for beam weaponry in the duke's toilet".




Jim McGarva has a perfect catch-phrase for this sprinkled throughout the Strike (!) rulebook, which is basically a riposte to all of the stuff we heard about with genre-incoherent drift in 4e:

"DON'T DEMAND NONSENSE!"

One such quip is on fictional positioning and permissible action declarations:



> Strike(!) p 9
> It seems obvious, but I’d better write it down: you can’t make a declaration that contradicts previously established facts. Don’t demand nonsense!




If I'm running Dogs and the player thinks someone is under the thrall of demonic possession and wants to attempt to exorcise the supernatural force...great!  If they invoke Aboleths staring through the eyes of the poor soul from the void or a "Face-hugger" planted Xenomorph eggs in their stomach...then they're being dicks.

DON'T DEMAND NONSENSE


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## Ovinomancer

Umbran said:


> Broadly, that would depend upon what other parts of the fiction have already been determined.  Sometimes what the players ask for can become THE solution, and sometimes that would not be consistent with things already set in place.  I am often for not determining details unless/until you need them, specifically so you can flex for such things, but even if you only set any given detail at the moment it comes up, you eventually have a canon in which the past restricts what will plausibly reach the player's desired end.
> 
> So, like, you want to incriminate the Duke.  You look for evidence of crooked finances.  You have forgotten that we have already determined that the Exchequer is in the Duke's pocket.  You can find the evidence of crooked finances, but they will not effectively incriminate the Duke!  That's a success on a very specific task, but a failure on the general intent.



Well, yes, if you move the goalposts then the declaration violates established fiction.  Upthread it was clearly stated in regards to the player decides that prior fiction and genre logic both act as constraints.  I'm not sure what pointing out that if prior fiction prevents a declaration that it shouldn't happen like that really helps -- we're in agreement.



> Yes.  And pemerton *asked* why a GM should have a bit of latitude in narrating results.  I am giving one class of reason - because sometimes what the player asks for, and what the player wants to achieve, are not well-aligned.



And sometimes what the player asks for and what the GM gives them are not well-aligned.  This is an argument that's equally damaging to either side.



> I mean, if you have been working with engineering requests, you should understand the point of over-specifying:  "I want a thing that accomplishes X, and I want that thing to be precisely Y," is a requirement that is often very difficult to fulfill.  If we aren't in antagonistic stance between player and GM, then the GM is there in large part to help the player realize their cool stuff.  Over-specifying limits the GM's ability to help.



Well, yes, because, in the real world, there's schedule and cost to balance against.  In fiction, these things don't exist as actual constraints but rather as other elements of the fiction.  This argument is trying to say that because we're limited in the real world, how we author fiction should be similarly limited.  I mean, I don't follow how the player would proscribe their requirements and then the DM would do a lot of design work to achieve that, under some form of budget and schedule, rather than just say "yup, that's what happens."  Very confused by what point you're trying to drive here.



> Just as a customer is often well-served to allow an engineer or UX designer to figure out *how* a goal is reached, a player is often well-served to allow the GM to guide the specifics a bit.



Whoa.  Okay, you went there.  Let's unpack.  People go to engineers and designers because they have the expertise in difficult fields to accomplish things.  As an engineer, I'm hired because the customer can't do the work and needs my expertise.  To carry this forward into the end of your statement, you're saying that the GM is occupying this position of expertise in authoring actions in a fictional setting (likely) about pretend elves that the players lack, and that they should be seeking the more skilled, more adept GM's counsel on what outcomes they should expect from their actions?  

I'm going to have to violently disagree with you.  The rules of the board are definitely tempering the response I'd like to give to this idea.


----------



## FrogReaver

pemerton said:


> What is the function of _successful checks_ if the GM also gets to establish what happens there too?




First let's be clear.  No one is advocating that a GM turn a successful check into a failure.  What is being suggested is that just like there are multiple states of failure there are also multiple states of success.  

A simple counter-example to establish this point.  Suppose a player says, "I search the room for 1000 gold".  He rolls a 1.  Do you really consider a possible fail state in this example to be "you find a ruby worth 1000gp"?  If you think that's a valid failure narration then you stand alone.  

So then with it established that there are multiple success states, why would a DM pick the one that a player didn't specifically request.  A few possibilities:
1.  His chosen success may move the story further along at some later point in time.
2.  His chosen success may not interfere with already established fiction wheras the players precise request could.
3.  It saves time.  If the player asks to find 1000 gold and you say you don't and then he follows up with what do I find and you make him roll and tell him it was a 1000gp worth ruby anyways, then there was no fictional need for that additional exchange.

There's countless other reasons to still fulfill the players intent but slightly alter their specified outcome.



> The PCs in a RPG don't _really_ exist. They are elements in a fiction. That fiction is authored. Therefore whether or not the PCs are challenged is a result of authorship decisions taken in the real world.




So let's start in a simple test case.  Can a single fantasy author write a story about a character that is legitimately challenged?  Does he need dice to do so?

It's apparent the answer is he can do so without dice.  In fact all it takes for him to create a character that is challenged in the fiction is for him to imagine that is the case and to write it down.  How can that be?



> This is a significant difference from actual people in our actual world, who - subject to some theological speculation that I'll put to one side - are not authored entities "living" within an authored world.




Of course we are different.  Do you think anyone is asserting that fictional characters and real people are exactly the same in all the same exact ways?  There's a reason we call them fictional characters and real people for crying out loud.

But pointing that out doesn't point out that there is a difference in the requirements of a fictional challenge in a fictional world and a real challenge in the real world (besides the obvious real vs fictional part).  So then I come back around, there is no god ordained dice roller in the universe and we have challenges all the same.  Why then do you believe that a fictional world requires a god ordained dice roller in order for the fictional character to face challenges in that fictional world?  

You see, the basis for my  claim is simple, anything that can be in the real world is also possible in a fictional world.  Therefore, because the real world doesn't require dice rollers to produce challenges then a fictional world doesn't either.  What's the basis for your claim otherwise?



> Of course those authorship decisions which give rise to the fiction aren't typically part of the fiction. (Over the Edge is one RPG which is an exception to this - it allows for breaking the 4th wall. Maybe there are others too that I'm not familiar with.) So if we are talking about the imagined in-fiction causation then they don't figure. But if we're talking about what actually causes the fiction to have the content that it does, then we can't do that _except_ by referring to those authorship decisions.




Sure, but a fictional character can only be challenged by fictional things.  Dice are not part of the fiction.  They by nature can't cause a PC to be challenged.  The dice may dictate to the author of said fiction to introduce a challenge to the character, but the dice themselves have no part in the fiction.  Only in the authorship of said fiction.



> Which brings us to the role of mechanics. I can't do any better on this than to quote Vincent Baker:
> Roleplaying is negotiated imagination. In order for any thing to be true in game, all the participants in the game (players _and _GMs, if you've even got such things) have to understand and assent to it. When you're roleplaying, what you're doing is a) suggesting things that might be true in the game and then b) negotiating with the other participants to determine whether they're actually true or not. . . .​





If that's your definition of roleplaying then I don't think it applies to D&D.  Players in D&D simply state attempted actions - they don't suggest things that might be true.  They simply state attempted actions.  They don't negotiate with the other participants to determine their truth.  They have predetermined that the DM will be sole arbitrator of what's true in the game.



> Mechanics might model the stuff of the game world, that's another topic, but they don't exist to do so. They exist to ease and constrain real-world social negotiation between the players at the table. That's their sole and crucial function.




But you don't actually need to constrain the real-world social negotiation between players and the table...  (unless you refer to appointing a DM to preside over the game as a mechanic - which seems a bit specious IMO, but at least could possibly fit).  In short - your stated function of mechanics is redundant.​


> If the GM suggests that, as a result of the maiden winking, my PC is in love with her; and if I suggest that this is not so; then we have a disagrement as to what is actually true in the fiction. How do we resolve it? Via system.




Going back to your limited, D&D exclusionary, definition of roleplay sure.  To a more broad and inclusive definition of roleplaying, doing that would constitute a moment when the DM is removing your ability to roleplay your character - which for a role playing game needs to be treaded lightly.  Thus you may see mechanics involved in such situations to make the non-roleplaying aspects be more palatable.  



> One possible system is _the GM is always right_.




All other roleplaying systems yield inferior roleplaying to this (although they may make much better games overall)



> Another possible system is _the player is always right_.




If you have multiple players then this system doesn't even work.



> A third possible system is _they toss for it_. Rolling dice (be it a saving throw rolled by the player, a wink test rolled by the GM, or something else) is a more sophisticated version of that third possibility.




Someone always has to determine when to roll dice.



> That's all. It neither increases nor reduces the amount of shared imagination taking place, and hence the amount of roleplaying.




That's because you are using a flawed definition of roleplaying.



> It does reduce the player's authorship authority compared to the second possible system.




We are in agreement with this statement.



> But even if one takes a fairly narrow definition of roleplaying that can hardly be relevant: actors play roles and typically they don't author the characters they are playing.




Acting is not roleplaying.


----------



## Campbell

In some game no one gets to decide if a mechanic is invoked or not. In Apocalypse World if a character attempts to do something in the fiction that triggers a move the mechanics must be applied. One of the things a GM must always say is *Always Say What the Rules Demand*.


----------



## FrogReaver

Campbell said:


> In some game no one gets to decide if a mechanic is invoked or not. In Apocalypse World if a character attempts to do something in the fiction that triggers a move the mechanics must be applied. One of the things a GM must always say is *Always Say What the Rules Demand*.




are there never disagreements or difference of opinion about when the rules say to roll?


----------



## Campbell

[MENTION=6795602]FrogReaver[/MENTION]

I think you are starting from a faulty premise. You are assuming that game mechanics cannot meaningfully contribute to play despite having no direct experience of games where the rules are meant to supplement role play. We play these games because we value what they have to say about human nature and how people interact with each other. They help us form mental models of who our characters really are and how they think and feel. They help us get away from the tactical mindset encouraged by games like D&D and help resolve the barrier between smart play and authentic play. I can tell you that I feel like I have had more authentic and immersive experiences playing games like Blades in the Dark, Masks, Monsterhearts and Apocalypse World than I ever have with Dungeons and Dragons. Part of that was our commitment to the characters. Part of it was the lack of certain D&D cultural features. I think the mechanics contributed a great deal.


----------



## Ovinomancer

FrogReaver said:


> First let's be clear.  No one is advocating that a GM turn a successful check into a failure.  What is being suggested is that just like there are multiple states of failure there are also multiple states of success.
> 
> A simple counter-example to establish this point.  Suppose a player says, "I search the room for 1000 gold".  He rolls a 1.  Do you really consider a possible fail state in this example to be "you find a ruby worth 1000gp"?  If you think that's a valid failure narration then you stand alone.



Yes.  That you don't see a way is somewhat telling.

The ruby is cursed.  The ruby belongs to a powerful entity who now declares enmity.  The ruby.... so many ways to make finding exactly what the player wanted into something that the character suffers for.



> So then with it established that there are multiple success states, why would a DM pick the one that a player didn't specifically request.  A few possibilities:
> 1.  His chosen success may move the story further along at some later point in time.
> 2.  His chosen success may not interfere with already established fiction wheras the players precise request could.
> 3.  It saves time.  If the player asks to find 1000 gold and you say you don't and then he follows up with what do I find and you make him roll and tell him it was a 1000gp worth ruby anyways, then there was no fictional need for that additional exchange.
> 
> There's countless other reasons to still fulfill the players intent but slightly alter their specified outcome.



1. applies only to stories the GM has already written down.
2. nope, this is already a caveat that player outcomes cannot violate previously establish fiction or genre logic.
3. Huh?



> So let's start in a simple test case.  Can a single fantasy author write a story about a character that is legitimately challenged?  Does he need dice to do so?
> 
> It's apparent the answer is he can do so without dice.  In fact all it takes for him to create a character that is challenged in the fiction is for him to imagine that is the case and to write it down.  How can that be?



You've moved the goalposts from "challenging the player's characterization of the fictional character" to "imagine a fictional challenge the fictional character overcomes in the fiction."  The latter is true -- there's a fictional challenge that is overcome if the character fights and defeats an orc.  The former is not true in the above because the author retains full control over the story and character throughout.




> Of course we are different.  Do you think anyone is asserting that fictional characters and real people are exactly the same in all the same exact ways?  There's a reason we call them fictional characters and real people for crying out loud.
> 
> But pointing that out doesn't point out that there is a difference in the requirements of a fictional challenge in a fictional world and a real challenge in the real world (besides the obvious real vs fictional part).  So then I come back around, there is no god ordained dice roller in the universe and we have challenges all the same.  Why then do you believe that a fictional world requires a god ordained dice roller in order for the fictional character to face challenges in that fictional world?
> 
> You see, the basis for my  claim is simple, anything that can be in the real world is also possible in a fictional world.  Therefore, because the real world doesn't require dice rollers to produce challenges then a fictional world doesn't either.  What's the basis for your claim otherwise?




Oh my.  There's no difference in challenges between the real and the fictional except for those dealing with the difference between real and fictional.  I'm glad that's out of the way -- imagine the confusion one might have!

And, you're banging on about dice being required when no one's made that argument.  The argument has been for a mechanic, which can be a broad spectrum of things which, granted, dice occupy a large chunk of.  The big thing here is that the decision is out of the player's hands for it to be a challenge.  If the player retains all power and authority, then there's no challenge -- the player is just picking their favorite color at the moment.



> Sure, but a fictional character can only be challenged by fictional things.  Dice are not part of the fiction.  They by nature can't cause a PC to be challenged.  The dice may dictate to the author of said fiction to introduce a challenge to the character, but the dice themselves have no part in the fiction.  Only in the authorship of said fiction.



This isn't true, though.  The fiction does not exist without a real world person making real world choices.  If we're talking about challenging the characterization that the real world person is using to roleplay the character, then this must take part, in some measure, in the real world as it involves the real person having to accept a change in character and then roleplay accordingly.




> If that's your definition of roleplaying then I don't think it applies to D&D.  Players in D&D simply state attempted actions - they don't suggest things that might be true.  They simply state attempted actions.  They don't negotiate with the other participants to determine their truth.  They have predetermined that the DM will be sole arbitrator of what's true in the game.




Really?  Let's look at searching for traps.  Doesn't this mean the player is advancing that if there are traps here, I will find them?  And then the negotiation takes places, usually with a call for a check, the result of which determines if the truth statement is correct or false -- you find the traps or you do not.  This is even further advanced by the GM's notes -- there may not be any traps in which case the negotiation is the GM says you don't find traps.

The trick here is that you need to view the play in a new light instead of rejecting it outright.  Doing so shouldn't change your opinions or preferences -- it's just a new vantage point on the same stuff.  You don't lose if you see it.



> But you don't actually need to constrain the real-world social negotiation between players and the table...  (unless you refer to appointing a DM to preside over the game as a mechanic - which seems a bit specious IMO, but at least could possibly fit).  In short - your stated function of mechanics is redundant.



Oh, absolutely you do.  The very concept of a game is a constraint on the players of that game.  How you constrain play is the very function of the rules of a game, and leads very much to the nature of play that game entails.  Claiming no constraints are needed is going back to saying that everything should be cops-and-robbers, only even more chaotic.





> Going back to your limited, D&D exclusionary, definition of roleplay sure.  To a more broad and inclusive definition of roleplaying, doing that would constitute a moment when the DM is removing your ability to roleplay your character - which for a role playing game needs to be treaded lightly.  Thus you may see mechanics involved in such situations to make the non-roleplaying aspects be more palatable.



Nope, you're incorrect.  D&D isn't excluded in this framework.  Recall I enjoy running D&D, so there's no animosity or attempt to subvert D&D in saying this.  Constraints on play vary by system.  Here, you're taking an example of how a constrain might look in some arbitrary system and rejecting the entire concept because the example doesn't fit your narrow experience.  Relax.

Here it is in D&D.  The GM establishes that there's an unseen threat (truth statement).  The player declares an action to find the unseen threat (modifying truth statement).  The negotiation goes to the D&D bog standard -- GM says (going to the system).  Here, GM says a check is warranted (going to the system).  The result will determine if the GM's original truth statement holds (threat is unseen) or the player's truth statement holds (character finds threat).




> All other roleplaying systems yield inferior roleplaying to this (although they may make much better games overall)



You've previously admitted your ignorance on the play of other systems, yet you continue to display it by defining superior play as only how you play.  It's a bit sad, really.




> If you have multiple players then this system doesn't even work.



It does, actually, with the proper constraints.




> Someone always has to determine when to roll dice.



Many systems do this in a very structured way.  Say Yes or Roll the Dice, for instance, means the player always gets their action (and outcome) until challenged, at which time dice must be rolled.  Or, in PbtA, if you do something that looks like a move, it's a move and dice are rolled.  Moves are pretty clearly defined.




> That's because you are using a flawed definition of roleplaying.



Irony!



> We are in agreement with this statement.
> 
> 
> 
> Acting is not roleplaying.



Um, yes, yes it is.  Definitionally.  Roleplaying is broader than this, so acting is sufficient but not necessary to roleplaying (this means that it's definitely roleplaying, but not required for roleplaying).  

You've spent so much energy trying to define things so that they describe you rather than trying to figure out what out there already does.  You don't lose if there are other, equally valid ways to roleplay, or if other systems do things you don't like, or if other systems do some things better than the system you prefer.  It's not zero sum.  Yet, here you are, admittedly ignorant of other options and absent critical experiences, trying to make this a zero sum game defined in a way that you win.  Maybe, try not trying to win but to understand that there are deeper thoughts about how games work that can, without changing your preference one iota, still help you make your game better?


----------



## Manbearcat

Ovinomancer said:


> Yes.  That you don't see a way is somewhat telling.
> 
> The ruby is cursed.  The ruby belongs to a powerful entity who now declares enmity.  The ruby.... so many ways to make finding exactly what the player wanted into something that the character suffers for.




I agree.

The GM's primary role in TTRPGing (outside of a few instances) is (a) to know what adversity is relevant to this particular play and (b) bring that adversity to bear against the PCs in the imagined space in the most interesting/compelling/challenging/provocative (and these will be contingent upon the game) way possible.  

Above I mentioned a Dogs play excerpt.  The adversity I played was the intense shared longing through letters received on the road, provoking the PC toward finding out duty and discipline or desperate distraction?

In a D&D game featuring Fail Forward like 4e, in the fiction, the temple raider PC successfully pulls an Indiana Jones swap of the ruby for the bag of sand...except mechanically, the Skill Challenge was brought to close on that last check with a failed Thievery.  The PC has the ruby...but the bag of sand had a rip in it from a narrow escape from a prior trap...now the sand is emptying to the floor and the trap has triggered a temple collapse (and a Healing Surge loss or 1/4 HP).

Now we have a new scene (a new Skill Challenge) that features a mad dash through the collapsing temple to the surface.  

That fails (mechanically) right before they reach the surface.  However, the complex doesn't collapse on the PC.  The ruby is tied to a sleeping primordial.  Taking it beyond the seal awakens the primordial, triggering earthquakes and devastation in the area (and eventually, down the line, the primordial itself).  Further, the secret order that has sworn generations of oaths to protect the seal confronts the PCs on the crumbling stone balcony outside of the complex, overlooking a terrible fall.  Boulders are falling on the balcony from the ridge above them.  Lava geyser are erupting in cracks.  And the PCs are all well down on Healing Surges from the two failed SCs and possibly going into the fight Bloodied.

Whatever the game's adversity is supposed to be is what you play as GM.

Just bring it.

Relentlessly.


----------



## FrogReaver

Campbell said:


> @_*FrogReaver*_
> 
> I think you are starting from a faulty premise. You are assuming that game mechanics cannot meaningfully contribute to play despite having no direct experience of games where the rules are meant to supplement role play.




Incorrect.  Next time ask my opinion before broadbrushing me.

Game mechanics are great for play.  They are great for the game aspect.  They may even enhance roleplay in certain ways.  But they also detract from it in certain ways as well.  If you want to talk about the pros and cons of certain mechanics in those regards I'm game.  If you want to act like there are no roleplay drawbacks to mechanics then you need to revisit your foundation.



> We play these games because we value what they have to say about human nature and how people interact with each other.




I play games because they are fun.  It doesn't really get any deeper than that.



> They help us form mental models of who our characters really are and how they think and feel.




I assume you mean mechanics here.  I am perfectly capable of figuring out who my character is and how he thinks and feels etc.  I don't need stinkin mechanics to do that.



> They help us get away from the tactical mindset encouraged by games like D&D and help resolve the barrier between smart play and authentic play.




Sure.  I never claimed D&D turn based tactical combat enhanced roleplaying.  It doesn't IMO.  It's more of a nice fun break from roleplaying... almost like a mini wargame inside our roleplaying.  Though even then there are occasional moments to roleplay even during the combat.  

You see - I understand perfectly well the differences between the activities taking place in the games I play.  



> I can tell you that I feel like I have had more authentic and immersive experiences playing games like Blades in the Dark, Masks, Monsterhearts and Apocalypse World than I ever have with Dungeons and Dragons.




That's great.  I would not have such an experience if I was told that my character isn't my own - though I very well could have fun playing games where that was the case - the play for me would not feel very authentic nor immersive though.

A question for you:  Is it possible that you just find it easier to roleplay in games you like?  Is it possible that I am right and that such mechanics don't actually enhance roleplay any at all other than the simple fact that it's easier to roleplay in a game you like?



> Part of that was our commitment to the characters.




That can be done in any system.



> Part of it was the lack of certain D&D cultural features.




No doubt there's plenty of D&D that's anti roleplaying - both in certain mechanics and culture.  



> I think the mechanics contributed a great deal.​



​
Contributed to what aspect?
Immersion?
Roleplaying?

And can you elaborate on how you see them doing that?


----------



## Lanefan

The quote tags in the post I'm replying to here are a bit of a hot mess, so if some quoted bits don't quite make sense it ain't my doing. 


pemerton said:


> But that is all about _vetoing_ or _refusing to entertain_ certain action declarations. [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION] was positing a _successful_ outcome.



Aye, that I was.



> As [MENTION=16814]Ovinomancer[/MENTION] has posted, this seems to assume that the fiction has a content that is independent of the players. But why would, or should, that be so?



Because it's a great big setting out there with lots of stuff in it?



> Why would the GM know any better than the players what is good for the fiction?



Why wouldn't she?  And sometimes she'll be right, and sometimes she won't; and the same can be said for the players.



> But this can all be done on a failed check, or in framing new situations. Why does a _successful_ check also have to be a vehicle for this? What control are the players entitled to have over the fiction?



The players control the fiction by what they have their characters (try to) do.

For example, if on reaching the Duke's study the players/PCs decide not to search it at all but instead try to get to his bedroom (thinking the real incriminating stuff might be there) then off the fiction goes to the Duke's bedroom; and if the players/PCs then decide to charm-kidnap his valet (and succeed in doing so) and leave the castle with him then off the fiction goes to somewhere else.



> Couldn't the GM do this _before_ the action declaration is framed?



If the players (and thus PCs) are dead set on finding financial papers it's not for the GM to proactively give them other ideas, is it?  It's the GM's place to respond to what the players have their PCs (try to) do...and sometimes that response might open their eyes to some other alternatives that they've stumbled across without really intending to.



> And why can the _players_ not make this point to the GM - they declare an action different from what the GM thought they might, thereby pointing out that there's more than one way to achieve the same end!



Of course they can, and it's then the GM's duty to respond accordingly.



> Why does the GM's view of what might be interesting fiction take priority?



Isn't a GM allowed to have an occasional cool idea and throw it in?  Or supply a twist?



> Lanefan said:
> 
> 
> 
> It counts as a success if you leave on the rest of the GM's narration which you conveniently snipped off, where incriminating evidence is found only in a different form than the player had in mind.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> I simply look at the bigger goal (to incriminate the Duke) stated in the original declaration and base the success-fail narraton on that.  The specifics - papers vs seal - aren't much more than window dressing.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> You yourself concede that it's nt success if one actualy takes seriously the expressed intent - to find financial records that incude certain entries. It's only success if you ignore that, and substitute some other, more generic intent. So what is the point of the action declaration being more detailed than _we look for evidence_ if the GM is going to interpret it as that?
> 
> Or to put it another way, what is the point of the players trying to introduce content into the fiction if the system treats it as mere "window-dressing"?
Click to expand...


Well, I suppose another way a GM might have handled a success roll would be to have the PCs find some financial papers in the desk that weren't incriminating at all.  The players seem to have two goals at once - find financial papers and incriminate the Duke - and while it might be preferable to somehow break those down into separate declarations that's not what happened here; so the GM gets to make a call: which goal is more relevant  - the papers, or the incrimination?



> Lanefan said:
> 
> 
> 
> Otherwise the GM is very limited in what she can reply with: either yes, you find papers of the sort you're looking for (on success), or no you don't (on failure).  The GM can't introduce the seal or other incriminating evidence here on a failed roll as to do so would turn a failure into a success and thus disrespect the roll.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> But this is just begging the question. If the player wants to find financial records, and doesn't, that's a failure. What form the failure takes is a further thing.
> 
> You are simply substituting a different intent. On what basis?
Click to expand...


On the basis that this "different intent" was stated as part of the action declaration in the first place.

I guess it depends what you consider to be a success.  In this case we have two goals at once:

A - find some financial papers
B - incriminate the Duke

B is a broader and, probably, more important goal than A; A is merely a means to achieving B.  Given that both goals were stated in the action, there's four possible results:

1. A - Yes, B - Yes
2. A - No, B - Yes
3. A - Yes, B - No
4. A - No, B - No

No denying that 1 is a success and 4's a failure; but what are 2 and 3?  As B is the more important goal I'd say 2 is a success and 3 is ultimately a failure as even though some papers were found they didn't help in achieving goal B.

For the same reason, if the roll came up as a failure then 2 is off the table while 3 might be within a GM's purview.

And what about unintended and-or unexpected results?  Are these not allowed?  On any of the above results is the GM allowed to throw in "Oh, and by the way while searching the desk you also stumbled on some love letters to the Duke from Lady Alisanne; and last you checked Alisanne ain't the Duchess.  The letters indicate a lengthy (and lusty!) relationship."


----------



## Lanefan

FrogReaver said:


> Acting is not roleplaying.



I was with you all the way to here, but this is where you lose me: acting very much is roleplaying.  An actor, pretty much no matter what else might be involved, universally does one thing while on stage or screen: plays a role.


----------



## Manbearcat

FrogReaver said:


> A question for you:  Is it possible that you just find it easier to roleplay in games you like?  Is it possible that I am right and that such mechanics don't actually enhance roleplay any at all other than the simple fact that it's easier to roleplay in a game you like?




I’m not Campbell, but I’ll throw some words at this from GMing perspective.

Its definitely true that most people almost surely enjoy the experience of games they like, and through their affinity they develop or have a natural aptitude for better play.

Humans have pretty extreme neurological diversity, so I would say that it’s trivially true that cognitive predispositions and mental frameworks (be they inherent or earned through tenured environmental exposure) can make it less likely that people change significantly over time or pivot from one thing to another, and back, through the course of time.

But that is as far as I’m willing to go.

Different system tech absolutely enables inhabitation of an experience in ways that others can’t. Two easy examples of this:

1) The Dogs excerpt I brought up earlier is just not doable in other formats. Actually playing through emotional warfare of reading a letter (the acuity-ablating, heart-tugging antagonism of a separated lovestruck couple) and finding out it’s actual impacts on the person in the field (who has a dangerous and difficult job that requires total commitment and attention-span), and how those impacts turn into a feedback loop that the character becomes beholden to...well, that is not something that any old resolution mechanics, PC build and reward cycle scheme, and GMing ethos can legitimately pull off.

2) Look at the extreme disparity of how people perceived Fighter’s melee control mechanics in 4e (the catch-22 of Marking and Forced Movement specifically). I’ve been a martial artist and an athlete (ball sports, wrestling, jiujitsu) my whole life. No game tech I’ve ever seen captures the OODA Loop that a physical combatant/competition participant inhabits as they navigate their resident decision trees (be it the catch-22 game of body control/feints/transition progression in jiujitsu or playing halfcourt defense in basketball, both on-ball and off-ball, as you protect your hoop and your teammates).

Yet look at the backlash by certain segments of the D&D community, relentlessly deriding this suite of abilities as boardgaming nonsense!

——————

If you think I have some inherent affection for these games and advocate for them because of some kind of unexamined “like” for them...then you’ve got it inverted. I like them precisely because of their design’s impact on play and have developed further affection because of my scrutiny and reflection of the play experience.


----------



## FrogReaver

Manbearcat said:


> I’m not Campbell, but I’ll throw some words at this from GMing perspective.
> 
> Its definitely true that most people almost surely enjoy the experience of games they like, and through their affinity they develop or have a natural aptitude for better play.
> 
> Humans have pretty extreme neurological diversity, so I would say that it’s trivially true that cognitive predispositions and mental frameworks (be they inherent or earned through tenured environmental exposure) can make it less likely that people change significantly over time or pivot from one thing to another, and back, through the course of time.
> 
> But that is as far as I’m willing to go.
> 
> Different system tech absolutely enables inhabitation of an experience in ways that others can’t. Two easy examples of this:
> 
> 1) The Dogs excerpt I brought up earlier is just not doable in other formats. Actually playing through emotional warfare of reading a letter (the acuity-ablating, heart-tugging antagonism of a separated lovestruck couple) and finding out it’s actual impacts on the person in the field (who has a dangerous and difficult job that requires total commitment and attention-span), and how those impacts turn into a feedback loop that the character becomes beholden to...well, that is not something that any old resolution mechanics, PC build and reward cycle scheme, and GMing ethos can legitimately pull off.
> 
> 2) Look at the extreme disparity of how people perceived Fighter’s melee control mechanics in 4e (the catch-22 of Marking and Forced Movement specifically). I’ve been a martial artist and an athlete (ball sports, wrestling, jiujitsu) my whole life. No game tech I’ve ever seen captures the OODA Loop that a physical combatant/competition participant inhabits as they navigate their resident decision trees (be it the catch-22 game of body control/feints/transition progression in jiujitsu or playing halfcourt defense in basketball, both on-ball and off-ball, as you protect your hoop and your teammates).
> 
> Yet look at the backlash by certain segments of the D&D community, relentlessly deriding this suite of abilities as boardgaming nonsense!
> 
> ——————
> 
> If you think I have some inherent affection for these games and advocate for them because of some kind of unexamined “like” for them...then you’ve got it inverted. I like them precisely because of their design’s impact on play and have developed further affection because of my scrutiny and reflection of the play experience.




you mention extreme mental differences in people. How can you say with certainty that it isn’t those mental differences that prompt you to have such experiences with certain game mechanics. Isn’t it possible that my mental differences could cause me to have totally different experiences with those same game mechanics. 

If if that’s the case (I think it is) then is it really the mechanics that enable that play or rather your pre-disposition for such mechanics?


----------



## Manbearcat

U







FrogReaver said:


> you mention extreme mental differences in people. How can you say with certainty that it isn’t those mental differences that prompt you to have such experiences with certain game mechanics. Isn’t it possible that my mental differences could cause me to have totally different experiences with those same game mechanics.
> 
> If if that’s the case (I think it is) then is it really the mechanics that enable that play or rather your pre-disposition for such mechanics?




We’re complicated animals who live complicated lives. And these games, all of them, are complicated, relatively speaking. Nothing is ever one thing.

But I think the line of evidence that I love running something like Dogs, something like 4e, while having many times more experience (and just as much enjoyment) with Moldvay Basic and AD&D1e is a pretty strong one.


----------



## FrogReaver

Manbearcat said:


> U
> 
> We’re complicated animals who live complicated lives. And these games, all of them, are complicated, relatively speaking. Nothing is ever one thing.
> 
> But I think the line of evidence that I love running something like Dogs, something like 4e, while having many times more experience (and just as much enjoyment) with Moldvay Basic and AD&D1e is a pretty strong one.




But you are looking on the individual level and saying those mechanics help you role play.  Im looking at an individual level and saying those mechanics hinder my roleplaying

The mechanics are the same but we get two different reports of their effects.

conclusion:    it’s nothing to do with the mechanics but our individual differences.


----------



## Manbearcat

FrogReaver said:


> But you are looking on the individual level and saying those mechanics help you role play.  Im looking at an individual level and saying those mechanics hinder my roleplaying
> 
> The mechanics are the same but we get two different reports of their effects.
> 
> conclusion:    it’s nothing to do with the mechanics but our individual differences.




My posts on this subject over the years (and in this thread) involve pretty intensive analysis on why resolution procedure/GMing technique/reward cycle/play ethos/PC build setup (a) objectively provides a different experience than(b) in many different areas (from table handling time to distribution of authority to intraparty balance to party: obstacle balance to cognitive workload and on and on).

I think you’re rather short-shrifting all of that with a single heuristic.

How about this?

Do you think it’s possible to systematize the experience of reading letters from a loved one and the fallout you incur while you’re in the field (a tour of duty of some kind...something dangerous and emotionally/physically demanding)?

If not...why?

And if you’ve never played in systems that try...why are you sure?


----------



## Umbran

pemerton said:


> In one of my recent posts I referred to violations of genre, fictional positioning and system logic. In the Burning Wheel rulebooks Luke Crane makes the point by saying (something like) "no roll for beam weaponry in the duke's toilet".
> 
> But that is all about _vetoing_ or _refusing to entertain_ certain action declarations. [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION] was positing a _successful_ outcome.




I did say it was in jest.  But, if you want to be a bit more pedantic about it - not all games give the GM a whole lot of space to choose when/what they can veto.  And not all GMs are experienced, and know when to veto.  And if the GM thinks they always know all implications of things at the time they are decided, and make a good choice on what to veto every time, they are kidding themselves.  



> As [MENTION=16814]Ovinomancer[/MENTION] has posted, this seems to assume that the fiction has a content that is independent of the players. But why would, or should, that be so?




There was a time just a few years back, pemerton, when someone would ask, "This seems to assume that the fiction has content that the players create.  But, why would, or should, that be so?"   Aren't you glad that One True Way didn't hold up?  

The reason that this would, or should, be so is that not all GMs are you, and not all groups and games are precisely like yours.  People have differing needs.  So, if you are talking about your own table, you may choose to be absolute.  When speaking about more broad audiences, flexibility is called for.  In general, play will not be confined to narrow channels, so our ways of dealing with it ought to be flexible.



> Why would the GM know any better than the players what is good for the fiction?




You've already allowed that the GM gets to veto action declarations based on genre and fictional positioning.  In this, they have effectively been given oversight of the overall health of the fiction.  It is now their job.  You gave it to them.  The individual players are now freed up to focus more on their individual desires, and weaving and managing those together is the GM's bailiwick.

Which means there will be times when the GM should know what is best for the fiction, as it is their job to know.



> Why does a _successful_ check also have to be a vehicle for this? What control are the players entitled to have over the fiction?




Are folks here actually interested in thinking of games as sets of _entitlements_?  Play is collaborative teamwork, not contract negotiation.  

In many games, the player is entitled to very little control over the fiction.  In other games, there is no GM at all, and all power over fiction is distributed (sometimes in strange ways) to the players.  




> Couldn't the GM do this _before_ the action declaration is framed?




Could'a, would'a, should'a.  As if people don't think of things three seconds too late from time to time?



> And why can the _players_ not make this point to the GM - they declare an action different from what the GM thought they might, thereby pointing out that there's more than one way to achieve the same end! Why does the GM's view of what might be interesting fiction take priority?




Why does the player's?  I mean, they are both people who are supposed to be having fun, right?  

It seems to me that this isn't an absolute, for all cases.  Nobody *always* takes priority.  So, don't get in a twist over it.  This isn't about power, or stepping on entitlements.  It is about practical management.


----------



## Tony Vargas

Manbearcat said:


> 1) The Dogs excerpt I brought up earlier is just not doable in other formats. Actually playing through emotional warfare of reading a letter (the acuity-ablating, heart-tugging antagonism of a separated lovestruck couple) and finding out it’s actual impacts on the person in the field (who has a dangerous and difficult job that requires total commitment and attention-span), and how those impacts turn into a feedback loop that the character becomes beholden to...well, that is not something that any old resolution mechanics, PC build and reward cycle scheme, and GMing ethos can legitimately pull off.



Seems right up FATE's alley, and something that could be touched upon in systems that model the character's psychology in some way (Hero, would be the one I'm most familiar with: psych lims), that can be tested (EGO roll) and change over time (changed around, or exp to 'buy down/off').  Certainly not with the same detail and play dynamics, of course...



> 2) Look at the extreme disparity of how people perceived Fighter’s melee control mechanics in 4e (the catch-22 of Marking and Forced Movement specifically). I’ve been a martial artist and an athlete (ball sports, wrestling, jiujitsu) my whole life. No game tech I’ve ever seen captures the OODA Loop that a physical combatant/competition participant inhabits as they navigate their resident decision trees (be it the catch-22 game of body control/feints/transition progression in jiujitsu or playing halfcourt defense in basketball, both on-ball and off-ball, as you protect your hoop and your teammates). Yet look at the backlash by certain segments of the D&D community, relentlessly deriding this suite of abilities as boardgaming nonsense!



I didn't follow that, probably because I lack the frame of reference... How did 4e Combat Challenge/Superiority map to all that ..er.. sports stuff?


----------



## Tony Vargas

Manbearcat said:


> Do you think it’s possible to systematize the experience of reading letters from a loved one and the fallout you incur while you’re in the field (a tour of duty of some kind...something dangerous and emotionally/physically demanding)?



I should hope so, that's potentially some powerful drama there. (I'm picturing WWI, for some reason, not being too into the DitV setting.)  Does the character conceive a death wish and get killed?  Find a renewed reason to live and survive - or die tragically, or even heroically, in spite of that?  Become a stronger person or descend into an emotional spiral - if the latter, how can he pull out of it?

I mean, it makes you "want to play to find out what happens!"




> And if you’ve never played in systems that try...why are you sure?



Thought experiment?  I mean, it's not terribly hard to imagine that as a /scene/ (in book/play/movie/show/whatever), and from there, "how would you capture that scene in an RPG?"


----------



## Manbearcat

Tony Vargas said:


> I didn't follow that, probably because I lack the frame of reference... How did 4e Combat Challenge/Superiority map to all that ..er.. sports stuff?




If you've never been a grappler, it will be a little bit difficult to attempt to convey things conceptually, but Chess (which I suspect you've played or at least had exposure to) should suffice.

Look at grappling (Brazillian Jiu-jitsu in particular) as a series of decision-trees where your opponent is imposing ever-progressing catch-22s upon you as they control you (takedown > deployment of a progressive series of pulls/hooks/passes/sweeps/transitions to improve position and prevent opponent from doing what they want > gain superior position > tap opponent with whichever submission they choose; again, catch-22) until checkmate (submission or an impossible to recover from position where all you can do is stall) is arrived at.

Basketball may be a little easier.

If you're an on-ball defender in Man defense, you're making personal positioning choices (proximity to offensive player, overplaying which hand, funneling where on the dribble, etc) to control the guy you're covering in order to (a) winnow (or at least impact) his decision-tree to one or two disadvantageous options and (b) limit the exposure of your teammates to having to double team him (thus compromising their own defensive assignment integrity) and (c) maximizing their prospect of making an off-ball deflection/steal/block, all in the effort of (d) generating a "stop" (a Turnover or a missed Field Goal Attempt that results in a Defensive Rebound).

I hope it should be abundantly clear how those map to "you can't do thing (a) or (b) without me punishing you and putting you closer to your loss condition."


----------



## Tony Vargas

Manbearcat said:


> If you've never been a grappler, it will be a little bit difficult to attempt to convey things conceptually, but Chess (which I suspect you've played or at least had exposure to) should suffice.



Ha!  Blatant Nerd Stereotype!  

…and true.



> I hope it should be abundantly clear how those map to "you can't do thing (a) or (b) without me punishing you and putting you closer to your loss condition."



Thank you, yes.


----------



## pemerton

Lanefan said:


> The players control the fiction by what they have their characters (try to) do.



But on your own account this isn't true. Because the GM can always narrate something else. As you're presenting it, all the players get to do is make suggestions that the GM may or may not follow up on.



Lanefan said:


> I suppose another way a GM might have handled a success roll would be to have the PCs find some financial papers in the desk that weren't incriminating at all.



How is that possiby a success, given the declared action? It's obviously a failure - the PC has not got what s/he wanted (namely, incriminating financial documents).



Lanefan said:


> pemerton said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Why would the GM know any better than the players what is good for the fiction?
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Why wouldn't she? And sometimes she'll be right, and sometimes she won't; and the same can be said for the players.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> Isn't a GM allowed to have an occasional cool idea and throw it in? Or supply a twist?
> 
> <snip>
> 
> what about unintended and-or unexpected results? Are these not allowed?
Click to expand...


So when do the players get to override the GM because they might know better than him/her as to what is good for the fiction? When do the players get to throw in their cool ideas and twists and unexpecgted results?

If the answer is _never_, then I come back to my question - why does the GM get special status here?

Whereas I have an obvious answer to the questions I've posed - when the check succeeds the player decides, when the check fails the GM decides. It's so simple it's elegant! And it doesn't exclude any possibilities - the players are free to declare the full range of possible actions, the GM is free to narrate the full range of possible failures.

What it _does_ exclude is the GM getting to decide whatever s/he wants. Which brings us back to the question - why shouldn't the GM be constrainted? All the other participants are.



FrogReaver said:


> A simple counter-example to establish this point. Suppose a player says, "I search the room for 1000 gold". He rolls a 1. Do you really consider a possible fail state in this example to be "you find a ruby worth 1000gp"? If you think that's a valid failure narration then you stand alone.
> 
> So then with it established that there are multiple success states, why would a DM pick the one that a player didn't specifically request. A few possibilities:
> 1. His chosen success may move the story further along at some later point in time.
> 2. His chosen success may not interfere with already established fiction wheras the players precise request could.
> 3. It saves time. If the player asks to find 1000 gold and you say you don't and then he follows up with what do I find and you make him roll and tell him it was a 1000gp worth ruby anyways, then there was no fictional need for that additional exchange.
> 
> There's countless other reasons to still fulfill the players intent but slightly alter their specified outcome.



Some other posters have already explained how finding a ruby can be a failure. Here's another way: the PC is searching for gold pieces because only gold pieces can lift the curse of the whatever-it-is (I'm imagining some variant of the gem-crushing gargoyle in ToH). Finding a ruby is a, in that circumstance, a failure - although maybe if the PC can make it to a gem market and cash in the ruby s/he can get some or even all of the gold s/he needs.

As to your possibilities:

(1) I don't really see how this can be known in advance unless the GM has already plotted the story out. Which maybe s/he has, but then that brings us back to the question of what the role of the players is in relation to the fiction.

(2) This has been dealt with ad nauseum by  [MENTION=16814]Ovinomancer[/MENTION] and by me. If the action declaration would violate the established ficiotn then that should alreayd have been sorted out. Furthremore, this is not particularly a GM function. I mean, the GM's narration of the ruby could negate some prioer fiction to if the GM is careless (eg maybe the PCs already scanned the area with a gem detection spell and it registed no gems). So all-in-all this particular possibility is a red herring.

(3) I don't understand this at all. If the GM tells the player the PC fails to find 1000 gp then why is the player then making a check? What is the check for? And if this check whose purpose I don't understand is successful, what is the reason for telling the player that the PC finds a 1000 gp instead of the 1000 gp s/he was looking for.



FrogReaver said:


> Can a single fantasy author write a story about a character that is legitimately challenged?



Not in the way that I and (I believe)  [MENTION=16814]Ovinomancer[/MENTION] are talking about. An author can write about a character's struggle with identity and responsibility (think eg about JRRT's account of Aragorn's self-doubt after the Fellowship leaves Lorien). But that is not playing a game. The author wasn't challenged except in the sense that authoring can be a difficult thing.

In a RPG we are talking about the player inhabiting the role of the PC and playing through the challenge.



FrogReaver said:


> If that's your definition of roleplaying then I don't think it applies to D&D. Players in D&D simply state attempted actions - they don't suggest things that might be true. They simply state attempted actions. They don't negotiate with the other participants to determine their truth. They have predetermined that the DM will be sole arbitrator of what's true in the game.



Stating an attempted action _is_ suggesting something to be true in the fiction - namely, that the PC performs the actin as described! That's the whole starting point for the OP of this thread.

Your claim that the GM always decides in D&D is obviously very controversial  But even at those tables where it is true, it doesn't follow that the GM never considers what it is that the players have suggested.



FrogReaver said:


> Acting is not roleplaying.



Someone upthread used method acting as either an example of, or an analogy to, roleplaying, so I'm not sure what you assert here is uncontroversial.

But if acting is not roleplaying, then where does the roleplaying consist of in a game in which the GM decides all the outcomes? What are the players doing in such a game other than some improv acting?



FrogReaver said:


> I am perfectly capable of figuring out who my character is and how he thinks and feels etc.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> Is it possible that you just find it easier to roleplay in games you like?



To echo  [MENTION=6696971]Manbearcat[/MENTION], the point is not that people like what they like. The point is that some systems make possible certain experiences that others don't.

I'll give an example from a slightly different field of hobby: I don't believe that it is possible to get the same thrill from swimming laps in a pool as it is to get from catching a wave at a beach. That's not a criticism of lap-swimming or a praise of beaches - taking that extra step would require deciding whether or not we like the thrill (some do, but not everybody does).

Now maybe there's someone out there who finds lap swimming really thrilling.I guess that's conceivable. But I would want pretty good evidence before I contemplated this possibility in a serious way. Because it is very much at odds with my own experiences and obvservations of both lap swimmers and body surfers.

In RPGing, not every system can produce the same experience. In Rolemaster, when the first crit die is rolled, there is a sense of thrill and antiipation that cannot be achieved in an AD&D combat when the first damage die is rolled vs anything much bigger than a gnoll. Becuase in RM everyone knows that if that crit die comes up high, the combat is over; wheres in AD&D that combat can't be finished by the first damage roll.

And turning from combat to other domains of struggle, a typical AD&D game can't produce the sort of experience in relation to charavter that is being discussed here, because the typical AD&D game has neither the formal rules nor the informal practices necessary to bring the right sort of pressure to bear on the player in the play of his/her PC. For instance, there is no way to put family relationships in jeopardy beyond either GM stipulation or consensus roleplaying - unless (as I think I mentioned upthread) one uses the honour and family rules from Oriental Adventures. While there is plenty of _fail this check and your PC willl be hurt bad physically_ there's almost no way, in typical AD&D sans OA, to generate _fail this check and your PC will be hurt emotionally_ - for instance, because his/her family rejects him/her. Unless the GM just stipulates that outcome, which isn't very dramatic in the context of playing a game.



FrogReaver said:


> I'm looking at an individual level and saying those mechanics hinder my roleplaying



Do you accept that there is a difference between assertions grounded on experience and assertions grounded in mere conjecture?


----------



## Sadras

pemerton said:


> If the answer is _never_, then I come back to my question - why does the GM get special status here?




The obvious answer is that it depends on the type/style of game. In many versions of D&D the DM is granted a special status. In some indie games the dice determine who narrates or how the narrative flows. Both options are good.



> Whereas I have an obvious answer to the questions I've posed - when the check succeeds the player decides, when the check fails the GM decides. It's so simple it's elegant!




It is elegant but it doesn't suit all stories or styles of play.
Both yourself and [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION] seem to be arguing for a particular style of play - being your specific preferences. Same debate, different thread.


----------



## Tony Vargas

Sorry to riff off of just a couple sentences but...


pemerton said:


> And turning from combat to other domains of struggle, a typical AD&D game can't produce the sort of experience in relation to charavter that is being discussed here, because the typical AD&D game has neither the formal rules nor the informal practices necessary to bring the right sort of pressure to bear on the player in the play of his/her PC.



Seems like "informal practices" could be pretty varied and readily mutable (or set in stone, and violently defended, I suppose). 



> For instance, there is no way to put family relationships in jeopardy beyond either* GM stipulation or consensus roleplaying*



If I'm following, that's an example of 'informal practice,' and - I'm really hoping - neither 'informal practice' nor 'GM stipulation' nor 'consensus roleplaying' have any extra-special precise/unintuitive/reverse-ogive*/confuse-inveigle-obfuscate meanings?  I'm actually free to go with my understanding as an indifferent native speaker of English?

Proceeding on that unwarranted assumption...

It strikes me that some of the sources of confusion & disagreement we get in these discussion stem from crediting systems with qualities derived from the above sorts of informal practices, GM stipulations, and consensus roleplaying.  Or, falling back on freestyle RP, when the system isn't applicable or gives undesirable results, might be another way to put it.

So, back in the 90s, some histrionic wolfie might go on about how D&D is strictly ROLLplaying, and it's impossible to ROLEplay in it, and it's generally the worst game ever.  And some bristling, defensive 30-something (because this was 20+ years ago, remember), D&Der would present a transcript of a lavishly-roleplayed scenario that happened in his campaign 10 years previously (or that he just made up or embellished), as proof that oh, yeah, you can totally RP the effn'eck outta D&D.  Leaving aside the dysfunctional distinction in that era's divisive false dichotomy of choice, the D&Der was appealing to the informal practice of freestyle RPing (talking in character, mostly) by consensus, the vast universe of potential actions & events not covered by then-D&D's heavily magic-centric and combat-focused system (not that now-D&D is all that different).

Or am I totally off base?
I am aren't I?

It's OK, you won't hurt my feelings.

But...







pemerton said:


> To echo  [MENTION=6696971]Manbearcat[/MENTION], the point is not that people like what they like. The point is that some systems make possible certain experiences that others don't.



...I do think the above speaks to responses you may get to this bit.

That is, systems don't make possible things that are /impossible/ in other systems, they cover things that, in other systems, are handled by falling back to Freestyle RP - GM stipulation, table consensus, whatever you want to call it - in certain obvious cases, handled that way by hoary time-honored convention.



> Do you accept that there is a difference between assertions grounded on experience and assertions grounded in mere conjecture?



If you mean assertions by a forum avatar, no, no meaningful difference.
















* yeah, I know, that's the point(pi).


----------



## Manbearcat

Tony Vargas said:


> If you mean assertions by a forum avatar, no, no meaningful difference.




Which is why I regularly encourage people to play more and different types of games.

And I also regularly recommend people (at least in my life) be willing to have the self-awareness and humility to say “I don’t know.” I don’t understand this modern phenomena of being unwilling to simply recognize that you don’t know what you don’t know. There are lots of things I don’t know...even in the disciplines/leisure pursuits where I’m learned (you mentioned HERO in our exchange above...don’t know the first thing about it...won't even guess it’s play experience is like...you said it’s fit to reproduce the experience I relayed...I respect your opinion on this so...sure that works for me...if I feel incredulous, I’ll wait until I’ve informed myself before offering any conjecture).

So if you don’t know...that’s fine...and it’s also fine to not take someone’s word for something...but make an effort to know what you don’t know. You’ll often find that your intuitions and extrapolations (from malformed heuristics) weren’t exactly on the mark.


----------



## Lanefan

pemerton said:


> But on your own account this isn't true. Because the GM can always narrate something else. As you're presenting it, all the players get to do is make suggestions that the GM may or may not follow up on.



Ditto the GM, who in presenting the entire setting is merely making suggestions the players may or may not follow up on (in the example, the players/PCs might decide the Southtor seal isn't enough, or if the GM throws in the bit about the love letters, might decide to follow up on that instead...or ignore it; it's their choice).



> How is that possiby a success, given the declared action? It's obviously a failure - the PC has not got what s/he wanted (namely, incriminating financial documents).



You're concatenating two goals into one here - a specific one (find some financial papers) and a larger overarching one (incriminate the Duke).  Even though both are mentioned in one action, there's nothing stopping you from splitting them out and reacting only to one or the other.

Otherwise, to give a near-ridiculous example, success on an in-combat (vs. a single dying Orc) action declaration of "I swing my axe and kill every Orc in the world!" has just removed Orcs from the setting entirely, given that success on the action declaration has just forced this Orc to be the last one left (or that all the other Orcs elsewhere drop dead along with this one; whichever).  If only Genocide: Monster could be so easy. 



> So when do the players get to override the GM because they might know better than him/her as to what is good for the fiction? When do the players get to throw in their cool ideas and twists and unexpecgted results?



They get to throw in their cool ideas every time they put forth an action declaration, should they so desire; and even in a hard-GM-driven game the GM might on the fly decide to go with it; and even if the notes right now unalterably say 'no' there's nothing stopping that GM from filing that cool idea away for future use.

It's called putting the GM into 'react' mode.



> Whereas I have an obvious answer to the questions I've posed - when the check succeeds the player decides, when the check fails the GM decides. It's so simple it's elegant! And it doesn't exclude any possibilities - the players are free to declare the full range of possible actions, the GM is free to narrate the full range of possible failures.



Which means a player rolling a hot die can - and IME almost invariably would - have her PC bypass any and all obstacles the setting wants to throw in its way, and sail through the story/adventure/mission/whatever without any delays or frustrations or, dare I say, effort...with the one exception being any combats that are unavoidable.

The setting, and by extension the GM, exist in part to oppose and-or challenge the PCs and by extension the players; meaning that whether you like it or not there's always going to be that element of adversarialness (yeah, new word there) in their relationship.  If the players are given free rein to narrate their successes then most if not all players IME would take that as license to run roughshod over the principles of the game.



> Some other posters have already explained how finding a ruby can be a failure. Here's another way: the PC is searching for gold pieces because only gold pieces can lift the curse of the whatever-it-is (I'm imagining some variant of the gem-crushing gargoyle in ToH). Finding a ruby is a, in that circumstance, a failure - although maybe if the PC can make it to a gem market and cash in the ruby s/he can get some or even all of the gold s/he needs.



What's not stated in that declaration example is, again, context: why is the PC searching for 1000 g.p.?  The reason this is relevant is that the context largely defines what a success represents, and what alternate options might exist:

 - Is it just for the sheer wealth acquisition (in which case the ruby is a grand success - way easier to carry and hide than 1000 coin and worth just as much)
 - Is it specifically for the gold (e.g. I need 1000 coin-weight of gold to melt down as the heart of my stone golem, in which case finding an equal-weight golden statue would do but a ruby would not)
 - Is it to prove someone's on the take (e.g. finding a bag containing exactly 1000 g.p. in that location could be very incriminating but a bag of exactly 200 p.p. would serve the same ends while a ruby would likely not be of much use)
 - Etc.



> Stating an attempted action _is_ suggesting something to be true in the fiction - namely, that the PC performs the actin as described! That's the whole starting point for the OP of this thread.



And, thus, perhaps why the thread is - yet again - hundreds of posts long: the premise it sits on is faulty.

Stating an attempted action does not suggest "_something to be true in the fiction - namely, that the PC performs the actin as described!_", instead it suggests only that what's true in the fiction is that the PC *attempts to* perform the action as described.  Mechanics or GM fiat (which includes just saying 'yes') or whatever then go on to sort out what results if any then become true in the fiction.



> Your claim that the GM always decides in D&D is obviously very controversial  But even at those tables where it is true, it doesn't follow that the GM never considers what it is that the players have suggested.



IME this is almost always the case - even the hardest of railroad GMs still take in ideas and themes from their players, sometimes without really knowing they're doing so.



> To echo  [MENTION=6696971]Manbearcat[/MENTION], the point is not that people like what they like. The point is that some systems make possible certain experiences that others don't.



PI don't think it's quite as cut-and-dried as that.  Better perhaps to say that some systems better facilitate or lead toward certain experiences than others, as with a big enough shoehorn and-or the right people involved pretty much anything is possible.


----------



## FrogReaver

Manbearcat said:


> My posts on this subject over the years (and in this thread) involve pretty intensive analysis on why resolution procedure/GMing technique/reward cycle/play ethos/PC build setup (a) objectively provides a different experience than(b) in many different areas (from table handling time to distribution of authority to intraparty balance to party: obstacle balance to cognitive workload and on and on).




That fact can also point toward personal investment on the issue that could be clouding your judgement.  



> I think you’re rather short-shrifting all of that with a single heuristic.




Or point out a more important heuristic that you just so happened to overlook in your zeal dedication to attribute the differences to the system for all this time.



> How about this?
> 
> Do you think it’s possible to systematize the experience of reading letters from a loved one and the fallout you incur while you’re in the field (a tour of duty of some kind...something dangerous and emotionally/physically demanding)?
> 
> If not...why?




You can systematize nearly anything - but it's always going to be at a cost.

I think the more important question is, do you think it's possible to roleplay that same character in a system without such systemization mechanics?

If not, why not?



> And if you’ve never played in systems that try...why are you sure?




What am I sure of what?


----------



## FrogReaver

Lanefan said:


> I was with you all the way to here, but this is where you lose me: acting very much is roleplaying.  An actor, pretty much no matter what else might be involved, universally does one thing while on stage or screen: plays a role.




Maybe you just have a much more romanticized view of acting than I do.  Actors stand in front of a green screen all day, Repeating the same scenes over and over till everyone gets it just right.  They cry on demand.  The recite lines.  They know how to portray what appears to be genuine emotion even when they aren't feeling those emotions.

I don't view acting as roleplaying.  The two are not mutually exclusive as I think some of the best actors likely do roleplay to some degree.  But roleplay isn't a requirement IMO.

I think it's easy to take the final product and read roleplay into it when there wasn't necessarily alot of it there.


----------



## FrogReaver

pemerton said:


> Some other posters have already explained how finding a ruby can be a failure. Here's another way: the PC is searching for gold pieces because only gold pieces can lift the curse of the whatever-it-is (I'm imagining some variant of the gem-crushing gargoyle in ToH). Finding a ruby is a, in that circumstance, a failure - although maybe if the PC can make it to a gem market and cash in the ruby s/he can get some or even all of the gold s/he needs.
> 
> As to your possibilities:
> 
> (1) I don't really see how this can be known in advance unless the GM has already plotted the story out. Which maybe s/he has, but then that brings us back to the question of what the role of the players is in relation to the fiction.
> 
> (2) This has been dealt with ad nauseum by  @_*Ovinomancer*_ and by me. If the action declaration would violate the established ficiotn then that should alreayd have been sorted out. Furthremore, this is not particularly a GM function. I mean, the GM's narration of the ruby could negate some prioer fiction to if the GM is careless (eg maybe the PCs already scanned the area with a gem detection spell and it registed no gems). So all-in-all this particular possibility is a red herring.
> 
> (3) I don't understand this at all. If the GM tells the player the PC fails to find 1000 gp then why is the player then making a check? What is the check for? And if this check whose purpose I don't understand is successful, what is the reason for telling the player that the PC finds a 1000 gp instead of the 1000 gp s/he was looking for.




I think all they did was define how any apparent success could turn into a failure.  Their method was to assert something additional that I didn't claim about the scene.  The same can be done with 1000gp to turn it into a failure as well.  Basically they aren't arguing that the ruby can't be a success, but rather that giving the player what they want with a major downside isn't necessarily something that should be called a success.  

So what actual reasons do you have for asserting that a 1000gp ruby can never be a success?  (not that a 1000gp ruby with a major downside is not a success).

On a side note: if you can fail forward... I suppose it's also possible to succeed toward escalating conflict.  We could have a whole discussion around that idea.



> Not in the way that I and (I believe)  @_*Ovinomancer*_ are talking about. An author can write about a character's struggle with identity and responsibility (think eg about JRRT's account of Aragorn's self-doubt after the Fellowship leaves Lorien). But that is not playing a game. The author wasn't challenged except in the sense that authoring can be a difficult thing.




That's why I've been soo picky about whether you refer to challenging the player or the character.  Rolling a dice doesn't challenge a player.  The narration of a failure may challenge something the player previously regarded as true.  (Of course it seems the narration of a success could also do that).  In any case, you don't need dice to challenge the players conception of their character or the fictional world as the same narration that challenges the player can be achieved with no dice being rolled. 



> Stating an attempted action _is_ suggesting something to be true in the fiction - namely, that the PC performs the actin as described! That's the whole starting point for the OP of this thread.




The only fictional truth declaring an action does is set the truth to be that your character attempted to do X.  The player declares with explicitness something which becomes true.  The player never once suggested something that might be true.  The DM then determines what happens.  Was your attempt successful.  Was it uncertain.  Did you fail? ​


> Your claim that the GM always decides in D&D is obviously very controversial  But even at those tables where it is true, it doesn't follow that the GM never considers what it is that the players have suggested.




I don't think that the GM always decides is controversial in D&D.  I mean their is a social contract and all and if the DM fails to honor that then the game will fall apart.  But even then it's still the DM deciding whether to abide by that or not.  And it's still him ultimately deciding.  But that's a side point.

The important thing is:  When did the players suggest something?  They declare attempted actions.  Are you equating an attempted action declaration with a suggestion?



> But if acting is not roleplaying, then where does the roleplaying consist of in a game in which the GM decides all the outcomes? What are the players doing in such a game other than some improv acting?




Playing their character and seeing what happens.



> To echo  @_*Manbearcat*_, the point is not that people like what they like. The point is that some systems make possible certain experiences that others don't.




That's your assertion yes.  It's interesting to note that all the systems with good to have experiences are not D&D.  It's almost as if all of this is just a subtle way to tell everyone that they are having badwrongfun, without actually needing to call it that.

But that aside, on an individual level I full agree that different systems can yield totally different experiences.  I'm not sure you can extrapolate that to everyone such that you can generally say this system only allows this experience and that system only allows that experience for everyone.  

My repeated theme this whole thread has been that has been that different game systems play differently and appeal to different people, but that most everything you claim my favored system can't handle, that it actually can and does.  That it's rules light non-combat system offers greater opportunities in roleplaying than other more codified systems (not saying those other systems aren't fun).

But it seems that anything positive said about D&D is just crapped on here as if the OP suggesting that all RPG's have pros and cons really means all RPG's except D&D have pros and cons.



> I'll give an example from a slightly different field of hobby: I don't believe that it is possible to get the same thrill from swimming laps in a pool as it is to get from catching a wave at a beach. That's not a criticism of lap-swimming or a praise of beaches - taking that extra step would require deciding whether or not we like the thrill (some do, but not everybody does).




"Thrill" is a very personal thing.  Some people would not find swimming in the ocean a thrill at all.  Fear and anxiety may be their response.  Whereas getting in the pool at the beach and swimming around may be quite thrilling to them.  

Personally I much prefer the ocean and would agree that for me it's more thrilling.  I don't think it's objective fact that it's more thrilling though.



> Now maybe there's someone out there who finds lap swimming really thrilling.I guess that's conceivable. But I would want pretty good evidence before I contemplated this possibility in a serious way. Because it is very much at odds with my own experiences and obvservations of both lap swimmers and body surfers.​




My wife tends to dislike being in the ocean because she is afraid of it.  For her the pool is much more thrilling.



> In RPGing, not every system can produce the same experience. In Rolemaster, when the first crit die is rolled, there is a sense of thrill and antiipation that cannot be achieved in an AD&D combat when the first damage die is rolled vs anything much bigger than a gnoll. Becuase in RM everyone knows that if that crit die comes up high, the combat is over; wheres in AD&D that combat can't be finished by the first damage roll.




That's a good example.  I agree with you that the game part is different in every RPG and can create a different feeling.  Constant Danger or relative safety with some danger etc.

What has been asserted for most of this thread is that the roleplaying is superior in these other games.  That the roleplaying examples being mentioned aren't possible in D&D etc.  That's where the disagreement lies.  

If you are just wanting to say X mechanic tends to make the game feel like Y for many people then I agree.  But that isn't what appears to be happening to me.  

A







> nd turning from combat to other domains of struggle, a typical AD&D game can't produce the sort of experience in relation to charavter that is being discussed here, because the typical AD&D game has neither the formal rules nor the informal practices necessary to bring the right sort of pressure to bear on the player in the play of his/her PC.




Which ignores my counterpoint that you don't need rules at all to generate pressure on the player



> For instance, there is no way to put family relationships in jeopardy beyond either GM stipulation or consensus roleplaying - unless (as I think I mentioned upthread) one uses the honour and family rules from Oriental Adventures. While there is plenty of _fail this check and your PC willl be hurt bad physically_ there's almost no way, in typical AD&D sans OA, to generate _fail this check and your PC will be hurt emotionally_ - for instance, because his/her family rejects him/her. Unless the GM just stipulates that outcome, which isn't very dramatic in the context of playing a game.




You seem to be stuck between 2 ideas and conflating the 2.  It's definitely more dramatic to the player if there's dice being rolled and an observable possibility for success and failure.  That's the mechanic part I keep talking about.  It's fun for the game but serves to restrict the ways in which a player can roleplay his character (for the fun and drama of the game).  There's a tradeoff there - full unrestrictive roleplaying vs greater drama etc.  



> Do you accept that there is a difference between assertions grounded on experience and assertions grounded in mere conjecture?




Sure.  They both can be wrong in very different ways.  In your case it's imagining that your experiences must be the same as everyone elses.  In mine it's imagining that I'm capable of imaging how a system plays without playing it.


----------



## FrogReaver

Manbearcat said:


> Which is why I regularly encourage people to play more and different types of games.
> 
> And I also regularly recommend people (at least in my life) be willing to have the self-awareness and humility to say “I don’t know.” I don’t understand this modern phenomena of being unwilling to simply recognize that you don’t know what you don’t know. There are lots of things I don’t know...even in the disciplines/leisure pursuits where I’m learned (you mentioned HERO in our exchange above...don’t know the first thing about it...won't even guess it’s play experience is like...you said it’s fit to reproduce the experience I relayed...I respect your opinion on this so...sure that works for me...if I feel incredulous, I’ll wait until I’ve informed myself before offering any conjecture).
> 
> So if you don’t know...that’s fine...and it’s also fine to not take someone’s word for something...but make an effort to know what you don’t know. You’ll often find that your intuitions and extrapolations (from malformed heuristics) weren’t exactly on the mark.




I think all you have is a few personal experiences that you've spent a lot of time analyzing and trying to extrapolate as general principles for all mankind.  

So you first.  Tell us that you don't actually know everything you've been discussing and talking about all this time.  It's okay to do so after all.


----------



## Tony Vargas

FrogReaver said:


> That fact can also point toward personal investment on the issue that could be clouding your judgement.



 … see, that's not cynical, at all... 

(I shouldn't talk, I'm totally cynical.)



> Or point out a more important heuristic that you just so happened to overlook in your zeal dedication to attribute the differences to the system for all this time.



TBH (not just cynical), denying that system makes a difference strikes me as pointless.  Obviously, systems are different, and those differences can't be quite meaningless.  



> You can systematize nearly anything - but it's always going to be at a cost.



Now, to turn around the prior cynicism:  The "cost" can include no longer being able to abuse or leverage that lack of systematic coverage.  Which, to everyone not already doing so, is really more of a benefit.



> I think the more important question is, do you think it's possible to roleplay that same character in a system without such systemization mechanics?



Obviously.  It's possible to RP the same character in the same scene, having the same reactions, /without any system at all/.  When, for instance, you're improvising the scene by yourself, or when everyone else involved is on exactly the same page about how it should play out.  

It's possible. 

It's also possible you'll be hit by a meteorite before you finish the scene.


----------



## Ovinomancer

FrogReaver said:


> I think the more important question is, do you think it's possible to roleplay that same character in a system without such systemization mechanics?
> 
> If not, why not?




I'm going with no.  Putting aside a theoretical possibility that you could, if everything was perfect, do so, I think that the incentives involved prevent any reasonable or even unreasonable assumption that this is possible.

To explore this, look at how the Powered by the Apocalypse game Blades in the Dark does characters.  When you create a character in Blades, you have things you must have that are characterization related.  You must have a heritage and background.  These are similar to race and background in D&D.  You also have to pick a non-PC close friend and a non-PC rival, which don't have a close analog in D&D.  Also a vice, which could map to a flaw in 5e.  Finally, a Playbook and Crew, which are like a class and a class for the whole party.  

Now, to go to the incentives, here's the only ways to earn XP in Blades:

Here's how you earn XP in Blades:



> During the game session, mark xp:
> 
> When you make a *desperate action* roll. Mark 1 xp in the attribute for the action you rolled. For example, if you roll a desperate Skirmish action, you mark xp in Prowess. When you roll in a group action that’s desperate, you also mark xp.
> 
> At the end of the session, review the xp triggers on your character sheet. For each one, mark 1 xp if it happened at all, or mark 2 xp if it happened a lot during the session. The xp triggers are:
> 
> 
> [*}Your *playbook-specific xp trigger*. For example “Address a challenge with violence or coercion.” To “address a challenge,” your character should attempt to overcome a tough obstacle or threat. It doesn’t matter if the action is successful or not. You get xp either way.
> 
> You expressed your *beliefs, drives, heritage, or background*. Your character’s beliefs and drives are yours to define, session to session. Feel free to tell the group about them when you mark xp.
> 
> You struggled with issues from your *vice* or *traumas*. Mark xp for this if your vice tempted you to some bad action or if a trauma condition caused you trouble. Simply indulging your vice doesn’t count as struggling with it (unless you overindulge).




From this alone you can see how the things you make your character about are incentivized strongly to show up in play, especially if it causes problems for you and your crew.  I submit 5e lacks any of these things at all that are not GM rulings.  You traits, bonds, flaws don't matter to play unless your GM is offering XP awards for them or if they offer Inspiration, but that choice is the GM's, not the players'.  So, how well you roleplay your character is up to someone not you.  This is reversed in Blades.  Further, there's very little incentive in 5e to play up negative traits at all, as the rewards are usually paltry compared to the risks.  While, in Blades, doing so is strongly incentivized by the XP system.  Your choices of Score and the fallout are also very tightly integrated into the feedback mechanisms of Blades via the Faction Status and Crew Turf subsystems, so even there roleplay is tightly integrated into the system.  5e lacks any such incentivization outside of individual GM choices to judge you on your roleplay and offer rewards.

This goes to your larger claim that systemization of roleplay elements causes a loss of roleplay.  This couldn't be further from the truth.  The Blades character is, by the system, very tightly woven into the fabric of both play and the setting by the player build choices and especially by the player roleplaying choices.  Including those choices that find things out about the character, like choosing to involve your close friend (who always has useful abilities) into a risky situation where the friend is at risk.  Are you the type of person that would risk/sacrifice your close friend for advantage?  If you succeed, then no, maybe you aren't, but if you fail and the friend pays the cost instead of you, then, well, you find out that your character is, indeed, that type of person.   This is fundamentally not something that exists in 5e -- this kind of opportunity to roleplay is not available in that system.

Now, my best guess for your idiosyncratic definition of roleplay seems to include that it's only roleplay if the player chooses it -- nothing forced on the player is roleplaying, even if the force occurs after a failure on an action where the player explicitly risks an aspect of their character.  This is you defining the term as how you prefer things, and not what the term means.  This is adequately shown by your rather controversial claim that acting is not roleplaying.  

You've lately been questioning how others can know if they aren't just projecting their preferences into reality.  I would say that defining terms so that what you do is included but widely accepted uses are not would be a strong indicator of your question being true.  I don't see [MENTION=6696971]Manbearcat[/MENTION] doing that, but I do see you doing it.  You should maybe drop the statements that appear to be more projection than argument.


----------



## FrogReaver

Tony Vargas said:


> TBH (not just cynical), denying that system makes a difference strikes me as pointless.  Obviously, systems are different, and those differences can't be quite meaningless.




Sure.  There's pros and cons to all - and often times those pros and cons may be more or less of a pro or con when filtered through an individual.  Or as you surmised, some cons might become pros and some pros might become cons to some people.




> Now, to turn around the prior cynicism:  The "cost" can include no longer being able to abuse or leverage that lack of systematic coverage.  Which, to everyone not already doing so, is really more of a benefit.




Of course!  It depends on your goals, your likes and dislikes etc.



> Obviously.  It's possible to RP the same character in the same scene, having the same reactions, /without any system at all/.  When, for instance, you're improvising the scene by yourself, or when everyone else involved is on exactly the same page about how it should play out.
> 
> It's possible.
> 
> It's also possible you'll be hit by a meteorite before you finish the scene.




This was hilarious.  

Disregarding my contention about having the choice made for you and it's relation to roleplaying
Also disregarding others contentions about that not being possible...

It seems objective enough to note that some systems produce a systemic type of interaction and so can generate certain scenes more often than others.  - but at what cost


----------



## Lanefan

FrogReaver said:


> Maybe you just have a much more romanticized view of acting than I do.  Actors stand in front of a green screen all day, Repeating the same scenes over and over till everyone gets it just right.  They cry on demand.  The recite lines.  They know how to portray what appears to be genuine emotion even when they aren't feeling those emotions.



Ah - you're thinking movie actors where I was thinking live-stage actors; and yes, there is a difference.

But portraying a different emotion than what one really feels at the time?  That's common to both stage acting and RPGs.  If my PC has reason to be mad at someone about something then I'm going to portray it - through my words, expression, and tone - as being mad, never mind how happy I-as-player might be feeling at that moment because someone just fed me a slice of yummy pizza.



> I don't view acting as roleplaying.  The two are not mutually exclusive as I think some of the best actors likely do roleplay to some degree.  But roleplay isn't a requirement IMO.
> 
> I think it's easy to take the final product and read roleplay into it when there wasn't necessarily alot of it there.



"Tonight the role of Julius Caesar will be played by Sir Alec Guinness", a live-theatre MC might have said 40 years ago in the UK.  And thus, when we see Sir Alec on the stage there's an expectation that we the audience will see him as Julius Caesar even if for just the one night we happen to see the show; and there's a corollary expectation that says Sir Alec will do his best to make us think he really is Caesar during that same period of time.

The difference in an RPG, of course, is that we see the same people playing the same roles for much longer than just one "show".  Add to that it's pretty much all unscripted and that the actors (rather than the writer and-or director) are responsible for defining the personality and traits they're trying to portray, and it's a different breed of animal once one gets past the common root: playing a role and acting are largely synonymous.


----------



## Lanefan

FrogReaver said:


> On a side note: if you can fail forward... I suppose it's also possible to succeed toward escalating conflict.  We could have a whole discussion around that idea.



At some point there's a very blurry dividing line between 'fail-forward' and what I call 'succeed-backward'.

Depending on context, finding a 1000 g.p. ruby instead of 1000 gold coins could fall into any of: full success, succeed-backward, fail-forward, or outright fail.



> That's your assertion yes.  It's interesting to note that all the systems with good to have experiences are not D&D.  It's almost as if all of this is just a subtle way to tell everyone that they are having badwrongfun, without actually needing to call it that.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> But it seems that anything positive said about D&D is just crapped on here as if the OP suggesting that all RPG's have pros and cons really means all RPG's except D&D have pros and cons.



In fairness there's certainly been some support from that quarter for D&D 4e over time, and even in this thread, so it's not like D&D has been left completely in the dark.



> My wife tends to dislike being in the ocean because she is afraid of it.  For her the pool is much more thrilling.



And personally I find neither to be particularly thrilling at all, assuming 'thrilling' carries with it a certain level of fun or enjoyment. (as opposed to the other kind of 'thrill' where one finds oneself in the ocean not by one's own choice because one has just fallen off a boat)


----------



## FrogReaver

Lanefan said:


> In fairness there's certainly been some support from that quarter for D&D 4e over time, and even in this thread, so it's not like D&D has been left completely in the dark.




Sure.  I would just love once to hear their take on the pros of 5e in relation to roleplaying.  What can it do that all these other systems can't?


----------



## pemerton

FrogReaver said:


> are there never disagreements or difference of opinion about when the rules say to roll?



Here is some rules text from Apocalypse World (which is one of the games [MENTION=16586]Campbell[/MENTION] was referring to), pp 12 and 194.

The rule for moves is *to do it, do it*. In order for it to be a move and for the player to roll dice, the character has to do something that counts as that move; and whenever the character does something that counts as a move, it’s the move and the player rolls dice.

Usually it’s unambiguous: “dammit, I guess I crawl out there. I try to keep my head down. I’m doing it under fire?” “Yep.” But there are two ways they sometimes don’t line up, and it’s your job as MC to deal with them. . . .

Second is when a player has her character take action that counts as a move, but doesn’t realize it, or doesn’t intend it to be a move. For instance: “I shove him out of my way.” Your answer then should be “cool, you’re going aggro?” “I pout. ‘Well if you really don’t like me…’” “Cool, you’re trying to manipulate him?” “I squeeze way back between the tractor and the wall so they don’t see me.” “Cool, you’re acting under fire?”

You don’t ask in order to give the player a chance to decline to roll, you ask in order to give the player a chance to revise her character’s action if she really didn’t mean to make the move. “Cool, you’re going aggro?” Legit: “oh! No, no, if he’s really blocking the door, whatever, I’ll go the other way.” Not legit: “well no, I’m just shoving him out of my way, I don’t want to roll for it.” The rule for moves is *if you do it, you do it*, so make with the dice. . . .

*An example of a mistake & correction:*
Wilson corners Monk. “I scream at him, shove him, call him names. ‘Stay ******** away from Amni, you creepy little ****.’ I’m going aggro on him.” “Cool,” I say. “Do you pull a weapon, or is it just shoving and yelling?” “Oh, yeah, no, it’s just shoving and yelling.” “Well, that’s fine,” I say, “but if he forces your hand, he takes 0-harm. I’m pretty sure that’s what he’s going to do. Do you want to roll for it anyway? Do you want to bring a weapon to bear after all? Oh hold on — I think you’re actually using the threat as leverage, you’re manipulating him, not going aggro. Want to roll+hot for that?” “Oh!” Wilson’s player says. “Yeah, yeah, that makes sense. Right on.”​
So if it's not initially clear whether a, or what, roll is required, then everyone clarifies the fiction and the intent until it is clear what move, is any, is being performed.


----------



## Ovinomancer

FrogReaver said:


> Sure.  I would just love once to hear their take on the pros of 5e in relation to roleplaying.  What can it do that all these other systems can't?




Is that all?  You want someone to tell you what 5e does well?  Sheesh, you're like that character Warren from Empire Records that holds up the record store because he wants a job there -- your approach is wildly divergent from your goal.

As I have disagreed mightily with you this entire thread but yet also run a weekly 5e game, I should be well qualified to answer this:

5e does exploration well.  It's designed on the premise that the PCs will be acting in a GM built world and exploring the fictional contours the GM has in mind.  And, it does this well.  It's structure of strong GM authority give the GM the needed control to curate the experience.  With a skilled GM, the play is exciting and surprising for the players.  

5e does zero to hero well.  If you want to play a character that goes from nobody to demi-god, it's hard to find a better system to do this in.   It strongly caters to these kinds of roleplaying experiences in ways that other systems, including my favorite alternate Blades in the Dark, do not.

5e does character control well.  There's a lot to be said for being able to have absolute authority over once characterization -- to decide what it is you want to roleplay and not be challenged on that.  This lets you focus on the external-to-character challenges the game presents which ties very nicely into my first point as much of the game will revolve around this kind of play.  

5e scratches that tactical itch, the one the system mastery hangs out with, very well -- much better than many other systems that use more generalized mechanics for conflict resolution.  The predictability of the system goes a long way towards this, and that ties into the roleplaying by not putting characterization at risk so the players have that stable backdrop to free space for tactical play.

Does this assuage?


----------



## hawkeyefan

FrogReaver said:


> Sure.  I would just love once to hear their take on the pros of 5e in relation to roleplaying.  What can it do that all these other systems can't?




I play D&D all the time. From a rules standpoint, it doesn’t do a whole lot to help roleplaying. In 5E, you have your class which defines your overall role as part of the party. You have your race and background which give some idea of your role in society. You have your alignment which gives you your overall moral views. There’s a bit of overlap with them, but that’s what these things do. 

In addition to that, 5E has Traits, Ideals, Bonds, and Flaws. These things give you some more specific facets of your character. This is the kind of thing I think most long time players have always done to some extent, but now it’s formalized as part of character creation.

So these are the elements of the 5E D&D rules that pertain to roleplaying. You certainly can come up with a limitless combination of them to create a unique character.

But none of them have strong mechanical implications. Even alignment has lost its teeth. The idea of switching alignment used to be a kind of scary thing. There could be severe repercussions if it happened. Not any more. Now you can play your character however you want. Other than race and class and background, the other stuff could shift if the player decided. Have a flaw that comes up at a really inconvenient time? Ignore it! Tempted to steal despite your Lawful Good alignment? Shift To Neutral!

With minimal effort, any such change can be justified with fictional reasoning. Without any rules to incentivize roleplay, it becomes uncertain and inconsistent. Sure, a group of players may revel in their characters and “play them true” regardless of how challenging that may make things for them. That’s great! I think my group largely does that. 

So while there are things in D&D that help players roleplay, they aren’t all that compelling. Nor are they really unique to D&D. Most games have similar elements to class, race, background, and so on. At best, D&D 5E allows players to decide what they’d like for their character...which can be a good thing. But as you’ve pointed out, there are pros and cons to everything. We could just as easily say that D&D 5E allows players to be totally inconsistent in how they portray their character.


----------



## Campbell

FrogReaver said:


> Sure.  I would just love once to hear their take on the pros of 5e in relation to roleplaying.  What can it do that all these other systems can't?




I'm afraid this will sound like damning with faint praise, but it is the result of an honest evaluation that comes from running and playing 5e. Much like Fate, I consider 5e to be a really well designed game that excels at a style of play I have very little interest in. 5e excels at GM led and mediated storytelling where the emphasis is on resolving the adventure that is put in front of the PCs with carefully managed spotlight balancing. The character generation rules do a good job of generating characters that have some interesting bits of characterization, but few outside entanglements. The resolution system is completely opaque to the players. The systems that encourage role play are about light characterization and not playing with integrity. In my experience from both sides of the screen it is not a good game for diving deep into character. It's not really designed for that. It's like really good at what it does though.

For what it's worth I would not layer in social mechanics with teeth to 5e. Every player's real motivation is assumed to be resolving the adventure. I do not think there really is extra room to give there. Players' hands are already pretty tied.

Please do not think I'm being cute when I talk about GM mediated story telling. That is exactly what a large portion of the audience wants and a lot of the games I play are actively hostile to it. Blades in the Dark and Apocalypse World make it incredibly obvious if a GM is trying to lead play down particular avenues. In general the way information gathering and social skills work in these games betray attempts to be sly and characters have a lot of resources to get the things they want, but it could also go really badly.


----------



## pemerton

Sadras said:


> The obvious answer is that it depends on the type/style of game. In many versions of D&D the DM is granted a special status. In some indie games the dice determine who narrates or how the narrative flows. Both options are good.
> 
> 
> 
> It is elegant but it doesn't suit all stories or styles of play.



I guess I'm assuming that - or wondering whether - there is more that can be said than just _It's my preference_. That is, that it's possible to articulate _why_ it's good.

Upthread,  [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION] asserted that 4e's hp mechanic is _flawed_ because it doesn't conform to his expectations for a hp mechanic. That's a pretty strong claim - that his way of thinking is _better_. Presumably there's something that can be said to expain the weaker claim that it is _good_.

EDIT: So I've read on now almost to the end of the thread. Some posters have posted about why this can be good (neither [MENTION=6795602]FrogReaver[/MENTION] nor [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION], oddly enough). As I've just posted in response to them, I'm reminded of a certain approach to 2nd ed AD&D.

The good of the GM's "special status" seems to consist in curating the players, via their PCs, through an _adventure_ with a reasonably pre-determined structure/sequence of events, or fictional elements to be encountered. (I think this is what [MENTION=16814]Ovinomancer[/MENTION] means by "exploration", and what [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION] has in mind in expressing worries about challenges/obstacles being "bypassed".)

Now can someone tell me how that sort of play is going to put fundamental pressure on the player's conception of the character? I've not seen that in the real world, and I'm not seeing it in these descriptions either.


----------



## pemerton

Tony Vargas said:


> some bristling, defensive 30-something (because this was 20+ years ago, remember), D&Der would present a transcript of a lavishly-roleplayed scenario that happened in his campaign 10 years previously (or that he just made up or embellished), as proof that oh, yeah, you can totally RP the effn'eck outta D&D.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> systems don't make possible *things *that are /impossible/ in other systems, they cover things that, in other systems, are handled by falling back to Freestyle RP - GM stipulation, table consensus, whatever you want to call it - in certain obvious cases, handled that way by hoary time-honored convention.



I've highlighted you use of the word _things_. I think you're using it to refer to certain sorts of events in the fiction. The sorts of things that might be presented on a messageboard in the form of a transcript.

In my post I was talking about experiences _had by the players, at the table_. The transcript - the in-fiction events - is one component of these. But does not exhaust them.

To give an obvious example: a transcript that reports a PC narrowly avoiding a dragon's breath by diving over the edge of a ravine into the stream below might be a report of GM narration/railroading; or a report of 30 minutes of tactical play where all sorts of possibilities were open and the dynamics of the table-interactions produced this particualr outcome; or a report of the outcomes of some Cortex+ Heroic narration+dice pool action; or who knows what other method of resolution.

The transcript might be the same, but the play experience won't have been.


----------



## pemerton

Ovinomancer said:


> those choices that find things out about the character, like choosing to involve your close friend (who always has useful abilities) into a risky situation where the friend is at risk.  Are you the type of person that would risk/sacrifice your close friend for advantage?  If you succeed, then no, maybe you aren't, but if you fail and the friend pays the cost instead of you, then, well, you find out that your character is, indeed, that type of person.   This is fundamentally not something that exists in 5e -- this kind of opportunity to roleplay is not available in that system.



I see this as somewhat similar to what I posted upthread - that in AD&D there's no systematic way to put your connection to family on the line.


----------



## Manbearcat

FrogReaver said:


> I think all you have is a few personal experiences that you've spent a lot of time analyzing and trying to extrapolate as general principles for all mankind.
> 
> So you first.  Tell us that you don't actually know everything you've been discussing and talking about all this time.  It's okay to do so after all.




I don’t know what the point of this response was. It doesn’t engage with anything I’ve said. You won’t me to...say that I don’t know what I’m talking about? Huh?

Further, it’s a claim about me that has absolutely no evidence to back it up.  What claim from ignorance do you think that I’m making that isn’t backed by evidence and won’t stand up under scrutiny?

If you’re looking for an example of my willingness to claim ignorance on something RPG, look no further than my engagement with Tony (which you read) about Hero. I don’t know it. If I want to engage in a discussion about it I’ll either (a) educate myself with firsthand experience or (b) ask questions of and listen to people who do know it.

There are lots of things I don’t know. Pick 3 topics and you’re sure to find at least 1 with plenty I don’t know about.



FrogReaver said:


> Sure.  I would just love once to hear their take on the pros of 5e in relation to roleplaying.  What can it do that all these other systems can't?




Ok.

So this is starting to look like edition war stuff.

Ill answer your question:

1) 5e doesn’t get enough credit for its Social Interaction mechanics. In a system that is about GM-mediated puzzle-solving, they did a great job of exemplifying that with a subsystem that feels like Wheel of Fortune or Pictionary in play...which, coincidentally is similar to trying to get to know a person and influence them.

2) Background Traits, though limited, do a great job of providing the kind of cross-character player fiat that was only available to spellcasters in AD&D and 3.x.

3) Lair and Legendary Actions are quite good for thematic and tactical dynamism. If only they were orthodox across monsters.

4) 5e makes no bones about its emulation of AD&D. I called it AD&D 3e in the play-test because it was utterly obvious that they were surveying, consulting, and designing with intent toward that paradigm. What does it do well:

* The heavy GM mediated experience of 2e where players are touring a setting or being run through a preconceived metaplot (either GM conceived or an AP). The opacity and GM facing resolution machinery and the GMing ethos (spotlight balancing, lead storytelling, et al) allows for GMs to deftly curate the experience, deploying Force and Illusionism where necessary to achieve the desired result of the experience of the setting, metaplot, and fun for casual players who are inclined toward a more passive role (which is a HUGE number of players), heavy on characterization and some GM-curated dice throws to actualize character concept in his/her story medium.

* It’s probably the best hexcrawl game on the market (or at least the ones I’ve run). The exploration mechanics/measurements/PC tools are integrated very well. So it does a good game with a predefined, tightly scaled map with various threats and goings-ons for players to navigate and engage strategic decision-making (where to go, how to go there, what resources to allocate). So 1e but vastly superior.

* If you crib the necessary tech from Moldvay Basic, it can do it well enough...though not as good as the original.


----------



## FrogReaver

Manbearcat said:


> I don’t know what the point of this response was. It doesn’t engage with anything I’ve said. You won’t me to...say that I don’t know what I’m talking about? Huh?
> 
> Further, it’s a claim about me that has absolutely no evidence to back it up.  What claim from ignorance do you think that I’m making that isn’t backed by evidence and won’t stand up under scrutiny?
> 
> If you’re looking for an example of my willingness to claim ignorance on something RPG, look no further than my engagement with Tony (which you read) about Hero. I don’t know it. If I want to engage in a discussion about it I’ll either (a) educate myself with firsthand experience or (b) ask questions of and listen to people who do know it.
> 
> There are lots of things I don’t know. Pick 3 topics and you’re sure to find at least 1 with plenty I don’t know about.




Right you were talking about knowing RPG's from experience (which on a side note I have admitted I don't have experience based knowledge.  However I do have cognitive based knowledge in that I'm able to imagine such a game system and how it would play for me)  

What I was doing was pointing out the irony that you were going on about people not being able to admit they don't know something when you yourself can't admit you don't really know - that all you actually know is that for *you* RPG X does Y.





> Ok.
> 
> So this is starting to look like edition war stuff.




It has sounded that way to me for most of this thread.


----------



## Manbearcat

FrogReaver said:


> Right you were talking about knowing RPG's from experience (which on a side note I have admitted I don't have experience based knowledge.  However I do have cognitive based knowledge in that I'm able to imagine such a game system and how it would play for me)
> 
> What I was doing was pointing out the irony that you were going on about people not being able to admit they don't know something when you yourself can't admit you don't really know - that all you actually know is that for *you* RPG X does Y.
> 
> It has sounded that way to me for most of this thread.




I see.

So TTRPG systems and play are not objective things and cannot be analyzed empirically and anyone that attempts to do so is a big jerk?

Is that pretty much the gist?

Following from that, you’ve just wasted my (and others) time with a rhetorical request to evaluate 5e that you obviously had no interest in engaging with. Feels bad. Please don’t make such requests, get sincere replies, and then completely ignore them. If you think TTRPG analysis isn’t useful, or actively harmful, why are engaging in a thread like this?


----------



## pemerton

FrogReaver said:


> When did the players suggest something?  They declare attempted actions.  Are you equating an attempted action declaration with a suggestion?



An action declaration is a proposal that the fiction should include a certain content. For instance, _I [try and] climb the wall_ is a proposal as to the content of the shared fiction, namely, that it includes the PC climbing the wall.



FrogReaver said:


> I don't think that the GM always decides is controversial in D&D.





FrogReaver said:


> pemerton said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> But if acting is not roleplaying, then where does the roleplaying consist of in a game in which the GM decides all the outcomes? What are the players doing in such a game other than some improv acting?
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Playing their character and seeing what happens.
Click to expand...


I don't know what _playing their character_ means here other than some improv acting. If the GM is deciding everything that happens, what else are the players contributing to the game?

I've played games of D&D in which the players did more than improv acting, but that's because, in those games, the GM didn't decide everything that happens. This is why I regard it as controversial to assert that, in D&D, _the GM always decides_. Because that doesn't describe all my D&D experiences.



FrogReaver said:


> So what actual reasons do you have for asserting that a 1000gp ruby can never be a success?  (not that a 1000gp ruby with a major downside is not a success).



I didn't say it can never be a success. I said that it's not per se a success ie it can be a failure (which I took you to deny).

If the intent is _to find some treasure_, then a ruby may well be a success. But the action declaration you described was _to find 1000 gp_. If you meant _an intent to find 1000 gp worth of treasure_ then of course finding the ruby would be a success.

This is very similar to [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION] upthread, who seemed to treat an intent _to find incriminating financial documents_ as equivalent to an intent _to find something that might be incrminating_. If you're meaning the more general intent then I don't quite get why you're presenting your examples by reference to the narrower more specific intent.



FrogReaver said:


> Rolling a dice doesn't challenge a player.



No one asserts that it does. The challenge is putting the consequence of the die roll on the line. 



FrogReaver said:


> you don't need dice to challenge the players conception of their character or the fictional world as the same narration that challenges the player can be achieved with no dice being rolled.



This claim hasn't been demonstrated.

For instance, how in AD&D, or 5e D&D, can a player put his/her PC's connection with a friend or a family member on the line, without this just being an invitation for the GM to make a decision about what that NPC does?



FrogReaver said:


> It's interesting to note that all the systems with good to have experiences are not D&D.  It's almost as if all of this is just a subtle way to tell everyone that they are having badwrongfun, without actually needing to call it that.
> 
> But that aside, on an individual level I full agree that different systems can yield totally different experiences.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> My repeated theme this whole thread has been that has been that different game systems play differently and appeal to different people, but that most everything you claim my favored system can't handle, that it actually can and does.  That it's rules light non-combat system offers greater opportunities in roleplaying than other more codified systems (not saying those other systems aren't fun).
> 
> But it seems that anything positive said about D&D is just crapped on here as if the OP suggesting that all RPG's have pros and cons really means all RPG's except D&D have pros and cons.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> What has been asserted for most of this thread is that the roleplaying is superior in these other games.  That the roleplaying examples being mentioned aren't possible in D&D etc.  That's where the disagreement lies.





FrogReaver said:


> I would just love once to hear their take on the pros of 5e in relation to roleplaying.  What can it do that all these other systems can't?



I'm not sure whether you're agreeing with me that different systems produce different experiences, or are asserting that 5e D&D prodocuse the same experiences as any other system. I'm not sure that both claims can be true.

I don't play 5e D&D, so I can't tell you what its pros are in relation to roleplaying.

Classic D&D (inlcuding Moldvay Basic and Gygax's AD&D) is quite a good system if you want to play a dungeon crawl: it has a range of systems to support that including wandering monster systems, mapping conventions, rules for searching in dungeons, systems for retainer/hireling loyalty, etc.

The only other systems I personally know that aim to support this sort of play are T&T and Torchbearer - I've played a tiny bit of the former and none of the latter. But [MENTION=6696971]Manbearcat[/MENTION] knows Torchbearer.

4e D&D is a completely different game from classic D&D - it shares some subsystems but almost none of the broader framework of play. It's a game of epic, often gonzo, fantasy/cosmological adventure. It doesn't have the dungeon-crawling subsystems of classic D&D, but it does have systems to help it do what it does, including the skill challenge mechanic.

Someone else will have to post about 5e D&D.


----------



## pemerton

Lanefan said:


> pemerton said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> when the check succeeds the player decides, when the check fails the GM decides. It's so simple it's elegant! And it doesn't exclude any possibilities - the players are free to declare the full range of possible actions, the GM is free to narrate the full range of possible failures.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Which means a player rolling a hot die can - and IME almost invariably would - have her PC bypass any and all obstacles the setting wants to throw in its way, and sail through the story/adventure/mission/whatever without any delays or frustrations or, dare I say, effort...with the one exception being any combats that are unavoidable.
> 
> The setting, and by extension the GM, exist in part to oppose and-or challenge the PCs and by extension the players; meaning that whether you like it or not there's always going to be that element of adversarialness (yeah, new word there) in their relationship.  If the players are given free rein to narrate their successes then most if not all players IME would take that as license to run roughshod over the principles of the game.
Click to expand...


I don't understand. Are you saying that sometimes the GM has to ignore successful checks and treat them as failures because otherwise the players will win the game unfairly or too easily? That's a strange assertion, if it's the one you're making.

I also don't understand what "combats that are unavoidable" has to do with anything. That's just more checks. If the player's dice are "hot" (as you put it) then the player can "bypass" the combat also.

Even within the framework of AD&D I don't really know what you're envisaging here. For instance, nothing in Gygax's AD&D books suggests that a GM can ignore a successful check to find secret doors or to disarm a trap because allowing the success would make things too easy for the players.


----------



## pemerton

Ovinomancer said:


> 5e does exploration well.  It's designed on the premise that the PCs will be acting in a GM built world and exploring the fictional contours the GM has in mind.  And, it does this well.  It's structure of strong GM authority give the GM the needed control to curate the experience.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> 5e does character control well.  There's a lot to be said for being able to have absolute authority over once characterization -- to decide what it is you want to roleplay and not be challenged on that.  This lets you focus on the external-to-character challenges the game presents which ties very nicely into my first point as much of the game will revolve around this kind of play.





Campbell said:


> 5e excels at GM led and mediated storytelling where the emphasis is on resolving the adventure that is put in front of the PCs with carefully managed spotlight balancing. The character generation rules do a good job of generating characters that have some interesting bits of characterization, but few outside entanglements. The resolution system is completely opaque to the players. The systems that encourage role play are about light characterization and not playing with integrity. In my experience from both sides of the screen it is not a good game for diving deep into character. It's not really designed for that.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> I would not layer in social mechanics with teeth to 5e. Every player's real motivation is assumed to be resolving the adventure. I do not think there really is extra room to give there. Players' hands are already pretty tied.



These two accounts of 5e seem pretty congruent with one another. They remind me of a certain, fairly common, sort of approach to 2nd ed AD&D.

I've also edited a post about half-a-dozen upthread having read these posts.

EDIT: and I also just read this, which seems equally congruent with the other two posts:



Manbearcat said:


> 5e makes no bones about its emulation of AD&D. I called it AD&D 3e in the play-test because it was utterly obvious that they were surveying, consulting, and designing with intent toward that paradigm. What does it do well:
> 
> * The heavy GM mediated experience of 2e where players are touring a setting or being run through a preconceived metaplot (either GM conceived or an AP). The opacity and GM facing resolution machinery and the GMing ethos (spotlight balancing, lead storytelling, et al) allows for GMs to deftly curate the experience, deploying Force and Illusionism where necessary to achieve the desired result of the experience of the setting, metaplot, and fun for casual players who are inclined toward a more passive role (which is a HUGE number of players), heavy on characterization and some GM-curated dice throws to actualize character concept in his/her story medium.
> 
> * It’s probably the best hexcrawl game on the market (or at least the ones I’ve run). The exploration mechanics/measurements/PC tools are integrated very well. So it does a good game with a predefined, tightly scaled map with various threats and goings-ons for players to navigate and engage strategic decision-making (where to go, how to go there, what resources to allocate). So 1e but vastly superior.


----------



## Arilyn

I am going to interject with some personal experiences. I have been involved in this hobby for decades and have played a variety of games. I love role playing, and lean more heavily on the narrative end of things. I tend to role play my characters honestly, and will do things which hurt my chances of success because that's what my character would do. I understand the posters on this thread who claim mechanics aren't needed for roleplaying. I get it. It's been my position for many years, and I have fun playing in this more classical mode. 

BUT...

I decide in these cases what my character will put on the line, and so there is always that layer of safety, even if it seems my character has losses, and is struggling with angst. ( I have done my share of WOD).  When I play in games with role playing mechanics that really puts on the pressure, it is different. It's actually more immersive, despite the initial reaction that role playing mechanics should destroy the player's autonomy. Everything has a more immediate feel, a greater intensity.  

There's been skepticism that " story now" games must mean players just trip about getting what they want, and role play mechanics get in the way of me knowing best who my character is. This isn't true. You need to try these games to understand them because just imagining how they work doesn't cut it. 

Having said all this, I continue to enjoy traditional play. I don't always want that pressure and intensity, and it can be more more challenging to get right.


----------



## Tony Vargas

pemerton said:


> I've highlighted you use of the word _things_. I think you're using it to refer to certain sorts of events in the fiction. The sorts of things that might be presented on a messageboard in the form of a transcript.



 I meant it as non-specific and all-inclusive.


> In my post I was talking about experiences _had by the players, at the table_.



I would absolutely include things like those things, in 'things.'  

The example was illustrative,  not exhaustive. 

Now, if you want to get down to the level of experiencing system artifacts, sure, even freestyle, with no system to speak of could be said to have those, and they'd be different from an actual system.

But, my point was not that all systems, are the same because they're the same as no system, just that nothing is outside the scope of a given instance of RP, just because it's outside the scope of what the system in use does, or does well, as the participants can hypothetically fall back on freestyle/make-believe/non-systematic RP.

I see the important takeaway being that such a hypothetical case is not an attribute, let alone strength, of the system, but simply coping with its failings.


----------



## Lanefan

pemerton said:


> Upthread,  [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION] asserted that 4e's hp mechanic is _flawed_ because it doesn't conform to his expectations for a hp mechanic. That's a pretty strong claim - that his way of thinking is _better_. Presumably there's something that can be said to expain the weaker claim that it is _good_.



To save us from yet another hit-points-and-what-they-mean debate, I'll throw in just this: realism.

In real life each of us has a certain threshold of physical damage or trauma we can withstand before our body shuts down and we die.  And, though we don't numeritically measure it by hit points, the general concept is the same.

If, for example, I go out this afternoon and get hit by someone riding a bicycle my "hit points" (i.e. my body's natural resistance to externally-inflicted trauma) are good enough to give me a reasonable chance of survival.  If instead I get hit by a car going at standard street speed, my "hit points" will be put to a severe test and quite likely won't be enough to save me..though they might.  However should I get hit and run over by a freight train my "hit points" don't have a chance of saving me: I'm done.

To the bicycle I'm a significant opponent.  To the car I'm enough to do some damage but that's it.  To the train I'm a bug to be swatted aside.

But what's the one thing that doesn't change?  My actual physical resilience.  My "hit points".  The actual amount of trauma I can survivably sustain is the same in every instance.

4e minion rules don't reflect this at all.



> The good of the GM's "special status" seems to consist in curating the players, via their PCs, through an _adventure_ with a reasonably pre-determined structure/sequence of events, or fictional elements to be encountered. (I think this is what [MENTION=16814]Ovinomancer[/MENTION] means by "exploration", and what [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION] has in mind in expressing worries about challenges/obstacles being "bypassed".)
> 
> Now can someone tell me how that sort of play is going to put fundamental pressure on the player's conception of the character? I've not seen that in the real world, and I'm not seeing it in these descriptions either.



It isn't, if what's being bypassed are in fact those very challenges.


----------



## Lanefan

pemerton said:


> I see this as somewhat similar to what I posted upthread - that in AD&D there's no systematic way to put your connection to family on the line.



If you're looking for a fully-game-mechanical means of generating or forcing such conflict then no, you won't find it.

But that in no way means the system doesn't or can't support it.  In 1e that connection can be put on the line via story elements introduced by the GM (most often), by the PC's own player (less common), or by another player/PC (rare, but I've seen it happen).

Example.  It'd take me all afternoon to fill in the whole backstory, but the here-and-now upshot still in process of being played out is this: up until now my PC has always put duty first: duty to mission, duty to Empire, duty to law, etc. at cost of friendships, potential romances, possessions, and even on at least one occasion her life.  Recent events have put her family - who she hasn't had contact with in years and to whom she has never felt any real sense of duty (she rather looks down on them as the peasants they are) - in severe danger, and in the process of choosing between her duty to the party/mission and rescuing her family I've learned something about her: when put to it she'll see to her family first.

Game mechanics had nothing to do with any of this - in effect (and probably unintentionally!) the DM put a story-based challenge to the character.

And I'm sure you'll dismiss this as being a choice rather than a challenge...so in advance I ask, what's the difference?


----------



## Lanefan

Manbearcat said:


> So TTRPG systems and play are not objective things and cannot be analyzed empirically



Empirically?  Perhaps, but I'd posit true empiric analysis can only really ceom from someone outside the hobby.  Those inside it have largely lost objectivity (whether we like to admit it or not) in favour of what we know/like/prefer.

Nothing wrong with this, of course, but we - all of us - have to admit it; and further have to admit that down-calling someone else's viewpoint as "subjective" or "just your preference" is almost always a case of pot meeting kettle.



> and anyone that attempts to do so is a big jerk?



That's a bit harsh, but anyone inside the hobby who claims objectivity in analysis needs to be taken with a large grain of salt.



> If you think TTRPG analysis isn’t useful, or actively harmful, why are engaging in a thread like this?



I don't see it as harmful at all - it's fascinating, sometimes, to see the various analyses put forward by those of different gaming preferences and how said analyses are thus filtered through said preferences.

And then, of course, I add my own...complete with filters!


----------



## Lanefan

pemerton said:


> An action declaration is a proposal that the fiction should include a certain content. For instance, _I [try and] climb the wall_ is a proposal as to the content of the shared fiction, namely, that it includes the PC climbing the wall.



Exactly!  Hallelujah, we agree! 

It's a proposal to change the fiction, and the dice will then determine the outcome - pretty binary, in this case - you either climb it or you don't.

The complications arise when other more general goals, or corollary specific goals that may or may not conflict, get thrown in to the same declaration e.g. 

I (try to) climb the wall and kill the guard (two goals: climb the wall [specific] and kill the guard [general and unrelated, can be done with a bow from the ground] - should be split out)
I (try to) climb the wall and avoid the guard (two goals: climb the wall [specific] and avoid the guard [specific] - hard to split out but also hard to justify tying into one roll)
I (try to) climb the wall without being seen or heard from the street (two goals: climb the wall [specific] and maintain stealth [general] - these might be mutually incompatible in the fiction)
I (try to) climb the wall and open the third-floor window (two goals: climb the wall and open the window - both are specific but should be split out)

Conclusion: if multiple goals are presented, either split them out into specifics or accept that you're giving the GM more latitude to define what both a success or a failure represents.


----------



## Lanefan

pemerton said:


> I don't understand. Are you saying that sometimes the GM has to ignore successful checks and treat them as failures because otherwise the players will win the game unfairly or too easily? That's a strange assertion, if it's the one you're making.



No, I'm saying just the opposite: that the GM has to abide by the rolls in principle; and then pointing out that doing so carries a risk of making things too easy and thus making the game less enjoyable.



> I also don't understand what "combats that are unavoidable" has to do with anything. That's just more checks. If the player's dice are "hot" (as you put it) then the player can "bypass" the combat also.



See below...



> Even within the framework of AD&D I don't really know what you're envisaging here. For instance, nothing in Gygax's AD&D books suggests that a GM can ignore a successful check to find secret doors or to disarm a trap because allowing the success would make things too easy for the players.



In 1e or similar systems the presence or absence of a secret door is determined by what's on the GM's map long before anyone searches for it...thus searching where there isn't one isn't going to find you one no matter what you do.

But in on-the-fly games where a player searching for a secret door can (on success) add one to the fiction, bypassing potential obstacles seems to become much easier.  Example: party trying to sneak into a castle - scouting has shown a bunch of foes guarding the gates, so time to go to plan B.  In 1e or similar, there might not be a viable plan B depending on how the adventure has been structured (the idea is that getting past the gate guards is intended to become either a big set-piece open field fight or a test of the party's diplomacy and-or stealth skills)...but in a system where the players can in effect author their own way in via repeated searches for secret doors (on a different bit of wall each time) then the gate guards can quickly become little more than window dressing.


----------



## Tony Vargas

Lanefan said:


> To save us from yet another hit-points-and-what-they-mean debate, I'll throw in just this: realism.



Realism?  In a discussion of hit points?



> In real life each of us has a certain threshold of physical damage or trauma we can withstand before our body shuts down and we die.



Nope, we don't.  A very slight trauma involving relatively little injury can kill instantly, profound trauma over much of the body can be survived.  The human body is freak'n weird.  People fall in the shower and die.  People fall out of airplanes without parachutes and live.  It's not because some people rolled 1 on their HD.  It's not because falls do d1000 damage. It's because reality is far, far more complex than something like hps can even begin to model.

More over, "Realism" was the bludgeon with which critics attacked D&D in it's earliest days - /for having hit points that increased with level/.  Because, if hps were, as you just blithely claimed, just a measure of ability to absorb trauma, then 'experience' increasing them would be wildly unrealistic.  Your character would have to physically grow, or become denser, or change his material composition or something.  

That criticism was answered, and hps were never conceived as simply a measure of capacity to absorb physical trauma.  

But, come the edition war, that fallacious strawman criticism of early D&D was held up as /the way D&D had always been/.

It's about the most 1984-worthy bit of double-think in the revisionist history of the game.


----------



## ExploderWizard

pemerton said:


> I don't quite get this.
> 
> The player decides _I wink at the maiden_. Who gets to decide whether it's also true that _I soften the heart of the maiden with a wink_? They're too different descriptions of the one action, so framing things in terms of difficulty doesn't seem to help.




Actually they are not different descriptions of the same action. " I wink at the maiden" is an action. The player has complete control of this action. How an action is reacted to or received is not part of performing that action. Desired effects are just that- desires. Actual outcomes or consequences of actions are often not within the original actor's scope of control. In this case _I soften the heart _is one possible outcome or consequence of the winking action certainly but there may be others completely unknown to the winking player character. Player agency extends to what they actually say and do. Reactions to those words and actions both from GM controlled NPCs and other player characters are not part of that agency.


----------



## pemerton

Tony Vargas said:


> nothing is outside the scope of a given instance of RP, just because it's outside the scope of what the system in use does, or does well, as the participants can hypothetically fall back on freestyle/make-believe/non-systematic RP.



I don't know what you mean by _a given instance of RP_.

I'll set out a practical example to try and illustrate my point: imagine a situation in which the PCs are fighting some NPCs, and are losing - multiple PCs down, hors de combat etc while the NPCs are clearly about to carry the day.

In these circumstances in Classic Traveller the players have to make a morale check for their PCs (influenced by the presence of Leader and Tactics skill in the party). In classic D&D they don't.

So in Traveller, the players have made a choice - eg by not retreating in good order - to risk breaking in disarray in pursuit of victory. The D&D players _cannot_ make such a choice - they can choose to play their PCs as breaking in disarray, but it's not a risk that they've taken, because at every point they have control over what their PCs do, and can always choose - should they wish - to retreat in good order.

This is an example of what I mean by saying that different systems produce different experiences. And it is why I don't agree that you can replicate those experiences via freeform roleplaying.


----------



## pemerton

pemerton said:


> A classic article on the analysis of actions (Donald Davidson, "Actions, Reasons, and Causes" (1963)) gives the following example:
> 
> I flip the switch, turn on the light, and illuminate the room. Unbeknownst to me I also alert a prowler to the fact that I am home. Here I need not have done four things, but only one, of which four descriptions have been given.​





ExploderWizard said:


> pemerton said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> The player decides I wink at the maiden. Who gets to decide whether it's also true that I soften the heart of the maiden with a wink? They're too different descriptions of the one action, so framing things in terms of difficulty doesn't seem to help.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Actually they are not different descriptions of the same action. " I wink at the maiden" is an action. The player has complete control of this action. How an action is reacted to or received is not part of performing that action.
Click to expand...


As I've already posted, I don't think this thread is the place for a serious discussion of philosophy of action. Rather, I'm taking Davidson as a starting point.

But if you are correct, then it follows that - in the example - four different actions have been performed. And if there were two prowlers, each alerted, then five different things would have been done. That is obviously absurd.

Hence - in the context of RPGing - the question is one of _deciding what descriptions of the PC's actions are true_. For instance, _who decides_ that not only is it a true description of the action that _I wink at the maiden_, but aso that _I melt the maiden's heart with my wink_?



ExploderWizard said:


> Desired effects are just that- desires.



Not when they occur. When - to go back to Davidson's example - the room is illuminated, that's not just a desire. It's an event that occurs. And an action has been performed - _I illuminate the room_. Which is the same action as _I flip the light switch_, although under a different description. The argument that it is the same action is as above - any other view leads to metaphysical absurdity. (For instance, suppose there's a painting hanging in the room - it is now also true that _I make the painting visible_. Were that a separate action, then by changing what is in the room, and hence what true descriptions of rendering things visible can be given, I would change the number of actions performed by the light-switch-flipper. Which is absurd.)



ExploderWizard said:


> Actual outcomes or consequences of actions are often not within the original actor's scope of control.



Yes. _Unbeknownst to me I also alert a prowler to the fact that I am home._ This doesn't change the fact that these are true descriptions of a single action.



pemerton said:


> What do others think about who does, or should, get to establish the truth of descriptions of PC actions, and how?





ExploderWizard said:


> Player agency extends to what they actually say and do. Reactions to those words and actions both from GM controlled NPCs and other player characters are not part of that agency.



This is one possible answer to the question asked in the OP. Obviously it's not the only one.


----------



## Tony Vargas

pemerton said:


> I don't know what you mean by _a given instance of RP_.



 I was searching for some way of making a statement general enough to avoid implying any specific system or set of assumptions.

But, y'know, RPGing is something we all do.  Any time we do that, is an 'instance,' right?  So, in any given instance, we might decide to go beyond the scope of the system we're using, or even merely the scope of what it does well.  And, /if/ we're a group with a good dynamic, we may even be able to get away with it and produce a given hypothetical experience.  

It's an idea that's positively tautological.  You have an imagination?  You can roleplay!  The scope of roleplaying in that naïve sense is prettymuch limitless.  And, you can, hypothetically, always fall back on that.

So if you're trying to discuss differences among some systems, and you say "you can't roleplay in that system" or "it's impossible to do inveigle a framistatt in that system" or whatever makes you feel good about your this system that isn't that system, the fans of that system are going to be able to come back and say "sure I can! I just did a week ago last Tuesday!"



> I'll set out a practical example to try and illustrate my point



It won't help, but OK...


> imagine a situation in which the PCs are fighting some NPCs, and are losing - multiple PCs down, hors de combat etc while the NPCs are clearly about to carry the day.
> In these circumstances in Classic Traveller the players have to make a morale check (influenced by the presence of Leader and Tactics skill in the party). In classic D&D they don't.



Yippee.  In a given hypothetical instance of play under either system, they might stand and fight, or lay down a suppressive fire with their incinerators and fall back by squads, or break and run, or try to negotiate, or something else.  

It's just that, in one system, the result of a resolution mechanic will give them tools to determine that, and, in the other, they'll fall back on whatever conventions, habits, or consensus they can come to without those tools.  



> So in Traveller, the players have made a choice - eg by not retreating in good order - to risk breaking in disarray in pursuit of victory.



OK, that's not in the example, but I can see how it might've been implied. 







> The D&D players _cannot_ make such a choice - they can choose to play their PCs as breaking in disarray, but it's not a risk that they've taken, because at every point they have control over what their PCs do, and can always choose - should they wish - to retreat in good order.



If they wait too long, it may not do them any good to retreat in good order, or they still might well not do so for whatever reason under their version of the freestyling they fall back on when the system offers them nothing.



> This is an example of what I mean by saying that different systems produce different experiences. And it is why I don't agree that you can replicate those experiences via freeform roleplaying.



Nod. You're talking about the experience of using the system, not the experience of the roleplaying activity.  And, yes, you're trivially right that using a system is a different experience from not using one.  Yet, I'm also trivially right (to just as little purpose) in saying that you can generate the same roleplaying experience in the absence of a system..


----------



## pemerton

Tony Vargas said:


> In a given hypothetical instance of play under either system, they might stand and fight, or lay down a suppressive fire with their incinerators and fall back by squads, or break and run, or try to negotiate, or something else.



To allude back to an earlier post, those are possible transcripts of play, accounts of events that oocur in the fiction. But from the transcript we can't tell what the play experience was. We can't tell who estabished the fiction, or how, or what the actual play experience was of doing that.



Tony Vargas said:


> You're talking about the experience of using the system, not the experience of the roleplaying activity.  And, yes, you're trivially right that using a system is a different experience from not using one.  Yet, I'm also trivially right (to just as little purpose) in saying that you can generate the same roleplaying experience in the absence of a system.



I don't know what you mean by _roleplaying activity_ or _roleplaying experience_. Do you mean _transcript of events that occur in the fiction_? Or something else?

You seem to be asserting that deciding whether the PCs are beaten up by the orcs, or vice versa, by freeform RP is the same experience as resolving that question in D&D using its combat mechanics. But I don't think that's a very widely held view. If I were to start a thread asking whether it makes any difference to combat resolution to use combat mechanics rather than (say) _GM decides_ or _the whole table talks it out_, I think every poster would say that it does.

Except you?


----------



## Tony Vargas

pemerton said:


> To allude back to an earlier post, those are possible transcripts of play, accounts of events that oocur in the fiction. But from the transcript we can't tell what the play experience was. We can't tell who estabished the fiction, or how, or what the actual play experience was of doing that.



Yeah, the actual play experience will be subjective, so looking for the difference there will, at most, uncover some dusty system artifacts that might reveal which system was used, but nothing much more.  

Now, whether via system procedures, or via some naïve-RP/freestyle/make-believe consensus, the same persons could have established the same elements of the fiction in the same order. 



> I don't know what you mean by _roleplaying activity_ or _roleplaying experience_.



Good.  It's nice being the one using confusing terms for a change. ;P 

Well, I don't think I'm trying to draw a distinction between the two.  I am trying to draw a distinction between the, I guess 'high level,' experience of roleplaying, and the, I guess 'low'/detailed level, experiencing of system artifacts.



> Do you mean _transcript of events that occur in the fiction_? Or something else?



No.   In that one example alluded to a transcript, /because it was hypothetically happening on UseNet/ and text is what we had (and still have, here) to work with.  

The example could have as easily been of play in progress.



> You seem to be asserting that deciding whether the PCs are beaten up by the orcs, or vice versa, by freeform RP is the same experience as resolving that question in D&D using its combat mechanics.



I /could/ be, yes. I'll happily acknowledge that for 10000 trials of stomping orcs in D&D, you'll get 9999 that feel like D&D to them, and for 10000 trials of freestyle orc-stomping you might get IDK, 17... so /could be/ the same experience.  

So, maybe that's part of what I'm observing:  a system might deliver similar experiences consistently, while freestyle consistency is based only on the consistency of the group doing it. 



> But I don't think that's a very widely held view.



I would suspect not. 

But I am comfortable holding /extremely/ unpopular views. 



> If I were to start a thread asking whether it makes any difference to combat resolution to use combat mechanics rather than (say) _GM decides_ or _the whole table talks it out_, I think every poster would say that it does.



Nod.  Yet you wouldn't get the same result for a "Social Pillar" scene, would you?  Even though they're both just fictional events that can be modeled by mechanics.


That's why I think these discussions get so fouled up.  Because they quickly become not about the system, which can be objectively described, evaluated & analyzed, but about "the experience" or "the agenda" or the something-in-Forge-speak-which-means-the-reverse-ogive-of-what-it-sounds-like-it-means - which quickly becomes totally subjective.

So, really, it's fine to say "System X has no resolution mechanic for Y."  But, as soon as you extend that to "So whaddaya system-X weasels do when Y?!? Huh! Suckers!!!"  our even a less overtly offensive "You can't do Y in system X" or, worse, a more intellectual "you cant duplicate the experince of doing Y in system Z using system X," you're getting on a retreat-into-subjectivity merry-go-round.  Because, of course, the weasels /can/ do Y, they can Y all they want, and have done, on numerous occasions, in fact, system X is ideal for Y precisely because it leaves them the freedom to Y as they judge best fits their group.  
Yeah. 
You can't argue with logic like that.  
For obvious reasons


----------



## pemerton

Lanefan said:


> To save us from yet another hit-points-and-what-they-mean debate, I'll throw in just this: realism.
> 
> In real life each of us has a certain threshold of physical damage or trauma we can withstand before our body shuts down and we die.  And, though we don't numeritically measure it by hit points, the general concept is the same.
> 
> If, for example, I go out this afternoon and get hit by someone riding a bicycle my "hit points" (i.e. my body's natural resistance to externally-inflicted trauma) are good enough to give me a reasonable chance of survival.  If instead I get hit by a car going at standard street speed, my "hit points" will be put to a severe test and quite likely won't be enough to save me..though they might.  However should I get hit and run over by a freight train my "hit points" don't have a chance of saving me: I'm done.
> 
> To the bicycle I'm a significant opponent.  To the car I'm enough to do some damage but that's it.  To the train I'm a bug to be swatted aside.
> 
> But what's the one thing that doesn't change?  My actual physical resilience.  My "hit points".  The actual amount of trauma I can survivably sustain is the same in every instance.
> 
> 4e minion rules don't reflect this at all.



Let's suppose your claim about human physiology was true, which I don't think it is.

In 4e hp are not a model of that physiology. They are part of an action resolution framework.

The primary mechanical marker of the power of a 4e creature, including the degree of physical trauma it can endure, is its level. By setting the level of a being, the GM is using a mechanical device to signal its toughness in the fiction. Secondarily this is reflected in its defences and any special abilities it might have. Thirdly, this is reflected in its hit points.

A minion's hp are simply a toggle: is it up or is it down? This tells us that, when it engages activities of its levels toughness, it is highly vulnerable. This is related to probabilities of not enduring trauma. To requote from your post:



Lanefan said:


> If, for example, I go out this afternoon and get hit by someone riding a bicycle my "hit points" (i.e. my body's natural resistance to externally-inflicted trauma) are good enough to give me *a reasonable chance* of survival. If instead I get hit by a car going at standard street speed, my "hit points" will be put to a severe test and *quite likely* won't be enough to save me..though they *might*.



I have bolded the probability markers you have used. In everyday life we call this _luck_. In 4e D&D hp do not model only physiology. Among other things they model luck. Giving a minion 1 hp is indicating that this being has little luck - if it is successfully hit by an opponent of the appropriate degree of toughness, it goes down.

We can see all this in the account of the tiers of play (4e DMG, pp 146-47; very similar text can be found in the PHB, pp 28-29):

Heroic characters navigate dangerous terrain and explore haunted crypts, where they can expect to fight savage orcs, ferocious wolves, giant spiders, evil cultists, bloodthirsty ghouls, and shadar-kai assassins. If they face a dragon, it’s a young one that might still be searching for a lair and has not yet found its place in the world . . .

Paragon-level adventurers explore uncharted regions and delve long-forgotten dungeons, where they confront savage giants, ferocious hydras, fearless golems, evil yuan-ti, bloodthirsty vampires, crafty mind flayers, and drow assassins. They might face a powerful adult dragon that has established a lair and a role in the world. . . .

Epic characters traverse otherworldly realms and explore never-before-seen caverns of wonder, where they fight savage balor demons, abominations such as the ferocious tarrasque, mind flayer masterminds, terrible archdevils, bloodthirsty lich archmages, and even the gods themselves. The dragons they encounter are ancient wyrms of truly earth-shaking power, whose sleep troubles kingdoms and whose waking threatens existence.​
When (for instance) paragon tier PCs confront a ghoul - which is of typical toughness for heroic tier PCs - that ghouls is not terribly tough. One well-placed blow (ie in mechanical terms, an attack that hits) will drop it.

Your apparent lack of appreciation of these facts about 4e is why I have repeatedly asserted that you don't seem to understand how the 4e combat meahcics work.


----------



## pemerton

Lanefan said:


> If you're looking for a fully-game-mechanical means of generating or forcing such conflict then no, you won't find it.
> 
> But that in no way means the system doesn't or can't support it.  In 1e that connection can be put on the line via story elements introduced by the GM (most often), by the PC's own player (less common), or by another player/PC (rare, but I've seen it happen).
> 
> Example.  It'd take me all afternoon to fill in the whole backstory, but the here-and-now upshot still in process of being played out is this: up until now my PC has always put duty first: duty to mission, duty to Empire, duty to law, etc. at cost of friendships, potential romances, possessions, and even on at least one occasion her life.  Recent events have put her family - who she hasn't had contact with in years and to whom she has never felt any real sense of duty (she rather looks down on them as the peasants they are) - in severe danger, and in the process of choosing between her duty to the party/mission and rescuing her family I've learned something about her: when put to it she'll see to her family first.
> 
> Game mechanics had nothing to do with any of this - in effect (and probably unintentionally!) the DM put a story-based challenge to the character.
> 
> And I'm sure you'll dismiss this as being a choice rather than a challenge...so in advance I ask, what's the difference?



Your PC's actions have put your family at risk. When you decide to do have your PC do X rather than Y, how do you - as a player - know whether your are jeopardiding your relationship with your family? Who decides whether they stick with you or abandon you? And how?

Is this is all just _GM decides_?



Lanefan said:


> in on-the-fly games where a player searching for a secret door can (on success) add one to the fiction, bypassing potential obstacles seems to become much easier. Example: party trying to sneak into a castle
> 
> <snip>
> 
> in a system where the players can in effect author their own way in via repeated searches for secret doors (on a different bit of wall each time) then the gate guards can quickly become little more than window dressing.



This seems to rest on a premise that there is a finite amount of "challenge" which, if the PCs avoid it, means the players win and everyone goes home.

That is not how any system I'm familiar with works. If the PCs are successful in sneaking into the castle and doing whatever they hoped to do, then the game keeps going. The GM makes up more stuff. The players declare more actions.

When everyone is happy that the story of these particular PCs has come to an end, then they can start a new game.


----------



## FrogReaver

hawkeyefan said:


> I play D&D all the time. From a rules standpoint, it doesn’t do a whole lot to help roleplaying. In 5E, you have your class which defines your overall role as part of the party. You have your race and background which give some idea of your role in society. You have your alignment which gives you your overall moral views. There’s a bit of overlap with them, but that’s what these things do.




I wouldn't say any of those things help roleplaying (well maybe they help put new players in the right mindset)



> In addition to that, 5E has Traits, Ideals, Bonds, and Flaws. These things give you some more specific facets of your character. This is the kind of thing I think most long time players have always done to some extent, but now it’s formalized as part of character creation.




I can't think of the last character where I really sit down and mapped those out.

Just to give some context.  In my current campaign I've played a number of different characters.  I want to hone in on my first and my current.

My first was a super intelligent Fighter whose curiosity led him to becoming a wizard.  That curiosity coupled with his lower wisdom was so profound the character played like a mad scientist.  He had a thirst for knowledge and experimentation that outweighed his desire for personal safety.  This often forced the party into dangerous situations they either would have bypassed or otherwise been better prepared for.  

In hindsight I suppose I could have codified this character with bonds and flaws but I doubt it would have led to a character who played and developed as organically.  For example, when first seeing something he mistook for an undead, he became fascinated with bringing living creatures back from the dead in the hopes of obtaining immortality and started pursing necromancy.  That wasn't the path I had originally planned for him (nor was it one he could have envisioned for himself).  It developed seamlessly and organically due to his reactions to the world around him.  

Or take my current character.  A Barbarian / Rogue with an Int of 6.  He is dumb as a brick, but strong and fast and very hardy.  He has the personality of a gentle giant for the most part.  However, he will fiercely defend his friends.  He doesn't care for much in the world except having someone that will provide him a meal everyday.  For example, just this last campaign he agreed to have a magical ritual performed on him by a powerful cult member that had the potential to flat out kill him if it failed and would take his soul if it succeeded.  He agreed to this because the cult member agreed to feed him and the party didn't overly try to persuade me not to go through with it.  The ritual was successful.  So I'm still alive and now with no soul.  The cult member afterwards even volunteered to help us out of our current predicament.  It's uncertain how much his helpfulness was influenced by me volunteering, but I imagine it had some effect.



> So these are the elements of the 5E D&D rules that pertain to roleplaying. You certainly can come up with a limitless combination of them to create a unique character.




I'm not sure I would say they pertain to roleplaying.  They pertain to your characters identity in the world.  I mean there are limitless Dwarf Sailors that can be roleplayed.  



> But none of them have strong mechanical implications.




Which helps me as strong mechanical implications would be a bigger hindrance than a help to me.



> Even alignment has lost its teeth.




Thank the gods!



> The idea of switching alignment used to be a kind of scary thing. There could be severe repercussions if it happened. Not any more. Now you can play your character however you want.




Which you speak of almost as if that's a bad thing.  For me it's the greatest thing ever!



> Other than race and class and background, the other stuff could shift if the player decided.




In my current campaign race and possibly even class isn't guaranteed to stay the same.  Background is pretty immutable though - though we often find background details being added by the DM, such as you meet this guy you know from your time as a blacksmith etc.  



> Have a flaw that comes up at a really inconvenient time? Ignore it! Tempted to steal despite your Lawful Good alignment? Shift To Neutral!




And the creative freedom that provides me is wonderful!  Just because you have a flaw or a general moral compass doesn't mean you always abide by it.  My characters behave the same way.



> With minimal effort, any such change can be justified with fictional reasoning.




Sure.  It can be hard to break out of the cycle of always doing what's most expedient.  Especially since you always have that option.



> Without any rules to incentivize roleplay, it becomes uncertain and inconsistent.




It becomes glorious.  What you call incentivizing roleplay, I call shoehorning me into roleplaying something a specific way whether it's the way I envision my character or not - Or more likely, I just wouldn't play a character concept in such a system that said mechanics could invalidate.



> Sure, a group of players may revel in their characters and “play them true” regardless of how challenging that may make things for them. That’s great! I think my group largely does that.




I think most experienced players and groups largely do this.



> So while there are things in D&D that help players roleplay, they aren’t all that compelling. Nor are they really unique to D&D. Most games have similar elements to class, race, background, and so on. At best, D&D 5E allows players to decide what they’d like for their character...which can be a good thing. But as you’ve pointed out, there are pros and cons to everything. We could just as easily say that D&D 5E allows players to be totally inconsistent in how they portray their character.




Sure - but I don't think that characterization does my experiences with the system justice.


----------



## FrogReaver

Campbell said:


> I'm afraid this will sound like damning with faint praise,




You do, but that's okay.  Thanks for answering the challenge.  Assuming it's actually a challenge since it was issued without dice 



> but it is the result of an honest evaluation that comes from running and playing 5e. Much like Fate, I consider 5e to be a really well designed game that excels at a style of play I have very little interest in.




You definitely have the qualification to answer!



> 5e excels at GM led and mediated storytelling where the emphasis is on resolving the adventure that is put in front of the PCs with carefully managed spotlight balancing.




Sounds good so far



> The character generation rules do a good job of generating characters that have some interesting bits of characterization, but few outside entanglements.




See to me, I would phrase that as, the character generation rules provide newer players with some nice training wheels for providing interesting characterization.  All the real good stuff, like outside entanglements comes when they take off those training wheels.



> The resolution system is completely opaque to the players. The systems that encourage role play are about light characterization and not playing with integrity.




I think I more or less follow, but I wouldn't phrase it as systems that encourage roleplay - since that obviously means you are excluding 5e as a game that encourages roleplaying.



> In my experience from both sides of the screen it is not a good game for diving deep into character. It's not really designed for that. It's like really good at what it does though.




Strange how a post that's supposed to be telling me what D&D 5e can do that other's can't resorts to telling me the things 5e can't do that others can...



> For what it's worth I would not layer in social mechanics with teeth to 5e. Every player's real motivation is assumed to be resolving the adventure. I do not think there really is extra room to give there. Players' hands are already pretty tied.




My primary motivation these days is playing my character.  I do tend to make characters that would at least be decent adventurers as being a successful adventurer is an important characteristic of any character I make for 5e.



> Please do not think I'm being cute when I talk about GM mediated story telling. That is exactly what a large portion of the audience wants and a lot of the games I play are actively hostile to it.




Maybe I'm not aware of any baggage that term carries but on it's surface it seems like a pretty good description of D&D 5e.  The GM does mediate the story (or at least most of the story) of a D&D 5e game.


----------



## FrogReaver

pemerton said:


> Now can someone tell me how that sort of play is going to put fundamental pressure on the player's conception of the character? I've not seen that in the real world, and I'm not seeing it in these descriptions either.




We have given you all kinds of examples.  You dismiss them all because there's no dice involved.

So let me give you a 5e example with dice this time.  Tonight my character volunteered for a magical ritual whose outcome was uncertain that would on a failure kill him and on a success take his soul.  The ritual succeeded and so now my PC has no soul.  

Note that it was fully in my control to volunteer for this and that I roleplayed my character honestly in volunteering.  Note that neither outcome was a good outcome for me - but one much worse than the other.  Does this example qualify as a challenge to my characterization?

If not why not?


----------



## FrogReaver

pemerton said:


> The transcript might be the same, but the play experience won't have been.




Yes, different mechanics can influence different play experiences.  

Note:  a play experience is not a roleplay experience.  What I mean by this is - Many play experiences are achieved by introducing mechanics that influence play toward a certain kind of experience, but those mechanics simply increase drama and/or tension for the player without actually doing anything for the actual roleplaying.  I think you may be confusing mechanics that enhance play to evoke a certain feel and certain tensions with enhancing roleplay.

Additionally, in order to achieve that play experience, those systems put more limitations on your roleplay decisions than systems without those mechanics.


----------



## Tony Vargas

FrogReaver said:


> Sure.  I would just love once to hear their take on the pros of 5e in relation to roleplaying.



 Its an RPG, the whole thing is about roleplaying.  Relative to the other WotC eds the biggest 'pro' in 5e is the DM - DM Empowerment. 

But, the real "pro" of 5e is...


> What can it do that all these other systems can't?



 Move product in volumes not seen since the 80s.


----------



## FrogReaver

Manbearcat said:


> Ill answer your question:




Let me preface this with: thank you for answering the question.



> 1) 5e doesn’t get enough credit for its Social Interaction mechanics. In a system that is about GM-mediated puzzle-solving, they did a great job of exemplifying that with a subsystem that feels like Wheel of Fortune or Pictionary in play...which, coincidentally is similar to trying to get to know a person and influence them.




Interesting description.  It's not one I would have made... but sounds good so far!



> 2) Background Traits, though limited, do a great job of providing the kind of cross-character player fiat that was only available to spellcasters in AD&D and 3.x.




I'm not sure I understand what you are saying here.



> 3) Lair and Legendary Actions are quite good for thematic and tactical dynamism. If only they were orthodox across monsters.




agreed, but I'm not sure how that impacts roleplaying.  Very good mechanic though.



> 4) 5e makes no bones about its emulation of AD&D. I called it AD&D 3e in the play-test because it was utterly obvious that they were surveying, consulting, and designing with intent toward that paradigm. What does it do well:
> 
> * The heavy GM mediated experience of 2e where players are touring a setting or being run through a preconceived metaplot (either GM conceived or an AP). The opacity and GM facing resolution machinery and the GMing ethos (spotlight balancing, lead storytelling, et al) allows for GMs to deftly curate the experience, deploying Force and Illusionism where necessary to achieve the desired result of the experience of the setting, metaplot, and fun for casual players who are inclined toward a more passive role (which is a HUGE number of players), heavy on characterization and some GM-curated dice throws to actualize character concept in his/her story medium.




Great description.  Still a little light on how all that relates to the roleplaying aspects.  But the post isn't over yet!



> * It’s probably the best hexcrawl game on the market (or at least the ones I’ve run). The exploration mechanics/measurements/PC tools are integrated very well. So it does a good game with a predefined, tightly scaled map with various threats and goings-ons for players to navigate and engage strategic decision-making (where to go, how to go there, what resources to allocate). So 1e but vastly superior.




Great description again.  Though I'm feeling a little deprived since your great descriptions don't seem to be relating the games benefits for roleplaying and you definitely would be good at capturing that idea if you tried.


----------



## FrogReaver

Manbearcat said:


> Following from that, you’ve just wasted my (and others) time with a rhetorical request to evaluate 5e that you obviously had no interest in engaging with. Feels bad. Please don’t make such requests, get sincere replies, and then completely ignore them. If you think TTRPG analysis isn’t useful, or actively harmful, why are engaging in a thread like this?




I forgive you for your rush to judgement.  Now please don't do it again.


----------



## Tony Vargas

FrogReaver said:


> Note:  a play experience is not a roleplay experience.



 True, if youre playing poker or polo or pachinko, your play experience is not a roleplay experience.  And, if you're playing Hamlet or Naughty Schoolgirl or Devil's Advocate, your roleplay experience is not a game-play experience.

But if you're playing an RPG, it really /should/ be both.



> Additionally, in order to achieve that play experience, those systems put more limitations on your roleplay decisions than systems without those mechanics.



 Is that undesirable? Because, if it is, freestyle RP is totally a thing, and you won't need to deal with being limitted by any mechanics at all, unless your car breaks down on the way to a session.


----------



## FrogReaver

pemerton said:


> These two accounts of 5e seem pretty congruent with one another. They remind me of a certain, fairly common, sort of approach to 2nd ed AD&D.
> 
> I've also edited a post about half-a-dozen upthread having read these posts.
> 
> EDIT: and I also just read this, which seems equally congruent with the other two posts:




I think they were excellent accounts of 5e.  I think they hardly touched on what 5e does good *IN RELATION TO ROLEPLAYING.*  But I'll be happy for what I got even if it wasn't completely what I asked for.


----------



## FrogReaver

Tony Vargas said:


> True, if youre playing poker or polo or pachinko, your play experience is not a roleplay experience.  And, if you're playing Hamlet or Naughty Schoolgirl or Devil's Advocate, your roleplay experience is not a game-play experience.
> 
> But if you're playing an RPG, it really /should/ be both.




I think there's a distinction there that is overlooked.  A mechanic can influence one, the other or both IMO.  I think there's a lot of one true way baggage that often prevents us from acknowledging that's the case and acknowledging things in an RPG sometimes have nothing to do with roleplaying value.



> Is that undesirable? Because, if it is, freestyle RP is totally a thing, and you won't need to deal with being limitted by any mechanics at all, unless your car breaks down on the way to a session.




Honestly, if freestyle RP had a DM that arbitrated the experience in a mutually agreed upon setting, it really wouldn't play much different than how I approach D&D.  

The only difference would be the combats - and I must admit I rather enjoy the combat minigame even though I recognize it's about the furtherst thing from roleplaying that you can get (even though you can occasionally roleplay during it)


----------



## pemerton

FrogReaver said:


> take my current character.  A Barbarian / Rogue with an Int of 6.  He is dumb as a brick, but strong and fast and very hardy.  He has the personality of a gentle giant for the most part.  However, he will fiercely defend his friends.  He doesn't care for much in the world except having someone that will provide him a meal everyday.  For example, just this last campaign he agreed to have a magical ritual performed on him by a powerful cult member that had the potential to flat out kill him if it failed and would take his soul if it succeeded.  He agreed to this because the cult member agreed to feed him and the party didn't overly try to persuade me not to go through with it.  The ritual was successful.  So I'm still alive and now with no soul.  The cult member afterwards even volunteered to help us out of our current predicament.  It's uncertain how much his helpfulness was influenced by me volunteering, but I imagine it had some effect.





FrogReaver said:


> Tonight my character volunteered for a magical ritual whose outcome was uncertain that would on a failure kill him and on a success take his soul.  The ritual succeeded and so now my PC has no soul.
> 
> Note that it was fully in my control to volunteer for this and that I roleplayed my character honestly in volunteering.  Note that neither outcome was a good outcome for me - but one much worse than the other.  Does this example qualify as a challenge to my characterization?
> 
> If not why not?



I don't see any challenge to characterisation. You tell us your character is someone who cares about little but being provided with a meal. And so in exchange for a promise of food you submitted yourself to a process that - as you describe it - you seemed to have no control over.

As a result you have no soul - I don't know what that means in mechanical terms in 5e, but it doesn't seem to require you to approach your character any differently.

30 years ago I GMed an AD&D game in which one of the PCs, in order to be returned to life, had to be treated by a sage. The result of the sage's herbal treatment was that the PC permanently turned blue. That's a cute enough result, but it's not a challenge to the player's characterisation of the character.

What do you see as the challenge to your characterisation in the example that you have provided? What deep commitment or self-conception was put at stake?


----------



## FrogReaver

pemerton said:


> I don't see any challenge to characterisation. You tell us your character is someone who cares about little but being provided with a meal. And so in exchange for a promise of food you submitted yourself to a process that - as you describe it - you seemed to have no control over.
> 
> As a result you have no soul - I don't know what that means in mechanical terms in 5e, but it doesn't seem to require you to approach your character any differently.
> 
> 30 years ago I GMed an AD&D game in which one of the PCs, in order to be returned to life, had to be treated by a sage. The result of the sage's herbal treatment was that the PC permanently turned blue. That's a cute enough result, but it's not a challenge to the player's characterisation of the character.
> 
> What do you see as the challenge to your characterisation in the example that you have provided? What deep commitment or self-conception was put at stake?




In 5e having a soul has no mechanical effect.

I've not yet decided how to portray a character that has no soul.  There is going to be some difference for sure.  Whatever that difference is, that is what was put at stake.


----------



## Tony Vargas

FrogReaver said:


> I think they hardly touched on what 5e does good *IN RELATION TO ROLEPLAYING.*



 Your definition of role-playing is simply too narrow.  Especially given the need to go all caps and bold like some sort of outraged Darth Vader voice.



FrogReaver said:


> I think there's a distinction there that is overlooked.



 There's at least a 3-way distinction.  There are games that aren't role-playing, there are instances of playing a role that are in no way games...

...and there are role-playing games, that integrate (not merely juxtapose) the two.  In an RPG the fact that you are playing a game and the fact that you are playing a role are inseparable.  



> A mechanic can influence one, the other or both IMO.  I think there's a lot of one true way baggage that often prevents us from acknowledging that's the case and acknowledging things in an RPG sometimes have nothing to do with roleplaying value.



 OneTrueWayists tend to want to define and judge narrowly.  That which confirms to their way is True Role-playing,  that which does not is other, to be dismissed out of hand.



> Honestly, if freestyle RP had a DM that arbitrated the experience in a mutually agreed upon setting, it really wouldn't play much different than how I approach D&D.
> The only difference would be the combats -



 Thank you for your honesty.

I don't think it's that unusual, outside of the loci of magic and combat, D&D traditionally leaves us essentially Freestyle'n.


----------



## Manbearcat

Arilyn said:


> I decide in these cases what my character will put on the line, and so there is always that layer of safety, even if it seems my character has losses, and is struggling with angst. ( I have done my share of WOD).  When I play in games with role playing mechanics that really puts on the pressure, it is different. It's actually more immersive, despite the initial reaction that role playing mechanics should destroy the player's autonomy. Everything has a more immediate feel, a greater intensity.




This earned a lot of xp, but the take-home needs to be emphasized.

In real life we aren't characterizing ourselves.  In real life we don't have nearly the expression of autonomy or internal locus of control that one characterizes their PC with in a game of AD&D, 3.x, and 5e D&D.

In real life, our behavioral outputs are a collage of external inputs (from emotional provocateurs to those that turn genes off and on), irrational compulsions, irrational biological imperatives, divorced-from-conscious-mind-neurological-subroutines, crappy heuristics, erudition, practice, and well-considered mindfulness. 

So that very pressure (that you cite) is fundamental to our daily lives, and shapes the most visceral moments of our lives in key ways...ways that transcend that moment and feed back onto the rest of our days.  Mechanics that push/pull/provoke/demand (often with the seduction of immediate return at the cost of "the long game") are the best way I know of to model the fundamental role of those many externalities (like a drug addict battling their addiction, or an enabler battling their conscience, or a workaholic battling their zeal/anxiety, or someone who is more comfortable sad than happy battling their damaging comfort with melancholy, or someone who lacks discipline trying to control their disorderly compulsions, or someone who is being leaned on by the police for 36 hours who confesses to a crime they didn't commit, etc etc).

A man arrives 5 minutes too late from a 2 hour journey that was meant to save his sister from suicide.  Her body rests on cold white tile, laying in a pool of thick red, blood and gore on the wall next to her.  He stoops down over her.  The world is complete silence as they share this moment.  This is the last time he will ever see her and he probably knows this will haunt him the rest of his life.  Dilated pupils in her dead eyes.  Frothing mouth.  Wet hair from the blood and gore.  Skull fragments everywhere.  He just stares into her dead eyes.  For who knows how long.

Why does he do this?  Is it because this moment he has waited on for so long is finally upon him and he doesn't want to consider the philosophical implications?  He doesn't want to hear the sound of his mother's heart breaking when he calls her to tell her what has happened?  Because she has left 3 children behind and they're likely to all be ruined by this?  If he just stays in this moment, his sister won't truly be reduced to this broken biological state and he won't have to confront all of those things.  As he is staring, he knows this is a terrible image to imprint upon himself...it will have lasting effects for certain.  But he can't tear his eyes away from hers nonetheless.

That is life.

Its marked by visceral events that aren't "full-agency characterization" (such as the case is when there is no active machinery or feedback loop putting pressure on you) that are completely transformative.  You're not struggling with contrived angst in real life that is all bark (mere performance) and no bite (actual emotional, physical, or philosophical phase-change).  There is real pressure brought to bear against you from several different directions (some internal, some external).  And the misbegotten idea of a singularly unified consciousness (rather than overwhelmingly an amalgamation of entangled inputs wholly divorced from the "you" that you identify with) that is cooley in control of your behavioral outputs is quickly put to rest.


----------



## Manbearcat

FrogReaver said:


> In 5e having a soul has no mechanical effect.
> 
> I've not yet decided how to portray a character that has no soul.  There is going to be some difference for sure.  Whatever that difference is, that is what was put at stake.




When I read this, I'm imagining a Texas Hold 'Em tournament where:

1)  There was no codified "buy-in" $ figure for the tournament and we don't know what the participant's financial situation is going into the tournament (is this a desperate attempt to get a windfall at zero hour so a debt to the mob can be paid off?).

2)  We don't know what their chip stack was when this hand was played.

3)  We can't tell whether they won the hand, lost the hand, or split the pot...and we can't tell what the pot was (and therefore the implications on (2) above).

4)  The only thing I can discern is that none of 1-3 mattered to the player of the hand...their decision-point navigation was disconnected to the (possibly) interesting pressures inherent to 1-3 above; it was only correlated to the cocktail waitress promising to bring them another whiskey on the house if they arbitrarily check-raised the Turn or went All-In blind pre-Flop.


Its just background color.


----------



## aramis erak

Tony Vargas said:


> Realism?  In a discussion of hit points?
> 
> Nope, we don't.  A very slight trauma involving relatively little injury can kill instantly, profound trauma over much of the body can be survived.  The human body is freak'n weird.  People fall in the shower and die.  People fall out of airplanes without parachutes and live.  It's not because some people rolled 1 on their HD.  It's not because falls do d1000 damage. It's because reality is far, far more complex than something like hps can even begin to model.
> 
> More over, "Realism" was the bludgeon with which critics attacked D&D in it's earliest days - /for having hit points that increased with level/.  Because, if hps were, as you just blithely claimed, just a measure of ability to absorb trauma, then 'experience' increasing them would be wildly unrealistic.  Your character would have to physically grow, or become denser, or change his material composition or something.
> 
> That criticism was answered, and hps were never conceived as simply a measure of capacity to absorb physical trauma.
> 
> But, come the edition war, that fallacious strawman criticism of early D&D was held up as /the way D&D had always been/.
> 
> It's about the most 1984-worthy bit of double-think in the revisionist history of the game.




Except that Early D&D didn't describe them that way. Only the detractors did.



			
				D&D OE B1 p 18 said:
			
		

> Dice for Accumulative Hits (Hit Dice): This indicates the number of dice which are rolled in order to determine how many hit points a character can take. Plusses are merely the number of pips to add to the total of all dice rolled not to each die. Thus a Super Hero gets 8 dice + 2; they are rolled and score 1, 2, 2, 3, 3, 4, 5, 6/totals 26 + 2 = 28, 28 being the number of points of damage the character could sustain before death. Whether sustaining accumulative hits will otherwise affect a character is left to the discretion of the referee.[/q]
> 
> Interesting, that last line... Also interesting is that HP were rerolled at new level. One of the magazine Q&A's suggests rerolling at the start of each adventure. HP were vague.
> 
> Gygax tried to NOT pin them down.
> 
> AD&D also has a wibbledy-wobbledy description...
> 
> 
> 
> AD&D PHB p34 said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> CHARACTER HIT POINTS
> Each character has a varying number of hit points,' just as monsters do. These hit points represent how much damage (actual or potential) the character can withstand before being killed. A certain amount of these hit points represent the actual physical punishment which can be sustained. The remainder, a significant portion of hit points at higher levels, stands for skill, luck, and/or magical factors. [...] Thus, the majority of hit paints are symbolic of combat skill, luck (bestowed by supernatural powers), and magical forces.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> I snipped out the detailed example in the middle of the paragraph.
> 
> The thing is, many of the detractors didn't read, or didn't understand, that passage.
> 
> Holmes doesn't discuss what they represent, other than 0=dead. A serious wound is defined in the lycanthrope entry as 50% of HP...
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Click to expand...
Click to expand...


----------



## aramis erak

FrogReaver said:


> In 5e having a soul has no mechanical effect.




Actually, it does.

The source research I posted on RPG.stackexchange.com is longish, here's the link: https://rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/53599/making-a-character-without-a-soul

Bottom line? resurrection and raising magics fail on soulless characters.


----------



## pemerton

FrogReaver said:


> In 5e having a soul has no mechanical effect.
> 
> I've not yet decided how to portray a character that has no soul.  There is going to be some difference for sure.  Whatever that difference is, that is what was put at stake.



How is something at stake if you don't know what it is yet?


----------



## FrogReaver

aramis erak said:


> Actually, it does.
> 
> The source research I posted on RPG.stackexchange.com is longish, here's the link: https://rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/53599/making-a-character-without-a-soul
> 
> Bottom line? resurrection and raising magics fail on soulless characters.




I was thinking more in terms of internal to my character.  But yes, should I die I cannot be resurrected.  That is a mechanical impact.


----------



## FrogReaver

pemerton said:


> How is something at stake if you don't know what it is yet?




In life the stakes aren't typically clearly defined.  We aren't playing the lotto etc.


----------



## FrogReaver

Manbearcat said:


> Its just background color.




When you are going to sum up my personal experience with it's just background color.  You've objectiveness has seriously gone awry.


----------



## FrogReaver

Tony Vargas said:


> Your definition of role-playing is simply too narrow.  Especially given the need to go all caps and bold like some sort of outraged Darth Vader voice.




LOL.  I apologize for the caps.  It was 2am and I went too far in trying to emphasize.  I don't think so.  I think that in order to not sound one true way you have included things under the roleplaying umbrella that aren't actually roleplaying.



> There's at least a 3-way distinction.  There are games that aren't role-playing, there are instances of playing a role that are in no way games...
> 
> ...and there are role-playing games, that integrate (not merely juxtapose) the two.  In an RPG the fact that you are playing a game and the fact that you are playing a role are inseparable.




I disagree.  Just as a cute off the cuff mental example.  Suppose that D&D had a mechanic where everytime your character took a hit you had to do 5 jumping jacks.  Are you seriously arguing that doing 5 jumping jacks upon taking a hit is inseparable from roleplaying?



> OneTrueWayists tend to want to define and judge narrowly.  That which confirms to their way us True Role-playing,  that which dies not is other, to be dismissed out of hand.




Sure.  The opposite to that is that a non-one-true-wayist defines and judges non-narrowly.  Anything which confirms to anyones way is true role playing and anything which does not is other.  So anything that someone calls roleplaying is to be accepted out of hand.

You see the juxtaposition and the issue right?



> Thank you for your honesty.
> 
> I don't think it's that unusual, outside of the loci of magic and combat, D&D traditionally leaves us essentially Freestyle'n.




Thanks.  Yet, you argue in other posts that freestyln has no benefits to roleplaying, that a system of some kind will always be preferable to that.


----------



## Tony Vargas

FrogReaver said:


> In life the stakes aren't typically clearly defined....



...another good reason to play a game now and then. 



FrogReaver said:


> LOL.  I apologize for the caps.  It was 2am and I went too far in trying to emphasize.  I don't think so.  I think that in order to not sound one true way you have included things under the roleplaying umbrella that aren't actually roleplaying.



 The voice is less at issue than the message.  And, if I seem strident about this, it's because it's not just your too-narrow, exclusionary definition and it's not just in this context.  The Forgites do the same thing, multiplied by their copious lexicon, and it happens way to much in RL politics.  

It's fine to stipulate a definition for purposes of discussion, but if anyone was going to advance such a definition, it should have been the OP, and clearly limited to the question being put forward.  Even then, it might not go over so well, or could be chosen to assume or force a conclusion, exclude valid alternatives, etc...



> I disagree.  Just as a cute off the cuff mental example.  Suppose that D&D had a mechanic where everytime your character took a hit you had to do 5 jumping jacks.  Are you seriously arguing that doing 5 jumping jacks upon taking a hit is inseparable from roleplaying?



 I'd certainly be trying harder to avoid hits, which'd impact roleplaying a brave vs cautious vs foolhardy character.  



> Sure.  The opposite to that is that a non-one-true-wayist defines and judges non-narrowly.  Anything which confirms to anyones way is true role playing ...



 The idea is just to be a bit open-minded.



> Yet, you argue in other posts that freestyln has no benefits to roleplaying, that a system of some kind will always be preferable to that.



 Not what I'm arguing.  (Though, also not exactly wrong: sure, a functional mechanic should deliver it's intended experience more consistently and over a wider range of users than would freestyle RPing from the same assumptions.)  Rather my point is that, because you prettymuch can RP (broad definition) anything, including, hypothetically, delivering any given RP experience (just w/ or w/o specific system artifacts), trying to compare or analyze systems on the basis of what experiences they can't deliver is fraught, and will invite push-back and descent into subjectivity, rather than thoughtful engagement.

And, that's  just an observation - of this thread and others like it, really.


----------



## Arilyn

Manbearcat said:


> This earned a lot of xp, but the take-home needs to be emphasized.
> 
> In real life we aren't characterizing ourselves.  In real life we don't have nearly the expression of autonomy or internal locus of control that one characterizes their PC with in a game of AD&D, 3.x, and 5e D&D.
> 
> In real life, our behavioral outputs are a collage of external inputs (from emotional provocateurs to those that turn genes off and on), irrational compulsions, irrational biological imperatives, divorced-from-conscious-mind-neurological-subroutines, crappy heuristics, erudition, practice, and well-considered mindfulness.
> 
> So that very pressure (that you cite) is fundamental to our daily lives, and shapes the most visceral moments of our lives in key ways...ways that transcend that moment and feed back onto the rest of our days.  Mechanics that push/pull/provoke/demand (often with the seduction of immediate return at the cost of "the long game") are the best way I know of to model the fundamental role of those many externalities (like a drug addict battling their addiction, or an enabler battling their conscience, or a workaholic battling their zeal/anxiety, or someone who is more comfortable sad than happy battling their damaging comfort with melancholy, or someone who lacks discipline trying to control their disorderly compulsions, or someone who is being leaned on by the police for 36 hours who confesses to a crime they didn't commit, etc etc).
> 
> A man arrives 5 minutes too late from a 2 hour journey that was meant to save his sister from suicide.  Her body rests on cold white tile, laying in a pool of thick red, blood and gore on the wall next to her.  He stoops down over her.  The world is complete silence as they share this moment.  This is the last time he will ever see her and he probably knows this will haunt him the rest of his life.  Dilated pupils in her dead eyes.  Frothing mouth.  Wet hair from the blood and gore.  Skull fragments everywhere.  He just stares into her dead eyes.  For who knows how long.
> 
> Why does he do this?  Is it because this moment he has waited on for so long is finally upon him and he doesn't want to consider the philosophical implications?  He doesn't want to hear the sound of his mother's heart breaking when he calls her to tell her what has happened?  Because she has left 3 children behind and they're likely to all be ruined by this?  If he just stays in this moment, his sister won't truly be reduced to this broken biological state and he won't have to confront all of those things.  As he is staring, he knows this is a terrible image to imprint upon himself...it will have lasting effects for certain.  But he can't tear his eyes away from hers nonetheless.
> 
> That is life.
> 
> Its marked by visceral events that aren't "full-agency characterization" (such as the case is when there is no active machinery or feedback loop putting pressure on you) that are completely transformative.  You're not struggling with contrived angst in real life that is all bark (mere performance) and no bite (actual emotional, physical, or philosophical phase-change).  There is real pressure brought to bear against you from several different directions (some internal, some external).  And the misbegotten idea of a singularly unified consciousness (rather than overwhelmingly an amalgamation of entangled inputs wholly divorced from the "you" that you identify with) that is cooley in control of your behavioral outputs is quickly put to rest.





All I can say to this post is a quiet yes.


----------



## Tony Vargas

Manbearcat said:


> A man arrives 5 minutes too late from a 2 hour journey that was meant to save ...



 I recommend sblock and trigger warning.

Aside from that, great post...







> In real life, our behavioral outputs are a collage of external inputs (from emotional provocateurs to those that turn genes off and on), irrational compulsions, irrational biological imperatives, divorced-from-conscious-mind-neurological-subroutines, crappy heuristics, erudition, practice, *and well-considered mindfulness. *



 ...y'all'll hafta just imagine a cynical quip, here.
Maybe later.


----------



## Manbearcat

FrogReaver said:


> When you are going to sum up my personal experience with it's just background color.  You've objectiveness has seriously gone awry.




Forget for a minute what you feel about my analysis of your excerpt.  

Do you not think, for better or for worse, this would have changed the cognitive space you were occupying and the play experience of the other participants who bore witness to your PC's sacrifice?

1)  Your character had a feedback loop (lets call it Nature) with 3 descriptors attached to it and both a positive and a negative mechanical aspect:

* If paranoia or fear of the arcane and occult interferes with your effort to save an ally, increase your Nature by 1. 

* If your appetite for destruction is overcome by your appetite for a meal, increase your Nature by 1.

* If you show fearlessness in dire circumstances while knowing you must live with the consequences, change (mundane, but defining trait) Dense to Reflective.

2)  Nature goes from 0 to 7.  You can recover it and you can tax it.  If you ever end a session at 0 or 7, your character retires for whatever reason seems relevant given the fiction (eg the character becomes lost, broken, weary, fulfilled, or resolved to a new path).

3)  You can tax your Nature (lowering it by 1) when either (a) heroism calls or (b) a situation is outside of your niche but it makes sense for your character to act and be effective (say that you should make a Charisma/Intimidate check, but you don't have the Skill and a -1 Charisma, for when a parley is going south, but the result means something serious to your character).  If you do, you have Advantage and sub your current Nature for your modifier.


So, lets take your excerpt but add this.

- Your decision-points include the understanding that (a) you're facing something that afflicts you which will intensify who you are...but (b) you'll never be the same afterward (in self-perception, in the way others invariably perceive you, and that no eternal life with your ancestors awaits you).

- Lets say your Nature was at 1.  You can either increase it to bulwark your Nature (recovering 1) by not sacrificing your character...or...you can tax it and put it to 0.  If it doesn't increase before the end of session...your character will be removed from the game (perhaps fittingly).

You don't think this will change your cognitive workspace?  It won't resemble the mental arithmetic that real humans do in a moment of desperate choice (run to or shrink from danger and possible extreme cost)?  You don't think the other participants at the table wouldn't have their heart-rates uptick as this decision looms?


----------



## Sadras

FrogReaver said:


> We have given you all kinds of examples.  You dismiss them all because there's no dice involved.
> 
> So let me give you a 5e example with dice this time.  Tonight my character volunteered for a magical ritual whose outcome was uncertain that would on a failure kill him and on a success take his soul.  The ritual succeeded and so now my PC has no soul.
> 
> Note that it was fully in my control to volunteer for this and that I roleplayed my character honestly in volunteering.  Note that neither outcome was a good outcome for me - but one much worse than the other.






			
				Frogreaver said:
			
		

> _I would just love once to hear their take on the pros of 5e in relation to roleplaying. _




Frogreaver might I please ask that you answer your own question.

I just want to be clear, your example above, although meant as an answer to a different question, does not, in my view highlight any pros of 5e in relation to roleplaying. I could very much do the same scenario with the barest mechanics of every other RPG I have played.

I'm indeed curious as to what pros you see in the 5e mechanics that assist roleplaying.


----------



## FrogReaver

Sadras said:


> Frogreaver might I please ask that you answer your own question.
> 
> I just want to be clear, your example above, although meant as an answer to a different question, does not, in my view highlight any pros of 5e in relation to roleplaying. I could very much do the same scenario with the barest mechanics of every other RPG I have played.
> 
> I'm indeed curious as to what pros you see in the 5e mechanics that assist roleplaying.




That's a different question than what I asked - but I think we can get to the same place.

The mechanics of not having any roleplay mechanics assists with roleplaying.  I've went on about the benefits of such a system for most of this thread.


----------



## FrogReaver

Manbearcat said:


> Forget for a minute what you feel about my analysis of your excerpt.
> 
> Do you not think, for better or for worse, this would have changed the cognitive space you were occupying and the play experience of the other participants who bore witness to your PC's sacrifice?
> 
> 1)  Your character had a feedback loop (lets call it Nature) with 3 descriptors attached to it and both a positive and a negative mechanical aspect:
> 
> * If paranoia or fear of the arcane and occult interferes with your effort to save an ally, increase your Nature by 1.
> 
> * If your appetite for destruction is overcome by your appetite for a meal, increase your Nature by 1.
> 
> * If you show fearlessness in dire circumstances while knowing you must live with the consequences, change (mundane, but defining trait) Dense to Reflective.
> 
> 2)  Nature goes from 0 to 7.  You can recover it and you can tax it.  If you ever end a session at 0 or 7, your character retires for whatever reason seems relevant given the fiction (eg the character becomes lost, broken, weary, fulfilled, or resolved to a new path).
> 
> 3)  You can tax your Nature (lowering it by 1) when either (a) heroism calls or (b) a situation is outside of your niche but it makes sense for your character to act and be effective (say that you should make a Charisma/Intimidate check, but you don't have the Skill and a -1 Charisma, for when a parley is going south, but the result means something serious to your character).  If you do, you have Advantage and sub your current Nature for your modifier.
> 
> 
> So, lets take your excerpt but add this.
> 
> - Your decision-points include the understanding that (a) you're facing something that afflicts you which will intensify who you are...but (b) you'll never be the same afterward (in self-perception, in the way others invariably perceive you, and that no eternal life with your ancestors awaits you).
> 
> - Lets say your Nature was at 1.  You can either increase it to bulwark your Nature (recovering 1) by not sacrificing your character...or...you can tax it and put it to 0.  If it doesn't increase before the end of session...your character will be removed from the game (perhaps fittingly).
> 
> You don't think this will change your cognitive workspace?  It won't resemble the mental arithmetic that real humans do in a moment of desperate choice (run to or shrink from danger and possible extreme cost)?  You don't think the other participants at the table wouldn't have their heart-rates uptick as this decision looms?




I've read this a number of times.  I don't understand your questions.  I'll be happy to answer if you can make them more clear for me.


----------



## FrogReaver

Tony Vargas said:


> Not what I'm arguing.  (Though, also not exactly wrong: sure, a functional mechanic should deliver it's intended experience more consistently and over a wider range of users than would freestyle RPing from the same assumptions.)  Rather my point is that, because you prettymuch can RP (broad definition) anything, including, hypothetically, delivering any given RP experience (just w/ or w/o specific system artifacts), trying to compare or analyze systems on the basis of what experiences they can't deliver is fraught, and will invite push-back and descent into subjectivity, rather than thoughtful engagement.
> 
> And, that's  just an observation - of this thread and others like it, really.




Agree 1000 times over.


----------



## aramis erak

FrogReaver said:


> I was thinking more in terms of internal to my character.  But yes, should I die I cannot be resurrected.  That is a mechanical impact.




There's also the weakness to soul jar. A couple other odd spells. 

Extreme implications taken by treating all the spell descriptions as rules text also means you can't level up, because you cannot learn.


----------



## Sadras

pemerton said:


> So I've read on now almost to the end of the thread. Some posters have posted about why this can be good (neither @_*FrogReaver*_ nor @_*Lanefan*_, oddly enough). As I've just posted in response to them, I'm reminded of a certain approach to 2nd ed AD&D.
> 
> The good of the GM's "special status" seems to consist in curating the players, via their PCs, through an _adventure_ with a reasonably pre-determined structure/sequence of events, or fictional elements to be encountered. (I think this is what @_*Ovinomancer*_ means by "exploration", and what @_*Lanefan*_ has in mind in expressing worries about challenges/obstacles being "bypassed".)
> 
> Now can someone tell me how that sort of play is going to put fundamental pressure on the player's conception of the character? I've not seen that in the real world, and I'm not seeing it in these descriptions either.




Good question.

If I have understood your _side's_ position (and there is a fairly reasonable possibility I have not as I have only skimmed this thread), is that the player having to make the _tough choice _between A & B without necessarily a change to the character concept is not considered a challenge. If one accepts that, then yes D&D, in general, doesn't have the necessary mechanics per RAW to put pressure on the player's concept of character.

In 5e per RAW, personality characteristics are only utilised via the carrot method: The player roleplays their character by adhering to their ideals, bonds or flaws so they may be rewarded with an inspiration point for _good_ roleplaying. (Even in this instance, DM decides). But there are no mechanics, per RAW at least, that allow for placing fundamental pressure on character concepts. 

As an aside one of my players has a character with the Bond:* Those who fight beside me are those worth dying for.*
My intention is to challenge this character concept - to place the character in a position where if he 
(a) chooses to save a former ally, this may result in a loss of influence (mechanical) for the party; or
(b) does not choose to save a former ally, which may result in the player having to amend his character's Bond.

In (a) the cost is in-game time and a skill challenge used to resolve the possible influence loss suffered.
In (b) a singular saving throw (with no proficiency modifier) will resolve if the character's bond will have to be amended. If the player fails the saving check, then he can amend the bond with the table deciding if the new bond is reasonable based on their perception of the character and the events that transpired.
Of course my intention is for the player to know the stakes of (a) and (b) beforehand and for me to be completely transparent with how it will play out. 

Now granted, the above is not RAW and may not be everyone's cup of tea, but the DM empowerment in 5e permits me to bend the rules of the game and I have a table that trusts me so I'm going to run with that. Of course, I also believe my players will enjoy this type of challenge! 

Out of curiosity, do you consider the above an example of fundamental pressure on the player's concept of the character?


----------



## Sadras

FrogReaver said:


> The mechanics of not having any roleplay mechanics assists with roleplaying.  I've went on about the benefits of such a system for most of this thread.




That is true you have and you are right, BUT I also see that as a weakness of the system as without such mechanics in place, that same roleplaying aspect may be forgotten or ignored.


----------



## pemerton

Sadras said:


> one of my players has a character with the Bond:* Those who fight beside me are those worth dying for.*
> My intention is to challenge this character concept - to place the character in a position where if he
> (a) chooses to save a former ally, this may result in a loss of influence (mechanical) for the party; or
> (b) does not choose to save a former ally, which may result in the player having to amend his character's Bond.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> Of course my intention is for the player to know the stakes of (a) and (b) beforehand and for me to be completely transparent with how it will play out.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> Out of curiosity, do you consider the above an example of fundamental pressure on the player's concept of the character?



It's a bit hard to express a view on this without more context, but I don't think it is such a thing.

I'm not seeing that there is a situation suggesting to the PC (and his/her player) that, in fact, _those who fight beside me are not worth dying for_.

But maybe I've missed something or otherwise misunderstood what you are describing.


----------



## Campbell

I'm going to start with some personal background. Before I ever touched any dice I got my start role playing in online free form communities associated with various fandoms. I also am a lifelong theater geek with a deep appreciation for the craft of acting. I have a group of friends who gets together every couple months to do read throughs of some of our favorite plays. Right now I'm currently working through *The Warner Loughlin Technique *which is a set of acting techniques used to attempt to feel the emotions your character is directly in the moment. I'm not involved in community theater right now, but hope to do so at some point in the future. Right now my career and athletics are my focus.

My primary focus on stage and when I play role playing games (other than B/X D&D which I approach as a tactical exercise) has always been authentically experiencing what my character is with a focus on relationships and emotional driving forces. This is a pretty big ask. Authentically feeling the weight of the moment as someone who has dramatically different life experiences, people they care about, and ways they process emotions is like hard. Add on top of it the real world social dynamics that exist between players playing a game and at times it can feel damn near impossible. I need all the help I can get.

In my experience there are certain issues you run into in completely free form play. The first is that the real world rather than fictional social dynamics can often take over. This is problematic enough on stage, but becomes a much larger problem when we are authoring what our characters actually do. I find it helpful to have mechanics which help us play with more integrity. Sometimes this comes in reward mechanisms. Sometimes in social influence mechanics. Sometimes like in *Blades in the Dark *or *Dogs in the Vineyard *the core mechanic helps us think like these characters should think.

Another more pernicious problem is that we grow to care for these characters. From a player side it may come down to developing an idealized image of their character that they do not want to see tarnished. In GM mediated play this might express itself in making sure a given character shines in their specialty or forcing the story down certain roads or not providing meaningful antagonism. We become way to focused on outcomes rather than authentically seeing what happens. This is why I favor a set of GMing techniques which limit mediation and favor playing to find out. I also favor mechanics which have something to say so the GM can focus on providing meaningful antagonism. I also feel like intent based adjudication can cause issues here.

There is a downside here. We are providing a focused lens towards the sorts of characters in play. We also want to preserve player choice as much as possible. I feel the games I play do that by constraining or affecting outcomes, but still leaving players firmly in the driver seat. I'm willing to dive deeper here, but only if we are going to talk about design trade offs and not try to argue why one set of techniques is always strictly superior.


----------



## Sadras

pemerton said:


> It's a bit hard to express a view on this without more context, but I don't think it is such a thing.
> 
> I'm not seeing that there is a situation suggesting to the PC (and his/her player) that, in fact, _those who fight beside me are not worth dying for_.




I think I understand, will have to ponder on this more.

The situation I had envisioned is thus (and I haven't as yet ironed out all the details):
A former party member (PC turned NPC) is accused of working for the opposition with strong circumstantial evidence that such accusation is true. The PC will be aware of a mission to have said NPC assassinated. He will have the option to foil such assassination attempt.


----------



## FrogReaver

Sadras said:


> That is true you have and you are right, BUT I also see that as a weakness of the system as without such mechanics in place, that same roleplaying aspect may be forgotten or ignored.




Sure.  But I think the same can be said of any system - that whatever you want to say is the benefit of the system also can be turned around as a weakness under the right circumstances.


----------



## hawkeyefan

FrogReaver said:


> I wouldn't say any of those things help roleplaying (well maybe they help put new players in the right mindset)
> 
> I can't think of the last character where I really sit down and mapped those out.
> 
> Just to give some context.  In my current campaign I've played a number of different characters.  I want to hone in on my first and my current.
> 
> My first was a super intelligent Fighter whose curiosity led him to becoming a wizard.  That curiosity coupled with his lower wisdom was so profound the character played like a mad scientist.  He had a thirst for knowledge and experimentation that outweighed his desire for personal safety.  This often forced the party into dangerous situations they either would have bypassed or otherwise been better prepared for.
> 
> In hindsight I suppose I could have codified this character with bonds and flaws but I doubt it would have led to a character who played and developed as organically.  For example, when first seeing something he mistook for an undead, he became fascinated with bringing living creatures back from the dead in the hopes of obtaining immortality and started pursing necromancy.  That wasn't the path I had originally planned for him (nor was it one he could have envisioned for himself).  It developed seamlessly and organically due to his reactions to the world around him.
> 
> Or take my current character.  A Barbarian / Rogue with an Int of 6.  He is dumb as a brick, but strong and fast and very hardy.  He has the personality of a gentle giant for the most part.  However, he will fiercely defend his friends.  He doesn't care for much in the world except having someone that will provide him a meal everyday.  For example, just this last campaign he agreed to have a magical ritual performed on him by a powerful cult member that had the potential to flat out kill him if it failed and would take his soul if it succeeded.  He agreed to this because the cult member agreed to feed him and the party didn't overly try to persuade me not to go through with it.  The ritual was successful.  So I'm still alive and now with no soul.  The cult member afterwards even volunteered to help us out of our current predicament.  It's uncertain how much his helpfulness was influenced by me volunteering, but I imagine it had some effect.
> 
> I'm not sure I would say they pertain to roleplaying.  They pertain to your characters identity in the world.  I mean there are limitless Dwarf Sailors that can be roleplayed.
> 
> Which helps me as strong mechanical implications would be a bigger hindrance than a help to me.
> 
> Thank the gods!
> 
> Which you speak of almost as if that's a bad thing.  For me it's the greatest thing ever!
> 
> In my current campaign race and possibly even class isn't guaranteed to stay the same.  Background is pretty immutable though - though we often find background details being added by the DM, such as you meet this guy you know from your time as a blacksmith etc.
> 
> And the creative freedom that provides me is wonderful!  Just because you have a flaw or a general moral compass doesn't mean you always abide by it.  My characters behave the same way.
> 
> Sure.  It can be hard to break out of the cycle of always doing what's most expedient.  Especially since you always have that option.
> 
> It becomes glorious.  What you call incentivizing roleplay, I call shoehorning me into roleplaying something a specific way whether it's the way I envision my character or not - Or more likely, I just wouldn't play a character concept in such a system that said mechanics could invalidate.
> 
> I think most experienced players and groups largely do this.
> 
> Sure - but I don't think that characterization does my experiences with the system justice.




So all that is fine, really. But all it says is that at best D&D is neutral as far as roleplaying goes. True Neutral.

There’s not a game I can think of where you can’t come up with characters like those you’ve offered. 

I do think it’s interesting that the main area of 5E that even approaches the issue...Traits, Ideals, Bonds, and Flaws...is one you don’t even bother to detail. Why not? It’s clearly meant to be a part of character creation...and besides class, race, and alignment those elements are the only roleplaying focused items in the whole process. Why skip them?


----------



## Lanefan

pemerton said:


> Let's suppose your claim about human physiology was true, which I don't think it is.
> 
> In 4e hp are not a model of that physiology. They are part of an action resolution framework.



Thus, a completely 'gamist' (real-world term use, not forge-world) construct rather than an attempt to model anything; which seems silly when the original idea behind hit points was to reflect - and yes, to some extent model - the amount of trauma one could withstand...along with, as you point out below, how much luck one might have going at the time, be it for or against.



> The primary mechanical marker of the power of a 4e creature, including the degree of physical trauma it can endure, is its level. By setting the level of a being, the GM is using a mechanical device to signal its toughness in the fiction. Secondarily this is reflected in its defences and any special abilities it might have. Thirdly, this is reflected in its hit points.



So far this is more or less true of all editions of D&D.  However, in non-4e editions these things remain constant no matter what situation the creature finds itself in or who/what it finds itself fighting.



> A minion's hp are simply a toggle: is it up or is it down? This tells us that, when it engages activities of its levels toughness, it is highly vulnerable. This is related to probabilities of not enduring trauma.
> 
> I have bolded the probability markers you have used. In everyday life we call this _luck_. In 4e D&D hp do not model only physiology. Among other things they model luck.



Quite right; although for my example I was ignoring this aspect for the moment.



> Giving a minion 1 hp is indicating that this being has little luck - if it is successfully hit by an opponent of the appropriate degree of toughness, it goes down.



Yet a PC, if faced with an immensely superior foe, doesn't suddenly find itself with only 1 h.p. to its name where a moment ago it had 35; the immensely-superior foe still has to get through all 35 of them, and so it should.  But then internal consistency rears its ugly head: what's good for the goose is good for the gander, and so any creature that has X hit points should always have X hit points.



> We can see all this in the account of the tiers of play (4e DMG, pp 146-47; very similar text can be found in the PHB, pp 28-29):
> 
> Heroic characters navigate dangerous terrain and explore haunted crypts, where they can expect to fight savage orcs, ferocious wolves, giant spiders, evil cultists, bloodthirsty ghouls, and shadar-kai assassins. If they face a dragon, it’s a young one that might still be searching for a lair and has not yet found its place in the world . . .
> 
> Paragon-level adventurers explore uncharted regions and delve long-forgotten dungeons, where they confront savage giants, ferocious hydras, fearless golems, evil yuan-ti, bloodthirsty vampires, crafty mind flayers, and drow assassins. They might face a powerful adult dragon that has established a lair and a role in the world. . . .
> 
> Epic characters traverse otherworldly realms and explore never-before-seen caverns of wonder, where they fight savage balor demons, abominations such as the ferocious tarrasque, mind flayer masterminds, terrible archdevils, bloodthirsty lich archmages, and even the gods themselves. The dragons they encounter are ancient wyrms of truly earth-shaking power, whose sleep troubles kingdoms and whose waking threatens existence.​
> When (for instance) paragon tier PCs confront a ghoul - which is of typical toughness for heroic tier PCs - that ghouls is not terribly tough. One well-placed blow (ie in mechanical terms, an attack that hits) will drop it.



None of the indented bits tell me that one hit from a paragon will always drop a ghoul, even though it does tell me that paragons should have a very good expectation of winning a fight with them.  Further, even though ghouls might not be all that tough against a paragon-level party even paragons can hit for less hit points than the typical ghoul might have if they roll poorly on the damage die, which gives the ghoul another chance to hit and hurt the paragon. (ghouls are an interesting example, in fact, as at least in earlier editions their paralyzation ability makes every attack they get a serious threat, so leaving one up for an extra round can be problematic)

And no PC is going to give out enough damage in a single blow to kill a non-minion giant or dragon or anything else big, no matter what level said PC might be.

Gygax gives advice in his DMG: "Always give a monster an even break".  Taking away all their hit points save one doesn't really accomplish this.



> Your apparent lack of appreciation of these facts about 4e is why I have repeatedly asserted that you don't seem to understand how the 4e combat meahcics work.



I well enough understand how they work, but I don't think you understand (or can't accept) my objections to their butchering of internal setting consistency (a.k.a. game-world realism).


----------



## Lanefan

pemerton said:


> Your PC's actions have put your family at risk. When you decide to do have your PC do X rather than Y, how do you - as a player - know whether your are jeopardiding your relationship with your family? Who decides whether they stick with you or abandon you? And how?



Er...are you referring here to the specific example I gave* or asking an in-general question?

* - in my example my actions had nothing to do with putting them at risk; the challenge came later when I learned they were at risk and had to choose between family and duty.



> Is this is all just _GM decides_?



Givan as a) my PC's family are in theory all NPCs, and b) NPCs are completely under the control of the GM, then obviously it's going to be up to the GM to determine (in whatever ways and means he might use) how my family reacts to any of this, and-or to me should I ever find and-or rescue them.



> This seems to rest on a premise that there is a finite amount of "challenge" which, if the PCs avoid it, means the players win and everyone goes home.



There is a fininte amount of challenge in each individual challenge, if that makes sense; and avoiding one often just means getting to the next that much faster...but yes, at some point in the larger scheme of things avoiding or blowing through enough challenges will mean the players 'win' that mission rather cheaply (e.g. the princess is rescued in half a day without anyone taking a scratch; or (extreme example) the BBEG takes one look at the party and bends the knee before a word is spoken or a sword drawn).  What everyone hoped would be a 3-session adventure just got blown away in a real-time hour...now what?



> That is not how any system I'm familiar with works. If the PCs are successful in sneaking into the castle and doing whatever they hoped to do, then the game keeps going. The GM makes up more stuff. The players declare more actions.



Exactly...provided that either the GM or the players or both still have ideas left.



> When everyone is happy that the story of these particular PCs has come to an end, then they can start a new game.



What about the story of the story?  Sure those particular PCs might have run their course (for now) but if there's still some story left what's stopping the players from bringing in new PCs with new characterizations etc. and carrying on - kinda like a sequel.


----------



## Lanefan

pemerton said:


> 30 years ago I GMed an AD&D game in which one of the PCs, in order to be returned to life, had to be treated by a sage. The result of the sage's herbal treatment was that the PC permanently turned blue. That's a cute enough result, but it's not a challenge to the player's characterisation of the character.



Depending on context, it sure could be: if blue-skinned people are shunned by society in that setting the player now has to figure out how to play this character as an outcast, which may or may not be a huge departure from how it was played before.



			
				FrogReaver said:
			
		

> In 5e having a soul has no mechanical effect.
> 
> I've not yet decided how to portray a character that has no soul. There is going to be some difference for sure. Whatever that difference is, that is what was put at stake.



side note

In my own game I ruled quite some years ago that having no soul has no real mechanical implications while you're alive (other than that certain types of undead are far less likely to bother you) as your body just keeps on chugging along as before, but should you die there's a very serious mechanical consequence: you can't be revived.

EDIT: and then I read on and see  [MENTION=6779310]aramis erak[/MENTION] found that the same is true in 5e RAW.

Revival in part consists of reconnecting the spirit to the body in order to reboot it, and that's really hard to do when the spirit doesn't exist.

/side note


----------



## pemerton

Campbell said:


> My primary focus on stage and when I play role playing games (other than B/X D&D which I approach as a tactical exercise) has always been authentically experiencing what my character is with a focus on relationships and emotional driving forces.



I GM much more than I play a PC. When I play a PC this is what I am looking for - but more below on my personality weakness in this respect!

As a GM I like to see what drives the PCs. I also enjoy the big moments of conflict, some of which are internal - or intra-group - and some of which are external.



Campbell said:


> Authentically feeling the weight of the moment as someone who has dramatically different life experiences, people they care about, and ways they process emotions is like hard.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> I need all the help I can get.



The first time I really played a character in this way was actually in a freeform Cthulhu game at a convention in the mid-90s. There was a broad character outline as part of the scenario - I was playing a woman whose son had been taken to hell by his father, my estranged husband. The other PCs were friends of my son. To play the character I drew heavily on my knowledge and experiences of the mother of a high school friend who had been left by her husband not too many years earlier. My memories of the experience are a bit faded now, but I have a recollection of kneeling on a floor in the play area reciting The Lord's Prayer with tears on my face.

That play experience also introduced me to a GMing technique that I had not deliberately and self-consciously adopted before: of talking to the players as "the devil on their shoulder", chiding them for weak decisions or encouraging them to push their PCs in some way. Not with a goal towards railroading, but not letting anyone get away with a squib unnoticed!



Campbell said:


> Another more pernicious problem is that we grow to care for these characters. From a player side it may come down to developing an idealized image of their character that they do not want to see tarnished.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> I also feel like intent based adjudication can cause issues here.



I rely fairly heavily on intent-based adjudication in most of my GMing. I'm certainly happy to hear more about what you see as the issues (I can guess a bit, but would rather hear firsthand).

My biggest weakness as a GM, I think - certainly relative to your preferences - is sentimentality. I can find it hard to truly hose the PCs.

And as a player I hang on fairly tight to my PC. So a GM is going to have to push me hard, because I'm not going to easily let go of my own accord!


----------



## pemerton

Lanefan said:


> at some point in the larger scheme of things avoiding or blowing through enough challenges will mean the players 'win' that mission rather cheaply
> 
> <snip>
> 
> What everyone hoped would be a 3-session adventure just got blown away in a real-time hour...now what?



Go onto the next thing. Perhaps don't work with such a tight notion of "the adventure" or "that mission".



Lanefan said:


> if there's still some story left what's stopping the players from bringing in new PCs with new characterizations etc. and carrying on - kinda like a sequel.



Nothing. That's my whole point. There's not an end to possible RPGing because the PCs made their way easily through a castle.



Lanefan said:


> pemerton said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 30 years ago I GMed an AD&D game in which one of the PCs, in order to be returned to life, had to be treated by a sage. The result of the sage's herbal treatment was that the PC permanently turned blue. That's a cute enough result, but it's not a challenge to the player's characterisation of the character.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Depending on context, it sure could be: if blue-skinned people are shunned by society in that setting the player now has to figure out how to play this character as an outcast, which may or may not be a huge departure from how it was played before.
Click to expand...


But this is purely external adversity: people used to like you but now they don't.

It doesn't involve any sort of reevaluation or reconceptualisation.


----------



## pemerton

Lanefan said:


> Yet a PC, if faced with an immensely superior foe, doesn't suddenly find itself with only 1 h.p. to its name where a moment ago it had 35



What system are you talking about? 4e? 4e has no mechanic for turning the PCs into "minions" to fight much higher level antagonists. Rather, it has a mechanic for turning those higher level antagonists into solos and the like.

This is because a game in which PCs are toggled either up or down would not make for very good play.



Lanefan said:


> the immensely-superior foe *still has to get through all 35 of them*, and so it should.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> even though ghouls might not be all that tough against a paragon-level party *even paragons can hit for less hit points than the typical ghoul might have if they roll poorly on the damage die*, which gives the ghoul another chance to hit and hurt the paragon. (ghouls are an interesting example, in fact, as at least in earlier editions their paralyzation ability makes every attack they get a serious threat, so leaving one up for an extra round can be problematic)
> 
> And *no PC is going to give out enough damage in a single blow to kill a non-minion giant or dragon or anything else big*, no matter what level said PC might be.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> I well enough understand how they work, but I don't think you understand (or can't accept) my objections to their butchering of internal setting consistency (a.k.a. game-world realism).



I've bolded a few bits which demonstrate that you don't understand how 4e's combat mechanics work. Because you talk about _resolution processes_ as if they are part of the fiction. Whereas an obvious feature of 4e combat is that the resolution mechanics _are not_ part of the fiction, and _are not_ models of fictional processes, but _are_ devices for establishing what occurs in the fiction.

This is actually true of Gygax's AD&D as well - Gygax makes the point that a single attack roll doesn't model one single bodily motion - but 4e takes this idea and develops it further.

In Runequest a PC's hit points do not change significantly over time; but s/he typically improves his/her skill at parrying and/or dodging blows. It would be ridiculous to say that RQ is unrealistic because hp don't grow with experience and hence experienced adventurers are just as vulnerable to blows as inexperienced ones. Such a comment displays complete ignorance of the mechanical device that RQ uses to model increased fighting skill, which is not extra hp but rather is improved parry/dodge skill.

Likewise and mutatis mutandis for 4e D&D. A paragon PC can kill a ghoul in 6 seconds. At the table the question of whether or not this take place is determined by making a single d20 roll and filtering that through the attack rules. If you narrate the fiction of that in a way which creates setting inconsistency then that's on you. It's not on the mechanics.


----------



## pemerton

Given that there's been some discussion about roleplaying, what it means to play a character, and what it means to find one's character challenged in a certain way, I thought I would post some quotes from Burning Wheel Gold. This spells out how I think about it pretty well. I'm quoting from the Revised edition that came out a few months ago.

First, Jake Norwood's Foreword at p 6 (Norwood designed and wrote The Riddle of Steel RPG):

So how do you play Burning Wheel? Fight for what you believe. Or, since it's a roleplaying game: Fight for what your character believes. Everything else in the rules tells either how to craft that character's beliefs or how to fight for them. . . .

The decision to solve a problem with cold steel or silken words isn't just one of better numerical values - it's a question of who you, the player, want your character to become. Every action - pass or fail - is growth. Every decision affects how your character matures, shifts, changes. Even little decisions impact the character in permanent, subtle ways.​
And then from the opening page of the rules proper, at p 9:

The Burning Wheel is a roleplaying game. Its mood and feel are reminiscent of the lands created by Ursula K Le Guin, Stephen R Donaldson and JRR Tokien in their works of fantasy fiction. It is also heavily influenced by the brilliant medieval historical accounts of Barbara Tuchman and Desmond Seward . . .

In the game, players take on the roles of characters inspired by history and works of fantasy ficiton. These characters are a list of abilities rated with numbers and a list of player-determined priorities. The synergy of inspiration, imagination, numbers and priorities is the most fundamental element of Burning Wheel. Expressing these numbers and priorities within situations presented by the game master (GM) is what the game is all about. . . .

[T]he rules do contain a philosophy that implies a certain type of place. There are consequences to your choices in this game. They range from the very black and white, "If I engage in this duel, my character might die," to the more complex, "If my character undertakes this task, he'll be changed, and I don't know exactly how." Recognizing that the system enforces these choices will help you navigate play. I always encourage players to think before they test their characters. Are you prepared to accept the consequences of your actions?​
Those last two sentences express this system's version of _playing to find out what happens_.


----------



## billd91

pemerton said:


> What system are you talking about? 4e? 4e has no mechanic for turning the PCs into "minions" to fight much higher level antagonists. Rather, it has a mechanic for turning those higher level antagonists into solos and the like.
> 
> This is because a game in which PCs are toggled either up or down would not make for very good play.




Well, yeah, but then a game in which NPCs are togged either up or down doesn't make for very good play either if you assume that NPCs have as much existence (in the campaign) as the PCs. What this whole debate over minions is about is about the PC-centricness of 4e and how that's alien to Lanefan's view of the PC's role in RPG setting. 





pemerton said:


> I've bolded a few bits which demonstrate that you don't understand how 4e's combat mechanics work. Because you talk about _resolution processes_ as if they are part of the fiction. Whereas an obvious feature of 4e combat is that the resolution mechanics _are not_ part of the fiction, and _are not_ models of fictional processes, but _are_ devices for establishing what occurs in the fiction.
> 
> This is actually true of Gygax's AD&D as well - Gygax makes the point that a single attack roll doesn't model one single bodily motion - but 4e takes this idea and develops it further.




I don't think it's a question of him not understanding it. I think it's a question of his view of it not conforming to yours - but then I think you *choose* to see the 4e combat mechanics as not part of the fiction rather than it being obvious that's the case and can only be the case. Gygax may have seen making an attack as an abstraction over a 1 minute round of feints, parries, and other gambits, but the 4e powers aren't generally written that way. Powers like Piercing Strike aren't described with the same level of abstraction Gygax describes in the 1 minute combat round. They are written as cinematic moves in and of themselves that would amenable to being part of the fiction.


----------



## Manbearcat

FrogReaver said:


> I've read this a number of times.  I don't understand your questions.  I'll be happy to answer if you can make them more clear for me.




I assume you understood the rest of the post and these two questions (I'll quote) are what don't make sense?



> _You don't think this will change your cognitive workspace? It won't resemble the mental arithmetic that real humans do in a moment of desperate choice (run to or shrink from danger and possible extreme cost)? You don't think the other participants at the table wouldn't have their heart-rates uptick as this decision looms?_




1)  Do you think if those mechanics were in play, would they affect (a) the sensation of play overall, (b) your navigation of your thoughts, (c) your perceptions of what is happening (the gravity, the momentum), (d) your immediate meta reflections (which I don't know about you...but I have personally about myself as a consequential moment is upon me) upon "who is this guy really?"

2)  Do you think those mechanics being player-facing (to all participants) would or would not create more anxiety, anticipation, excitement, exaltation for the other participants who are beholding your actions (and are aware of the consequences)?


Whatever your answer to that stuff, could you break it down in a little detail, please and thank you?


----------



## Tony Vargas

pemerton said:


> What system are you talking about? 4e? 4e has no mechanic for turning the PCs into "minions" to fight much higher level antagonists. Rather, it has a mechanic for turning those higher level antagonists into solos and the like.



Nod. It's not rocket science. But, it does have limits.  Changing a creature from standard to solo - while, for the sake of "simulationism" (in the Forge Sense), holding its XP value constant to maintain that it is, in fact(actually, fiction), 'the same creature' - only brings it down 9 levels.  So, 4th level party vs Type V Demons, for instance, not going to cut it.  
...I think the conventional solution is to shift the encounter with the overwhelming foe to a Skill Challenge, to avoid it's notice, escape it, appease it, or the like, instead.



> This is because a game in which PCs are toggled either up or down would not make for very good play.



IDK, it might not be completely unworkable. Dialing up, for instance, could be a hypothetical way to run a solo PC, or to illustrate how the PCs have risen above their old league of foes in a more entertaining way than just squishing things that can't hit you on a natural 19.  



> Whereas an obvious feature of 4e combat is that the resolution mechanics _are not_ part of the fiction, and _are not_ models of fictional processes, but _are_ devices for establishing what occurs in the fiction.



IDK why you'd limit that to "of 4e combat" - resolution mechanics in general would only be part of the fiction in some sort of high-fidelity LARP, or randomized challenge ("I'll let you live if you throw a Venus" - which'd be 4d4 coming up all different).  And, the line between modeling a process and determining the fiction is pretty scant - any level of abstraction, at all, probably crosses that line.  



> If you narrate the fiction of that in a way which creates setting inconsistency then that's on you. It's not on the mechanics.



If the topic had drifted another direction, Lan might've written that same sentence, I think. 



billd91 said:


> Well, yeah, but then a game in which NPCs are togged either up or down doesn't make for very good play either if you assume that NPCs have as much existence (in the campaign) as the PCs. ... PC-centricness is alien to Lanefan's view of the PC's role in RPG setting.



 I mean, there's only players (playing their PCs), and a DM (playing the NPCs &c) at the table.  So if it's not PC-centric...?



> Gygax may have seen making an attack as an abstraction over a 1 minute round of feints, parries, and other gambits, but the 4e powers aren't generally written that way.



 Gygax wrote the game with 1 minute rounds, and only 1 attack/round, and explained it as just that, so no 'may' about it.  And, long before 4e, those rounds had been changed from 1 minute, to six seconds.  Bows RoF 2 in 1 min went from unrealistically slow, to Bow's iterative attacks in 6 sec being unrealistically fast. 



> Powers like Piercing Strike aren't described with the same level of abstraction Gygax describes in the 1 minute combat round. They are written as cinematic moves in and of themselves that would amenable to being part of the fiction.



It would have been odd if flavor text meant for a 6-second round were written as if the round were still one minute.  Though, if, for whatever reason, you'd wanted to go back to a 1-minute round, the players already had the option of describing their powers however worked for them, anyway.


----------



## Ovinomancer

Manbearcat said:


> I assume you understood the rest of the post and these two questions (I'll quote) are what don't make sense?
> 
> 
> 
> 1)  Do you think if those mechanics were in play, would they affect (a) the sensation of play overall, (b) your navigation of your thoughts, (c) your perceptions of what is happening (the gravity, the momentum), (d) your immediate meta reflections (which I don't know about you...but I have personally about myself as a consequential moment is upon me) upon "who is this guy really?"
> 
> 2)  Do you think those mechanics being player-facing (to all participants) would or would not create more anxiety, anticipation, excitement, exaltation for the other participants who are beholding your actions (and are aware of the consequences)?
> 
> 
> Whatever your answer to that stuff, could you break it down in a little detail, please and thank you?



I don't think this will make it ckearer because I think this discussion is mired a lot further back on the trail.

I think [MENTION=6795602]FrogReaver[/MENTION]'s definition of roleplaying is for a player to imagine a character and then imagine how that character will act and declare actions accordingly.  This being fully under the control of the player is a hard requirement, so anything that interferes with a player doing the above is a hinderence to roleplaying.  This is why he doesn't consider acting to be roleplaying because that character wasn't imagined by the actor and the actor doesn't make choices for actions. 

Meanwhile, you (and me and others) see roleplaying in games as protraying the character however it comes to be.  There's a presumption that the player will be making most choices, but external changes are ok as well.  We see acting as roleplaying because the portrayal of tge character is up to the actor even if many/most choices are not.

So, with this fundamental difference in definition, there's no way your questions make sense within [MENTION=6795602]FrogReaver[/MENTION]'s framework.  What I find interesting, though, is that he doesn't appear to see the genre/system limits that D&D imposes.

I, of course, stand ready to be corrected on this by a functional definition of what frogreaver thinks roleplaying is that differs from the above.


----------



## Lanefan

pemerton said:


> What system are you talking about? 4e? 4e has no mechanic for turning the PCs into "minions" to fight much higher level antagonists.



Exactly.



> Rather, it has a mechanic for turning those higher level antagonists into solos and the like.



4e thus gives formal terms to previously-informal variances within a group of monsters - you might have the 6 ordinary ogres with 40 h.p. each, the shaman ogre with 45 h.p. and spell use, and the chieftain with 80 h.p. that fought as a higher HD/higher level foe.

My argument is that any mechanic that turns the 40 h.p. ogres into 1 h.p. ogres is intentionally not being true to what's established in the fiction, and is thus very flawed.



> This is because a game in which PCs are toggled either up or down would not make for very good play.



Agreed.

But as the PCs are a part of an internally-consistent (I hope!) setting, what applies to the PCs must then by extension apply to the rest of the game-world inhabitants; meaning that toggling them up and down is every bit as bad.



> I've bolded a few bits which demonstrate that you don't understand how 4e's combat mechanics work. Because you talk about _resolution processes_ as if they are part of the fiction. Whereas an obvious feature of 4e combat is that the resolution mechanics _are not_ part of the fiction, and _are not_ models of fictional processes, but _are_ devices for establishing what occurs in the fiction.



I forget the exact term for it - dissociated something-or-other, it's been a while - but if the resolution processes and the fiction don't at least vaguely try to match up then the problem is with the processes, not the fiction.



> This is actually true of Gygax's AD&D as well - Gygax makes the point that a single attack roll doesn't model one single bodily motion



Indeed; and here Gygax is in fact trying to match up the resolution process (one attack per round) to the fiction (1-minute-long rounds) by saying that the attack roll represents the best of many attempts over that one-minute span.  In other words, he's taking a good approach.



> but 4e takes this idea and develops it further.



Which, given that 4e rounds are but 6 seconds long, seems counterintuitive.



> In Runequest a PC's hit points do not change significantly over time; but s/he typically improves his/her skill at parrying and/or dodging blows. It would be ridiculous to say that RQ is unrealistic because hp don't grow with experience and hence experienced adventurers are just as vulnerable to blows as inexperienced ones. Such a comment displays complete ignorance of the mechanical device that RQ uses to model increased fighting skill, which is not extra hp but rather is improved parry/dodge skill.



Actually I'd say that's every bit as realistic - and maybe even more so - than the non-4e D&D model.



> Likewise and mutatis mutandis for 4e D&D. A paragon PC can kill a ghoul in 6 seconds. At the table the question of whether or not this take place is determined by making a single d20 roll and filtering that through the attack rules. If you narrate the fiction of that in a way which creates setting inconsistency then that's on you. It's not on the mechanics.



There's a word missing in the above which, if inserted, makes all the difference: A paragon PC can *maybe* kill a ghoul in 6 seconds.

Look at it another way: unless you're fighting something that really only does have one hit point or less, such as a kitten or a small rat, there are three possible outcomes of any attack roll or sequence:

1. You do no damage at all (typically in D&D this means you miss outright unless some sort of DoaM mechanics are in play)
2. You cause damage to the foe but do not cause enough damage to kill* it
3. You cause enough damage to kill* the foe

* - or defeat, or subdue, or otherwise achieve your desired win condition.

Minion rules disallow #2 as an option, which is not only unrealistic but - again unless you're fighting a kitten - doesn't give the monster an even break.

A ghoul might normally have 30 h.p. and a paragon character might normally hit it for 4d6+20.  Most of the time the paragon is going to one-shot it but there'll be the occasional time when she rolls really badly on those 4d6 and the ghoul survives with 1or 2 h.p. left - highly relevant if the ghoul then gets a good attack in and paralyses the paragon.

And a side note: this brings up another mechanic I've personally come to detest in all versions of D&D - all RPGs where it exists, come to that - and that's that, using the same example above, a hit can't do less than 24 points damage.  There's a huge gulf between 0 damage (miss) and 24 or more (hit); and the greatest warrior in the world should still be capable of hitting for only 1 point damage on an unlucky shot no matter what bonuses she has going for her.  To its credit 4e kinda waved at this problem a bit with some damage-on-a-miss mechanics, but to me a miss is a miss and thus 4e was coming at it from the wrong direction.

The far-from-perfect-but-better-than-nothing solution I use is that on any 'minimum' damage roll - here this would be 4 on the 4d6 - you add the bonuses to that roll (here giving 24) and then roll a die of that size to determine what damage you actually did.  This means there's a small (sometimes very small, but never zero) chance that anything with more than 1 h.p. can survive a hit from pretty much anything - and the minion model again defeats this.


----------



## pemerton

billd91 said:


> Well, yeah, but then a game in which NPCs are togged either up or down doesn't make for very good play either



There's actually little evidence for this in the history of D&D. Most kobolds, goblins and 0-level humans will be either up or down if hit by a AD&D fighter with weapon specialisationm 18 STR and a magic weapon (damage die +1 for magic +2 for spec +3 for 18/01 STR = minimum 7 damage on a hit and typically quite a bit more). But I've never seen it suggested that this does not make for good play.

A 7th level specialised AD&D fighter with a +2 longsword fighting an ogre averages 2d12 + 14 = 27 average with a 16 minimum multiplied by the chance to hit. AD&D ogres have 4+1 HD or an average of 19 hp and a maximum of 33. That 7th level fighter therefore is going to take down many ogres in a single round. I've never seen it suggested that this does not make for good play.



billd91 said:


> if you assume that NPCs have as much existence (in the campaign) as the PCs.



I don't really know what this means. In the fiction those kobolds, goblins, 0-level men-at-arms and ogres all exist. So does the PC fighter. I don't see how this issue of existince in the fiction bears on whether or not some opponents are liable to being swiftly dispatched by a PC.



billd91 said:


> What this whole debate over minions is about is about the PC-centricness of 4e and how that's alien to Lanefan's view of the PC's role in RPG setting.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> I don't think it's a question of him not understanding it. I think it's a question of his view of it not conforming to yours



I don't give a toss whether or not [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION] wants to play 4e. That has zero effect or significance for me.

I'm responding to other claims, such as that 4e's minion rules lead to inconsistent fiction, are an incoherent frameworld for hp, etc. Those claims are false, and the only reasons being put in favour of them betray a failure to understand the 4e combat mechanics.

There is nothing _inconsistent_ about a fiction in which (for instance) mid-heroic tier PCs find dealing with ghouls a matter of life-and-death, and in which mid-paragon tier PCs can cut through those ghouls with relative ease.

The notion that a ghoul or an ogre is "entitled" to its hp, or that it is "inconsisent" to resolve a fight with one by any means other than a series of to hit and damage rolls, simply betrays a lack of understanding of the 4e combat rules. The 4e DMG even spells this out (pp 54-55):

A fight against thirty orcs is a grand cinematic battle. The players get to enjoy carving through the mob like a knife through butter, feeling confident and powerful. Unfortunately, the mechanics of standard monsters make that difficult. If you use a large number of monsters of a level similar to the PCs, you overwhelm them. If you use a large
number of monsters of much lower level, you bore them with creatures that have little chance of hurting the PCs but take a lot of time to take down. On top of that, keeping track of the actions of so many monsters is a headache.

Minions are designed to help fill out an encounter, but they go down quickly.​
In the fiction, an orc is an orc is an orc. Minions are a mechanical technique intended to facilitate a certain sort of action occurring in the fiction.  It's not _inconsistent_ to change the mechanical parameters of an orc encounter - level, defences, hp, to hit and damage numbers, etc - because of the level of the PCs who are facing those orcs. 

And the whole suggestion is even more absurd coming from an AD&D player. From the mechanical point of view, there is no difference other than the technical and mathematical between using the attacks-per-round mechanic to reflect relativites of prowess (as AD&D does for fighters vs 0-level men-at-arms and the like) and using the defence-by-level, attack-and-damage-by-level and hp mechanics to reflect the same thing (as 4e does more generally via its minion rules).



billd91 said:


> Gygax may have seen making an attack as an abstraction over a 1 minute round of feints, parries, and other gambits, but the 4e powers aren't generally written that way. Powers like Piercing Strike aren't described with the same level of abstraction Gygax describes in the 1 minute combat round. They are written as cinematic moves in and of themselves that would amenable to being part of the fiction.



So if you envisage a 4e fighter standing there for 6 seconds doing nothing for 5-and-a-half of them, then moving instantaneously and metronomically on his/her turn, I guess that's your prerogative.

That's not what the art suggests to me. Nor is it what the flavour text suggests to me. The flavour text for Piercing Strike (PHB p 118) is "A needle-sharp point slips past armor and into tender flesh." Mechanically this is expressed as an attack vs Reflex defence rather than AC. There is nothing there that suggests to me that it is inconsistent or incoherent for a mid-paragon rogue to use this particular combat skill to take down an ogre in 6 seconds. Whether such a feat is conceived of as a series of strikes or a single one seems to me a matter for the table.


----------



## pemerton

Lanefan said:


> My argument is that any mechanic that turns the 40 h.p. ogres into 1 h.p. ogres is intentionally not being true to what's established in the fiction, and is thus very flawed.



But it is true to the fiction. The ogre that is tough for mid-heroic PCs is not tough for mid-paragon PCs.

That's it.

I mean, _speaking purely about the fiction_, what is inconsistent?



Lanefan said:


> as the PCs are a part of an internally-consistent (I hope!) setting, what applies to the PCs must then by extension apply to the rest of the game-world inhabitants; meaning that toggling them up and down is every bit as bad.



This is not a statement about the setting or the gameworld inhabitants. It is a statement about mechanics.

Changing the numbers used to resolve declared actions, and find out what happens in the ficiton, _isn't something that happens in the fiction_.

Some 5e D&D GMs do not resolve all combats using the 5e combat rules. I know this because I read their posts about it. Some, for instance, simply declare fights over with a bit of narration once it is clear to the table that the PCs have the better of the situation. That is an example of changing the resolution method for that combat. It doesn't mean that the fiction is inconsistent.

The attack-defence-damage-hp system - in 4e, at least - is just a mathematical framework for resolving declared actions. Changing the maths - eg by stepping up defences and stepping down hp; by stepping up attack numbers and stepping down damage; etc - doesn't mean that the fiction is inconsistent.

I'll reiterate: _referring only to the fiction, rather than the resolution system_, explain what is incoherent about a mid-paragon PC being able to defeat an ogre or a ghoul or whatever in 6 seconds, perhaps with a single blow.



Lanefan said:


> A paragon PC can maybe kill a ghoul in 6 seconds.



Yes. This is determined by making an attack roll.



Lanefan said:


> there are three possible outcomes of any attack roll or sequence:
> 
> 1. You do no damage at all (typically in D&D this means you miss outright unless some sort of DoaM mechanics are in play)
> 2. You cause damage to the foe but do not cause enough damage to kill* it
> 3. You cause enough damage to kill* the foe
> 
> * - or defeat, or subdue, or otherwise achieve your desired win condition.
> 
> Minion rules disallow #2 as an option



This is all just mechanics. It tells us nothing about the fiction. And it's not as if someone has ordained that you 1, 2 and 3 are mandatory mechanical options for RPGing as such. AD&D, for instance, has many mechanical systems for hurting a creature that do not involve 1, 2 and 3 as options (eg the assassination rules; the rule that magically slept creatures can be killed one per round with no check required; the rule that a paralysed being can be hit automatically for max damage (ie no to hit or damage roll required) at twice the normal attack rate; etc).

Turning from mechanics to fiction: in the fiction, a minion can be hurt but not die. Just like the 1 hp kobold in KotB can be hurt and not die. The minion can be hurt by a paragon level fighter and not die. That would be one possible narration of a missed attack roll. Just as one might narrate a missed attack roll against that 1 hp kobold as scratching but not killing it.

This is why I say that you don't understand 4e combat mechanics. Because you are not able to appreciate the parameters they establish on the fiction, the narration that they do and don't permit, etc.


----------



## Manbearcat

Oh man, we're having this conversation...yet again.

It isn't just HP that are the problem for someone trying to model actual world biology and physics/collisions between objects.  Its the whole thing.  D&D's discrete parts (HP, AC, Attack Rolls) push against that idea as well as the combat round (be it 1 minute, 10 seconds, or 6 seconds).  Worse still for the effort, when those 4 intersect?  Good_Night.

Hit Points - Not meat; some indecipherable amalgamation of combat prowess soup, physical resilience, mental resilience, divine sponsorship/protection, magical wards.

AC - Not damage mitigation; some indecipherable amalgamation of avoidance, parrying, reflexes, nimbleness, other protections.

Attack Rolls - Not a discrete attack; a combination of pressure which includes feints, footwork to take angles and wrongfoot, and actual attacks (multiples).

Rounds - Even at 6 seconds, the number of actual blows that can be delivered by a skilled combatant against a non-sentient target overwhelms the D&D PC build and action resolution mechanics.  Therefore, it should scale downward (if we're looking for any kind of fidelity to real world combat exchanges) BASED ON THE THREAT/SKILL OF THE DEFENDER...not the prowess of the offender.  Further still, the offense offered up by an offender should typically scale upward as time progresses.  Martial combatants probe their opponents early, determining responses, establishing distance, establishing timing.  This is why you almost universally see a typical bell curve in combat in terms of output.  Time piles up and comfort increases, output increasing in proportion.  Then, as time piles up further, gas tanks become depleted and output decreases in proportion.


Sum total:

If you're parameterizing a model for actual physical combat, D&D's collection of combat mechanics would be just about the last place you'd look to...because not only do they model absolutely nothing well (in terms of real world fidelity)...but they actively push back against very fundamental aspects of martial combat (such as the bell curve of output).

As I've mentioned before, in my opinion (as someone who has actually been a real world combatant for much of my life), things like Minionization and Roles (informal, "player-facing", hierarchical arrangements are fundamental to the world of martial combatants...despite the Blue Belt being formally hierarchically below the Black Belt...everyone knows that THIS particular Blue Belt has a borderline indefeatable Guard and his Choke game is off the charts...that Black Belt wants no part of him) and Defender mechanics in 4e better reflect the relationships of combatants in the real world than anything D&D has offered before or since.  Not to mention the fact that Minionization elegantly (in terms of ease-of-use, table handling time, cognitive workload) models the genre logic of mythical fantasy action adventure (in the ways [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] mentions above).  The idea that these two things are seen as grotesque offerings by a segment of D&D culture is a source of endless frustration for me.


----------



## Tony Vargas

Lanefan said:


> My argument is that any mechanic that turns the 40 h.p. ogres into 1 h.p. ogres is intentionally not being true to what's established in the fiction, and is thus very flawed.



 It doesn't do that.  Rather, it offers an alternative mechanic for defeating those same ogres.  Instead of hitting AC 16 repeatedly for a total of 40hp, the DM can require you hit AC 25, once, and not have to worry about damage.  Kinda like the old called shot variants, but in the DM's bailiwick, chosen by him when building an encounter.


----------



## Tony Vargas

pemerton said:


> The 4e DMG even spells this out (pp 54-55):
> 
> 
> A fight against thirty orcs is a grand cinematic battle. The players get to enjoy carving through the mob like a knife through butter, feeling confident and powerful. Unfortunately, the mechanics of standard monsters make that difficult. If you use a large number of monsters of a level similar to the PCs, you overwhelm them. If you use a large
> number of monsters of much lower level, you bore them with creatures that have little chance of hurting the PCs but take a lot of time to take down. On top of that, keeping track of the actions of so many monsters is a headache.
> 
> Minions are designed to help fill out an encounter, but they go down quickly.



4e minions did a decent job of cashing the check the DMG wrote, there.  I mean, there may have been a hold on it while it cleared, but, ultimately, it wasn't rubber.

13A, IMHO, did even a bit better with it's mooks, which combined some of the ease of DMing and threat of swarms, with the progressive figure-removal of minions - and of old-school wargames, where you'd remove figures from the rear of a formation as the formation engaging it from the front inflicted casualties.


----------



## Campbell

Here's my take: Character sheets and game mechanics are representative of the fiction, but they are not the fiction.  They are tools we use to create a consistent compelling fiction. I feel it is a grave mistake to confuse the fiction with its representation because it lowers our overall investment in what is actually going on. Some games (even games I am quite fond of) make it all too easy to do so because they layer on so many abstractions it can be easy to lose sight of the fiction. Vincent Baker would say it's all boxes.

I also do not think it is fair to expect one system or subsystem to serve all masters. Exalted 3e has a combat system that is designed around kung fu duels between similarly powerful opponents. It does a swimming job at that, but is not designed to accommodate many less powerful opponents so has a way of grouping lesser enemies into Battle Groups. Masks is a game about teenage superheroes trying to find out who they want to become. The basic moves of the game are written to reflect their lack of maturity, shifting sense of self, and impulsiveness. Blades in the Dark is a game about daring scoundrels trying to make their way up the criminal underworld. The core mechanics make risk taking, vice, and crew advancement a central focus of play. It's not a game for playing it safe.


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## Manbearcat

Campbell said:


> Here's my take: Character sheets and game mechanics are representative of the fiction, but they are not the fiction.  They are tools we use to create a consistent compelling fiction. I feel it is a grave mistake to confuse the fiction with its representation because it lowers our overall investment in what is actually going on. Some games (even games I am quite fond of) make it all too easy to do so because they layer on so many abstractions it can be easy to lose sight of the fiction. Vincent Baker would say it's all boxes.




Or, put another way, there is this tendency among a cross-section of the TTRPG culture to try to assume that action resolution mechanics are actually a _gamestate unto themselves_, rather than an _input into a possible new gamestate_.  

This is one of the reasons why the spellcaster vs martial dichotomy has been an issue for so long.  

In much of D&D, spellcasters spells are actually _gamestates unto themselves_.  Conversely, in much of D&D, martial characters merely have _inputs for possible new gamestates_.

Contrast with Dungeon World where _*Cast a Spell *_is an _input into a new possible gamestate_, while _*Armored, My Love for You is Like a Truck*_ and the like are each a _gamestate unto themselves_.



Campbell said:


> I also do not think it is fair to expect one system or subsystem to serve all masters. Exalted 3e has a combat system that is designed around kung fu duels between similarly powerful opponents. It does a swimming job at that, but is not designed to accommodate many less powerful opponents so has a way of grouping lesser enemies into Battle Groups. Masks is a game about teenage superheroes trying to find out who they want to become. The basic moves of the game are written to reflect their lack of maturity, shifting sense of self, and impulsiveness. Blades in the Dark is a game about daring scoundrels trying to make their way up the criminal underworld. The core mechanics make risk taking, vice, and crew advancement a central focus of play. It's not a game for playing it safe.




Same with Dogs.  It doesn't assume you're the Earps and Doc Holiday at the OK Corral.  If you're in a shootout with a gang of bandits or cattle rustlers...well, you're in a tricky pickle (because the dice game as inputs for a possible new gamestate say so...though they don't ensure it).  There is a straight-forward workaround (change the magnitude of dice pool mechanics for antagonist numbers), but the default fiction (and the mechanics that serve as inputs for gamestate change) isn't built around "Dogs as Epic Gunslingers."


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## Lanefan

pemerton said:


> There's actually little evidence for this in the history of D&D. Most kobolds, goblins and 0-level humans will be either up or down if hit by a AD&D fighter with weapon specialisationm 18 STR and a magic weapon (damage die +1 for magic +2 for spec +3 for 18/01 STR = minimum 7 damage on a hit and typically quite a bit more). But I've never seen it suggested that this does not make for good play.



IMO the minimum 7 damage does not make for good play...



> A 7th level specialised AD&D fighter with a +2 longsword fighting an ogre averages 2d12 + 14 = 27 average with a 16 minimum multiplied by the chance to hit.



Assuming the fighter hits with both swings in the round.  Ogres' AC is either 5 or 4, I forget which at the moment.  7th fighter with +1 to hit from strength, +1 to hit from spec, and +2 to hit from sword needs, I think, to roll 5 or better to hit AC 5 (6 or better to hit AC 4) so yes, she'll hit most of the time but not every time.



> AD&D ogres have 4+1 HD or an average of 19 hp and a maximum of 33.



By RAW, yes.  That said, I'd posit there's very few DMs left out there who use RAW values for 1e monster hit points for the big and-or tough ones - including ogres.



> That 7th level fighter therefore is going to take down many ogres in a single round. I've never seen it suggested that this does not make for good play.



I've seen it - and said it - many times, couched in terms of noting that a significant problem with 1e monster design is that many of them are glass cannons and need more hit points in order to be viable threats and-or worthwhile opponents; particularly post-UA with all the PC power creep that book introduced.



> I don't give a toss whether or not [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION] wants to play 4e. That has zero effect or significance for me.
> 
> I'm responding to other claims, such as that 4e's minion rules lead to inconsistent fiction, are an incoherent frameworld for hp, etc. Those claims are false, and the only reasons being put in favour of them betray a failure to understand the 4e combat mechanics.



You keep mistakenly saying I fail to understand the 4e combat mechanics.  I understand them well enough, but at the same time refuse to accept some of the premises they are built on, as they are wrong.



> There is nothing _inconsistent_ about a fiction in which (for instance) mid-heroic tier PCs find dealing with ghouls a matter of life-and-death, and in which mid-paragon tier PCs can cut through those ghouls with relative ease.
> 
> The notion that a ghoul or an ogre is "entitled" to its hp, or that it is "inconsisent" to resolve a fight with one by any means other than a series of to hit and damage rolls, simply betrays a lack of understanding of the 4e combat rules. The 4e DMG even spells this out (pp 54-55):
> 
> A fight against thirty orcs is a grand cinematic battle. The players get to enjoy carving through the mob like a knife through butter, feeling confident and powerful. Unfortunately, the mechanics of standard monsters make that difficult. If you use a large number of monsters of a level similar to the PCs, you overwhelm them. If you use a large
> number of monsters of much lower level, you bore them with creatures that have* little chance of hurting the PCs but take a lot of time to take down*. On top of that, *keeping track of the actions of so many monsters is a headache*.
> 
> Minions are designed to help fill out an encounter, but they go down quickly.​



I've bolded a few bits there.

Little chance does not equal no chance; highly relevant in a game where resource management - hit points, spells, ammunition, item charges/uses maybe - is key.  If "they take a lot of time to take down" then a good DM owes it to her game to spend that time and do it; ditto for dealing with the "headache" of keeping track of lots of opponents.



> In the fiction, an orc is an orc is an orc. Minions are a mechanical technique intended to facilitate a certain sort of action occurring in the fiction.  It's not _inconsistent_ to change the mechanical parameters of an orc encounter - level, defences, hp, to hit and damage numbers, etc - because of the level of the PCs who are facing those orcs.



well, actually it is inconsistent; and you'll not change my mind on this.



> And the whole suggestion is even more absurd coming from an AD&D player. From the mechanical point of view, there is no difference other than the technical and mathematical between using the attacks-per-round mechanic to reflect relativites of prowess (as AD&D does for fighters vs 0-level men-at-arms and the like) and using the defence-by-level, attack-and-damage-by-level and hp mechanics to reflect the same thing (as 4e does more generally via its minion rules).



Additional attacks per round, and a better chance to hit, as level advances are both quite nice reflections of - in the fiction - a fighter's skill increasing as she learns her craft.  The foes are what the foes are regardless of what's attacking them, thus the fiction and setting remain consistent with themselves.

As soon as you start having monster mechanics change themselves based solely on what those monsters are fighting fictional consistency goes out the window - UNLESS the same holds true for PCs, which we've already agreed is a bad idea.



> So if you envisage a 4e fighter standing there for 6 seconds doing nothing for 5-and-a-half of them, then moving instantaneously and metronomically on his/her turn, I guess that's your prerogative.



I don't, though 6 seconds is still a far cry from a minute (one is too short IMO, the other too long).


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## Lanefan

pemerton said:


> But it is true to the fiction. The ogre that is tough for mid-heroic PCs is not tough for mid-paragon PCs.
> 
> That's it.
> 
> I mean, _speaking purely about the fiction_, what is inconsistent?



A minion ogre has 1 h.p., which means that if its buddy fumbles and hits it for 3 damage it's going down; where a more normal ogre could shrug that same hit off as a mild annoyance.

A minion ogre that gets shot by a crossbow wielded by the paragon character's hired porter is going down even though the bolt does just a straight d6 damage (or d8 in 4e? I forget), where d6 (or d8) damage would be a triviality for a normal ogre.

A spell that does 2 h.p. to everything it hits in a large area will clear the field of minion ogres if it happens to be cast by a paragon PC. (and if I'm playing a paragon Wizard that's the first spell I sit down and invent, if it doesn't already exist!)  Normal ogres would take it as a pinprick.



> This is not a statement about the setting or the gameworld inhabitants. It is a statement about mechanics.
> 
> Changing the numbers used to resolve declared actions, and find out what happens in the ficiton, _isn't something that happens in the fiction_.



The three examples I give just above would beg to differ.  The fumble/bolt/spell does the same damage no matter who casts it or what it hits...but the effect varies widely based on how the targets' mechanics have changed where the effect shouldn't vary at all.



> Some 5e D&D GMs do not resolve all combats using the 5e combat rules. I know this because I read their posts about it. Some, for instance, simply declare fights over with a bit of narration once it is clear to the table that the PCs have the better of the situation.



Which isn't RAW, and IMO isn't good for the game unless those DMs are also doing some random PC resource attrition in the process to cover off what in theory would have happened had the combat been played out.  Better to play it all the way through; even more so if you're using options like fumbles or weapon/armour degradation where every attack can have consequences.  (better yet just to have the foes surrender or flee, as this maintains integrity in the fiction while also cutting the combat short)



> That is an example of changing the resolution method for that combat. It doesn't mean that the fiction is inconsistent.



Actually it almost certainly does meanthe fiction is inconsistent, in that even if a DM throws in some random resource attrition the odds of her guessing exactly what quantity and type of resources would have been attrited (new word there!) had things been played out fully are very low.



> The attack-defence-damage-hp system - in 4e, at least - is just a mathematical framework for resolving declared actions. Changing the maths - eg by stepping up defences and stepping down hp; by stepping up attack numbers and stepping down damage; etc - doesn't mean that the fiction is inconsistent.



Changing the maths in the mechanics, without also somehow changing the fiction behind them, makes it inconsistent.  If an ogre wearing thick hide armour has AC 17 when it's fighting heroic PCs then - unless it has changed its armour - it has AC 17 when fighting paragon PCs, because that's what the hide armour gives it.  That's consistent math reflecting consistent fiction.



> I'll reiterate: _referring only to the fiction, rather than the resolution system_, explain what is incoherent about a mid-paragon PC being able to defeat an ogre or a ghoul or whatever in 6 seconds, perhaps with a single blow.



Maybe nothing...but maybe something: why can't a paragon hit a typical ogre but not do enough damage to kill it?

And why does a single magic missile for d4+1 damage now kill an ogre that previously could take ten of them?  The spell didn't change - it's not suddenly doing d4+40 per missile - but somehow the ogre did...and there's your inconsistency.



> This is all just mechanics. It tells us nothing about the fiction. And it's not as if someone has ordained that you 1, 2 and 3 are mandatory mechanical options for RPGing as such. AD&D, for instance, has many mechanical systems for hurting a creature that do not involve 1, 2 and 3 as options (eg the assassination rules; the rule that magically slept creatures can be killed one per round with no check required; the rule that a paralysed being can be hit automatically for max damage (ie no to hit or damage roll required) at twice the normal attack rate; etc).



1e by RAW has these various mechanics, and...you guessed it...I don't subscribe to them either.  Any attack - and I mean ANY attack - needs a roll to hit, if for no other reason than any attack roll can also cause a fumble; a good roll to hit will kill but a poor one will force a roll for damage - particularly with slept creatures in that if you do very little damage you might just wake them up.

Assassination always needs a check even by RAW - there's a table for it in the DMG.



> Turning from mechanics to fiction: in the fiction, a minion can be hurt but not die. Just like the 1 hp kobold in KotB can be hurt and not die. The minion can be hurt by a paragon level fighter and not die. That would be one possible narration of a missed attack roll. Just as one might narrate a missed attack roll against that 1 hp kobold as scratching but not killing it.



A variant on damage-on-a-miss, then.  I however go by the theory that only on a hit can you do damage - a miss might clank off the armour or otherwise make physical contact with the foe but only a hit does actual damage.


----------



## pemerton

Lanefan said:


> You keep mistakenly saying I fail to understand the 4e combat mechanics.  I understand them well enough, but at the same time refuse to accept some of the premises they are built on, as they are wrong.



What does _wrong_ mean here?



Lanefan said:


> A minion ogre has 1 h.p., which means that if its buddy fumbles and hits it for 3 damage it's going down; where a more normal ogre could shrug that same hit off as a mild annoyance.
> 
> A minion ogre that gets shot by a crossbow wielded by the paragon character's hired porter is going down even though the bolt does just a straight d6 damage (or d8 in 4e? I forget), where d6 (or d8) damage would be a triviality for a normal ogre.
> 
> A spell that does 2 h.p. to everything it hits in a large area will clear the field of minion ogres if it happens to be cast by a paragon PC. (and if I'm playing a paragon Wizard that's the first spell I sit down and invent, if it doesn't already exist!)  Normal ogres would take it as a pinprick.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> Changing the maths in the mechanics, without also somehow changing the fiction behind them, makes it inconsistent.  If an ogre wearing thick hide armour has AC 17 when it's fighting heroic PCs then - unless it has changed its armour - it has AC 17 when fighting paragon PCs, because that's what the hide armour gives it.  That's consistent math reflecting consistent fiction.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> And why does a single magic missile for d4+1 damage now kill an ogre that previously could take ten of them?  The spell didn't change - it's not suddenly doing d4+40 per missile - but somehow the ogre did...and there's your inconsistency.



These are all examples of not knowing 4e or how its system works.

In 4e the AC of a (say) 16th level ogre will be higher than that of an 8th level ogre (eg AC 28 for the Ogre Bludgeoneer 16th level minion compared to AC 19 for the Ogre Savage 8th level standard). AC in 4e doesn't reflect simply the armour that is worn (hide armour in both cases). It is a mechanical device for adjudicating the success of attack rolls that reflects the overall fictional context. Statting an ogre as a higher level minion rather than a lower-level standard involves stepping up the AC to the appropriate level, while stepping down the hit points. This change in the mathematical operations performed during resolution don't change the fiction.

In 4e there are no fumble rules. A GM is free to narrate a missed attack by an ogre minion as a fumbled swing. S/he is even free to narrate it as inflicting a pin-prick's worth of physical harm to another ogre minion in the vicinity. In 4e that narration would be mere colour and is not reflected in the resolution process (similar to the way in which, in AD&D, narrating a missed attack as glancing of armour is mere colour - contrast, say, Burning Wheel where that is not mere colour and has mechanical significance and is a permitted narration only when the mechanics provide for it).

In 4e a higher level mage casts a more powerful magic missile spell. (Whether this is narrated as a single more powerful missile or a series of magical blasts pulse-laser style is a matter of discretion for the player of the wizard.) This is the same as the ability of a higher level fighter to strike more powerful blows, or fire more deadly shots with a bow or crossbow. There is no such thing in 4e as a mid-paragon mage casting the same magic missile spell with the same in-fiction power as a mid-heroic mage; or as a mid-paragon archer releasing an arrow with no greater deadliness of aim and power than a mid-heroic archer.

In 4e there is no "spell research" of the sort you describe - ie mechanics-first spell descriptions intended to exploit weak points in the rules. There are plenty of magical effects in 4e that can do AoE damage and will clear a field of minion ogres - this is because the magic of those mid-paragon wizards, sorcerers and invokers is more powerful than that of their mid-heroic precursors.

You are presenting a certain mechanical framework - AD&D - as if (i) it is a fictional framework and (ii) it is the only possible ficitonal framework. Frankly this is bizarre. There's nothing _inconsistent_, for instance, in a ficiton in which a more puissant archer can shoot down a fell beast with a single arrow (qv Legolas in LotR). The fact that AD&D doesn't allow for it simply reminds us of one of the oddities of AD&D, namely, it's relatively unrealistic treatment of archery.



Lanefan said:


> If "they take a lot of time to take down" then a good DM owes it to her game to spend that time and do it; ditto for dealing with the "headache" of keeping track of lots of opponents.



Why?



Lanefan said:


> As soon as you start having monster mechanics change themselves based solely on what those monsters are fighting fictional consistency goes out the window



Why?

What is the inconsistency in the fiction in which a ghoul which is a handy challenge for a mid-heroic PC is little challenge to a mid-paragon PC?



Lanefan said:


> Additional attacks per round, and a better chance to hit, as level advances are both quite nice reflections of - in the fiction - a fighter's skill increasing as she learns her craft.  The foes are what the foes are regardless of what's attacking them, thus the fiction and setting remain consistent with themselves.



The maths of this are, for present purposes which is at the level of generalities, no different from minion rules. I can even make the point by rephrasing what you have said: a reduced chance to hit but significantly increased chance to kill as level advances is a nice reflection of - in the fiction - the character's skill increasing.



Lanefan said:


> I however go by the theory that only on a hit can you do damage - a miss might clank off the armour or otherwise make physical contact with the foe but only a hit does actual damage.



This is not a _theory_. It's a property that any given D&D variant either possesses or doesn't. Clearly 4e doesn't possess this property. The making of an attack roll doesn't per se tell us whether or not physical harm is inflicted on the foe; nor does it tell us whether or not damage in the mechaincal sense (ie depletion of hp) occurs as part of the resolution procedure.

This can easily be seen in the fact that 4e allows for hit point depletion on a failed attack roll; and allows for hit point depletion to be narrated as other than physical harm in the fiction; and clearly permits a failed attack roll against a minion to be narrated as the non-fatal infliction of physical harm.



Lanefan said:


> Little chance does not equal no chance; highly relevant in a game where resource management - hit points, spells, ammunition, item charges/uses maybe - is key.



Were it relevant, which I don't think it is, 4e D&D is not a resource management game in the way that AD&D is.


----------



## pemerton

A discussion about the methods that might be used, in a RPG, to establish which descriptions of a PC's actions are true in th shared fiction is almost impossible if discussants are unable to separate their knowledge of how one particular RPG does such things from a consideration of how other (actual and possible) RPGs might do it.

I believe that everyone posting in this thread knows that, in B/X and AD&D, with a handful of exceptions (like assassination, killing sleeping foes, and the like), the only circumstance in which it is permissible to truly describe a PC's action as _I kill it with my sword!_ is if the enemy's hit points have been ablated to zero via the system of to-hit and damage rolls.

But obviously other systems are possible. Rolemaster has critical tables which are, by default, used all the time. (There is a variant combat system in RM Companion III that does away with them.) 4e has a GM-side system that permits dispensing with the damage roll and hit point ablation; it is understood, and the example creatures presented in the Monster Manuals reinforce this understanding, that the GM will use this method to reflect the increased power of higher-level PCs against foes which were once threatening but have ceased to be.

There are many othe ways that RPG systems depart from AD&D assumptions. For instance, in AD&D - in many circumstances - a player is able to make the description _I cast my spell_ true by mere stipulation. This is not the case in Rolemaster or Burning Wheel (to give just two examples) - the former always requires a check, and the latter treats a spell casting action declaration the same as any other (and so the principle "say 'yes' or roll the dice" applies).

These differences of resolution method don't reflect significant differences in the fiction. Rather, they reflect different allocations of authority for establishing descriptions, and different methods for doing so.

I would have thought that all of the above is obvious, but some recent trends in the discussion seem to make it necessary to state it.


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## Umbran

pemerton said:


> There are many othe ways that RPG systems depart from AD&D assumptions. For instance, in AD&D - in many circumstances - a player is able to make the description _I cast my spell_ true by mere stipulation. This is not the case in Rolemaster or Burning Wheel (to give just two examples) - the former always requires a check, and the latter treats a spell casting action declaration the same as any other (and so the principle "say 'yes' or roll the dice" applies).




We should also keep in mind that most of us are not disciplined about differentiating between stating general intent, specific intent, and narration of result.

In a bar, a guy dumps a beer in your lap, and laughs at you.  You stand up, crack your knuckles and announce, "I'm gonna kick your butt!"

That's a declaration of desire - and even figurative, at that, given that several punches to the face are apt to be considered fulfilling the intent, even though there's no kicking or butts involved.  And the combat hasn't started, so maybe the butt will be kicked, maybe it won't, and whose butt actually gets kicked has yet to be determined.

In a game where such declarations may well be made semi-in-character, but taken as input into the resolution mechanic, we do need to be thoughtful about pulling this apart.


----------



## Tony Vargas

Lanefan said:


> The far-from-perfect-but-better-than-nothing solution I use is that on any 'minimum' damage roll - here this would be 4 on the 4d6 - you add the bonuses to that roll (here giving 24) and then roll a die of that size to determine what damage you actually did.



 Cute variant.  I like it - you could call it "imploding dice."  



> This means there's a small (sometimes very small, but never zero) chance that anything with more than 1 h.p. can survive a hit from pretty much anything - and the minion model again defeats this.



It actually /doesn't/ 'defeat' it because a minion has a pretty decent chance of surviving an attack by a PC anywhere near it's nominal level (about 10 above its 'real' level), even though PCs can do /damage/ on a miss with things like Fireballs and Reaping Strike, because it has a special escape clause: "missed attacks never damage a minion."  

Of course, they do 'in the fiction' - I mean, the Reaping Strike that rolled 22 and 'missed' and did 4 damage would have, had you been running the minion in it's 10-level-lower mode, 'actually' /hit/ and did 1d10+14 damage or something (say we're back on the 40 hp Ogre), which wouldn't have killed it. But, the DM is simplifying this encounter, by ignoring hits to less than 25 AC, and not tracking damage, so the little damage nudge of Reaping Strike (even on a natural 1), and the theoretical damage on a 'hit' of AC 16-24, isn't not happening (it could be visualized or not as the group sees fit), it's just, for convenience, not being tracked.

That's all minions are, really, an alternate-resolution way of keeping a much lower-'level' monster useable in a higher-level encounter.  It's not like D&D has never used alternative resolution mechanics.



pemerton said:


> What does _wrong_ mean here?



Something that challenges unexamined or long-accustomed assumptions, thus must be dismissed as automatically 'wrong,' since daring to considering it could lead to disequilibrium?



> These are all examples of not knowing 4e or how its system works. …
> In 4e the AC of a (say) Ogre Bludgeoneer 16th level minion will be higher (AC 28) compared to AC 19 for the Ogre Savage 8th level standard. …
> In 4e there are no fumble rules.
> In 4e there is no "spell research."





> In 4e a higher level mage casts a more powerful magic missile spell. (Whether this is narrated as a single more powerful missile or a series of magical blasts pulse-laser style is a matter of discretion for the player of the wizard.) This is the same as the ability of a higher level fighter to strike more powerful blows, or fire more deadly shots with a bow or crossbow. There is no such thing in 4e as a mid-paragon mage casting the same magic missile spell with the same in-fiction power as a mid-heroic mage; or as a mid-paragon archer releasing an arrow with no greater deadliness of aim and power than a mid-heroic archer.



This is true prior to the infamous July pre-Essentials update, in which magic missile was re-written to use an effect line, it had remarkable ripple effects, causing numerous items and feats to be re-written to /try/ to deal with the fact the Wizard now had an auto-damage 'basic attack,' and it was never really fully handled before errata went out of style at WotC.

Post-Essentials, though Lanefan has a point:  the same, say, 12hp damage Magic Missile that pops an Ogre Minion and 15th level, barely nudges the exact same Ogre run as if it were in a 5th level combat.  The 10 point AC difference means nothing to it.  One of the many implications of the new/Old eMissile that wasn't fully thought through an properly errata'd. 

All for the sake of 'bringing it into line with the classic spell.'  

(And that was Mike Mearls, setting the direction for 5e, right there.) 



> You are presenting a certain mechanical framework - AD&D - as if (i) it is a fictional framework and (ii) it is the only possible ficitonal framework. Frankly this is bizarre. There's nothing _inconsistent_, for instance, in a ficiton in which a more puissant archer can shoot down a fell beast with a single arrow (qv Legolas in LotR). The fact that AD&D doesn't allow for it simply reminds us of one of the oddities of AD&D, namely, it's relatively unrealistic treatment of archery.



Heh.  In the LotR movie L one-shots a Mammoth, G is like, "that still counts as one!"  Hey, L, a minion's a minion, however many squares it takes up.


> This is not a _theory_. It's a property that any given D&D variant either possesses or doesn't. Clearly 4e doesn't possess this property. The making of an attack roll doesn't per se tell us whether or not physical harm is inflicted on the foe; nor does it tell us whether or not damage in the mechaincal sense (ie depletion of hp) occurs as part of the resolution procedure.



In 1e AD&D. An attack that 'hit' could produce no wound, /at all/.  That was the rationale for saving successfully against, say, a poisoned blade, and dovetailed nicely with the rationale for PC's not growing to titanic size as they accumulated HD.  Contrarily, the logic of D&D AC meant that attacks that 'missed' would frequently make contact - even solid, forceful contact - with the target, and merely fail to ablate hps.  In the case of a /very/ large creatures with 'thick hides,' for instance, you might literally make contact with it, do visible damage to it's hide, but that damage might, in the context of it's hugeness, not translate to even a single hp - thus a 'miss.' 

The idea that every hit in AD&D caused a real wound, and every miss was a clean wiff, is just lazy thinking.  Gygax went on at length about the bizarre assumptions and mental gymnastics required by the abstraction of hps and 1 min rounds.



pemerton said:


> Were it relevant, which I don't think it is, 4e D&D is not a resource management game in the way that AD&D is.



Not in the exact way, but both are certainly roleplaying games, both are nominally evoking some sort of fantasy-genre, and certainly have resources to manage.  I mean, 4e is 'different' in being /balanced/ in the sense of rough resource parity among the PCs...?  But I don't see how that's entirely irrelevant to Lan's statement alluding to small chances of bad things happening possibly impacting said resource-management mini-game.


> There are plenty of magical effects in 4e that can do AoE damage and will clear a field of minion ogres - this is because the magic of those mid-paragon wizards, sorcerers and invokers is more powerful than that of their mid-heroic precursors.



 With one important proviso ...

...you had to hit each minion to kill it. In 4e, saving throws by the targets of magical & poison attacks were inverted to mathematically equivalent attack rolls by the attacker.  A simplification that streamlined play (which I really noticed on returning to saves the first few weeks of HotDQ, because a player would use an attack cantrip, and we'd have to see if they needed to roll to hit, or I needed to roll a save) and made it overall more consistent. Many spells, like the classic fireball, did half damage on a miss (DoaM!), and so did some weapon attacks, neither to any particular controversy at the time.

But, during the Next playtest, saves came back, and kept 1/2 damage, but even the slightest suggestion of retaining the same privilege for weapon attacks ignited a firestorm (save: 1/2, don't know if MM made it or not). Also, come 5e no minions.  Afterall, it would be appalling and 'wrong' for a poor monster to have no chance of surviving a hit!

Indeed, if there had been 4e-style minions in 5e, they'd've needed a special quality: a minion is never damaged when it successfully saves (it wouldn't need one for surviving misses, because there's no DoaM).  So when you fireballed a bunch of kobolds, some of 'em would likely survive.    

Instead, we get the polite fiction of BA applying to saves bonuses & DCs, low-level foes potentially making successful saves vs fireballs without needing to roll natural 20s - and dying instantly from the 1/2 damage.


----------



## Manbearcat

Umbran said:


> We should also keep in mind that most of us are not disciplined about differentiating between stating general intent, specific intent, and narration of result.
> 
> In a bar, a guy dumps a beer in your lap, and laughs at you.  You stand up, crack your knuckles and announce, "I'm gonna kick your butt!"
> 
> That's a declaration of desire - and even figurative, at that, given that several punches to the face are apt to be considered fulfilling the intent, even though there's no kicking or butts involved.  And the combat hasn't started, so maybe the butt will be kicked, maybe it won't, and whose butt actually gets kicked has yet to be determined.
> 
> In a game where such declarations may well be made semi-in-character, but taken as input into the resolution mechanic, we do need to be thoughtful about pulling this apart.




On the last sentence:

I agree that they can be made semi-in-character in the sort of meta "self-talk" that occurs in life as someone is navigating a consequential decision-point.  To themselves, people transmit a desire...perhaps to visual the outcome so that it moralizes them toward the will to act.  To their nervous system, they issue a command.  In the world, the collision of opposing desires, wills, and actions allow us discover the outcome.

I do agree that we need to be thoughtful about pulling it all apart, but some systems focus on alleviating this burden, through clarified ethos and clear, concrete play procedures so that our role as intermediary (between the input of declaration, the processing of deriving resolution, and the output of that resolution) can be reduced in key ways (reduction in cognitive burden, reduction in table handling time, reduction in GM stress-load, increase in overall mental bandwidth available for deployment/transmission/absorption of other things such as creativity and improvisation and better active listening skills or perception of nonverbal cues).


----------



## pemerton

Tony Vargas said:


> you had to hit each minion to kill it.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> we get the polite fiction of BA applying to saves bonuses & DCs, low-level foes potentially making successful saves vs fireballs without needing to roll natural 20s - and dying instantly from the 1/2 damage.



In 4e a minion is also killed by any damage that doesn't require an attack roll to inflcit - eg zone damage. Having GMed a long campaign with a zone-heavy sorcerer I've seen the anti-minion effect of such zones. In the fiction, this is a sign of the power of the fire (or whatever it is) that this sorcerer conjures up.

As far as AD&D and 5e save-for-half is concerned, it's always struck me as odd that most ordinary beings (1 HD or less including kobolds, goblins, men-at-arms etc) are incapable of diving for cover and surviving a fireball or similar (because the half damage is still going to be fatal for most of them on most occasions). 



Tony Vargas said:


> That's all minions are, really, an alternate-resolution way of keeping a much lower-'level' monster useable in a higher-level encounter.  It's not like D&D has never used alternative resolution mechanics.



As you're presenting it, minions are an approximiation framework: set a higher to-hit number (ie levelled-up AC) and only track hits that reach that number - with a single hit being enought (ie 1 hp).

I've personally never thought of them in quite that way, perhaps because (i) I've never used called-shot rules in AD&D, and (ii) I don't think of their being a "true" (standard) AC and hp value to which the minion resolution approximates. But I fully agree that they are an alternative resolution system. They take full advantage of the various mathematical components of the D&D system (AC, hp, damage, etc) and play with them to produce the right fiction for the right tier of PC.

My own take on 4e, given the way that the PHB and DMG present the _tiers of play_, is that while all the numbers are purely resolution devices, the tiers are something that is part of the fiction. Perhaps not strictly literally, but in the sense that - in the fiction - it is evident when a being is capable of doing the sorts of things described as apt for each of the tiers. ANd then on the GM side we use the various resolution devices (minions, solos, swarms, etc) to express our creatures and NPCs in ways that suit the fiction of the tiers.

I've always thought that this is one of the reasons [MENTION=6696971]Manbearcat[/MENTION] has described 4e D&D as "fiction first" rather than "mechanics first". It contrast very markedly in this respect with systems like RQ or RM which fall under the Forge lable _purist-for-system simulationism_ and which lead with the mechanical framework and read all the fiction from that. 4e is virtually the opposite of purist-for-system.

I also want to tie this back to one of [MENTION=16586]Campbell[/MENTION]'s recent posts. Campbell referred to the role of the system being to facilitate and even force a certain sort of authenticity, antagonism and playing to find out. He flagged GM mediation as possible burden on this. 4e D&D minion mechanics are one form of GM mediation; they are one example of how 4e sometimes requires the GM to already form a view about what the fiction requires in terms of challenge - eg should this creature be presented as a standard or a minion? what should the complexity of this skill challenge be? This isn't a fom of railroading - it doesn't impose GM pre-determined outcomes onto the fiction - but I think it is possibly a reduction in the sort of "pressure to authenticity" that Campbell has described.


----------



## Tony Vargas

pemerton said:


> In 4e a minion is also killed by any damage that doesn't require an attack roll to inflcit - eg zone damage. Having GMed a long campaign with a zone-heavy sorcerer I've seen the anti-minion effect of such zones. In the fiction, this is a sign of the power of the fire (or whatever it is) that this sorcerer conjures up.



Yeah, I'm aware.   I'm also fine with minions 'dying' because they flee, surrender, collapse in panic - or can't bring themselves to cross a wall of flame, say.  The mechanics are that the minion who takes any damage is done, exactly how can fit the narrative however.  




> As far as AD&D and 5e save-for-half is concerned, it's always struck me as odd that most ordinary beings (1 HD or less including kobolds, goblins, men-at-arms etc) are incapable of diving for cover and surviving a fireball or similar (because the half damage is still going to be fatal for most of them on most occasions).



 /Somethig/, if not everything, about hit points and saving throws is going to have to strike you odd at /some/ point.    They really do get pretty whack.  Making all attacks use attack rolls is not just a simplification, it makes you stop and think, 'hey, why is this so messed up, anyway, let's fix it.'  



> As you're presenting it, minions are an approximiation framework: set a higher to-hit number (ie levelled-up AC) and only track hits that reach that number - with a single hit being enought (ie 1 hp).



Yep, with the minor proviso that their an approximation framework /of an approximation framework/.  It might feel 'right,' though, to consider any given creature's 'real stats' it's "Standard" stats... BTW, that'd mean that PC's are actually all about 4 levels higher than their class level - since PC's are generally about equivalent to Elites.  



> I've personally never thought of them in quite that way, perhaps because (i) I've never used called-shot rules in AD&D, and (ii) I don't think of their being a "true" (standard) AC and hp value to which the minion resolution approximates. But I fully agree that they are an alternative resolution system.



Exactly:  Both regular old monster stats & taking averages for loads of 'em and sliding a 4e monster from Solo through Elite & Standard to Minion if not Swarm are just 'approximation frameworks' for the mechanics to model a desired challenge in the narrative.

And, really, in fiction, the Heroes' relationship with monsters they slay can be quite inconsistent.  When you first face a new monster, it's often a huge threat, seems nearly invulnerable, tosses everyone around.  Then you figure out how to kill it, and barely defeat one... 

… by the end of the 'season' or the 4th book or whatever, even minor characters are mowing their way through the same monsters.  

It was a very evident phenomenon on Buffy the Vampire Slayer, for an amusing, and occasionally extreme instance.



> My own take on 4e, given the way that the PHB and DMG present the _tiers of play_, is that while all the numbers are purely resolution devices, the tiers are something that is part of the fiction. Perhaps not strictly literally, but in the sense that - in the fiction - it is evident when a being is capable of doing the sorts of things described as apt for each of the tiers. ANd then on the GM side we use the various resolution devices (minions, solos, swarms, etc) to express our creatures and NPCs in ways that suit the fiction of the tiers.



There's certainly a clear intent that the nature/content/scope of the fiction will change with each Tier.  Some DMs 'get' that and do a great job.  Others choke and deliver the same kinds of scenarios at every Tier.  It's one of the harder things to do as a 4e DM - a job that's otherwise awfully easy, IMHO.



> I've always thought that this is one of the reasons [MENTION=6696971]Manbearcat[/MENTION] has described 4e D&D as "fiction first" rather than "mechanics first".



 It's funny, because in systems like 4e and Hero, mechanics /really matter/ in a hard-numbers, hard-rules kind of way, and fiction can be customized quite a bit.  But, that actually facilitates starting with what you want  and finding things with mechanics that approximate something that evokes that, once you file off the serial numbers and reskin it. 



> I also want to tie this back to one of [MENTION=16586]Campbell[/MENTION]'s recent posts. Campbell referred to the role of the system being to facilitate and even force a certain sort of authenticity, antagonism and playing to find out. He flagged GM mediation as possible burden on this. 4e D&D minion mechanics are one form of GM mediation; they are one example of how 4e sometimes requires the GM to already form a view about what the fiction requires in terms of challenge - eg should this creature be presented as a standard or a minion? what should the complexity of this skill challenge be? This isn't a fom of railroading - it doesn't impose GM pre-determined outcomes onto the fiction - but I think it is possibly a reduction in the sort of "pressure to authenticity" that Campbell has described.



I can see that.  I can also see shifting the same alternate resolution frameworks to the players' side of the court, if you wanted to.  

I posted something like that not so very long ago...


...There it is:
https://www.enworld.org/forum/showt...what-stinks)&p=7615703&viewfull=1#post7615703


----------



## Manbearcat

pemerton said:


> My own take on 4e, given the way that the PHB and DMG present the _tiers of play_, is that while all the numbers are purely resolution devices, the tiers are something that is part of the fiction. Perhaps not strictly literally, but in the sense that - in the fiction - it is evident when a being is capable of doing the sorts of things described as apt for each of the tiers. ANd then on the GM side we use the various resolution devices (minions, solos, swarms, etc) to express our creatures and NPCs in ways that suit the fiction of the tiers.
> 
> I've always thought that this is one of the reasons @_*Manbearcat*_ has described 4e D&D as "fiction first" rather than "mechanics first". It contrast very markedly in this respect with systems like RQ or RM which fall under the Forge lable _purist-for-system simulationism_ and which lead with the mechanical framework and read all the fiction from that. 4e is virtually the opposite of purist-for-system.




The present conversation about Monster Roles underpins the "fiction first" nature of 4e.

Imagine a scenario where the PCs were just in a sort of "Race Against Time" Skill Challenge where they know that an undead horde are converging on a steading and will overwhelm it without the party's aid.

They fail.

The field-stone wall has been breached.  The Guard is nearly slain and the people of the steading and their few remaining forces have fallen back to the haphazardly fortified Common House.  The fallen souls now bulwark the undead legions.

From a GMing perspective, you've got:

1) A handful of beleagured men-at-arms already battle-weary and shell-shocked.

2)  Waves of ravenous ghouls, reinforced by any who fall to their midst.

3)  Trope-wise, we want this to play out like classic zombie-horror, with the undead like a mass of grasping arms and snapping mouths, dragging down and tearing apart anything in its way, absorbing it into its mass.

Them getting through the barricaded doors or windows and into the common house would be disastrous (not just because they would murder civilians, but the positive feedback loop of increasing their numbers would increase the danger proportionately).

Further still, the extra numbers of the steading's Guard need to help...but the fear of them adding to the numbers of the dead needs to be real.




So this is the fiction we're looking for the mechanics to support.  Now we can look to the mechanics to bring this to life.

* The 5 living Guards are of-level Minion Soldiers (so good AC) and a Trait that when they're adjacent to an ally, they get +2 Defenses.

* The bulk of the enemy force will be Huge Swarms with a passive Aura 1 that (a) Slows enemies and (b) does 10 damage to the barricaded openings to the Common House.  If the double doors or a window takes 30 damage, its fortifications are lost and it can be freely traversed.

* We'll have 10 slain Guards as of-level Minion Ghouls and the others slain will just be narratively absorbed into the Swarms.

* We'll have 20 Minion Villagers inside the Common House.  Any Guards or Villagers that are killed "heals" the Swarm that killed them for 5 HP (125 HP total potential) and then they're reanimated as an of-level Minion Ghoul.

* We'll have some kind of Elite Leader of the horde which buffs them and can Force Move them.

* Now we just have to figure out the initial Encounter Budget based on how deadly and desperate we want the fight to be.  We already know we have 10 of-level Minion Ghouls.  We subtract that from the budget to determine (a) the level of the Elite Leader and (b) the level and number of the Swarms.

* Obviously, things get more hairy if members of the Guard go down and significantly so if the horde is able to break into the Common House.  This creates a layer to the decision-points that each PC is making individually and the party as collective (in terms of protecting NPC allies and controlling enemy forces).

* We'll want a covered porch that surrounds the structure that can be collapsed on enemies as stunt (AoE damage that Swarms are vulnerable to).  Perhaps some large firepits nearby that the defenders have ignited for visual purposes (this should be at night) and to weaponize (hazardous terrain for Forced Movement).


----------



## Campbell

I agree with much of what @_*Manbearcat*_ just posted. The underlying tools 4e GMs have access to accurately reflect the fiction provide a means to properly convey the emotional weight of the battle before them. I view their responsible use as a function of framing. Just like clocks in Blades or GM moves in Apocalypse World they can definitely be misused. I think it's important to leave room for GM judgement in any role playing game. What's important to me is that these tools are used responsibly and during the act of play GM mediation is minimized so they can focus on adversity and playing to find out what happens. What I want is when a GM or any other player is trying to shape events to match their own creative vision that it is as obvious as possible. Most of the 4e machinery is right out there in the open for all to see.

My own falling out with 4e is due to a couple things. All the resolution mechanics are built around a team of PCs working in tandem where my favored approach is a collection of individuals with their own needs and desires that are sometimes allies, sometimes rivals, and occasionally enemies. Some games like Masks and Blades I can deal with because the team is very much something thematically important. The other issue I have is there really is no built in pathos to the characters as generated. There are some great conflicts built into the setting, but no initial impetus for the characters. You can borrow from other games for this, but mostly I would rather just play other games. Plus I get into less arguments putting an Apocalypse World game together.

Addendum: I just wanted to say real quick that games that utilize a standardized action economy massively favor lesser skilled opponents in a way that is unrealistic. As a trained martial artist (Krav Maga/ Jujitsu/ Muay Thai ) I can tell you that breaking past the defenses of a more skilled opponent is incredibly difficult. You might get a lucky shot in, but no where near what happens in most games.


----------



## Lanefan

Campbell said:


> All the resolution mechanics are built around a team of PCs working in tandem where my favored approach is a collection of individuals with their own needs and desires that are sometimes allies, sometimes rivals, and occasionally enemies.



Regardless of the rest of your post, xp just for this bit alone!

And it goes beyond just the resolution mechanics and beyond just 4e - some DMs in all editions force their parties to work in tandem via various house rules that discourage or even ban anything else; and some players force it through peer pressure.  Your favoured approach here exactly matches mine, both as player and DM.


----------



## Lanefan

pemerton said:


> What does _wrong_ mean here?
> 
> These are all examples of not knowing 4e or how its system works.
> 
> In 4e the AC of a (say) 16th level ogre will be higher than that of an 8th level ogre (eg AC 28 for the Ogre Bludgeoneer 16th level minion compared to AC 19 for the Ogre Savage 8th level standard). AC in 4e doesn't reflect simply the armour that is worn (hide armour in both cases). It is a mechanical device for adjudicating the success of attack rolls that reflects the overall fictional context. Statting an ogre as a higher level minion rather than a lower-level standard involves stepping up the AC to the appropriate level, while stepping down the hit points. This change in the mathematical operations performed during resolution don't change the fiction.
> 
> In 4e there are no fumble rules. A GM is free to narrate a missed attack by an ogre minion as a fumbled swing. S/he is even free to narrate it as inflicting a pin-prick's worth of physical harm to another ogre minion in the vicinity. In 4e that narration would be mere colour and is not reflected in the resolution process (similar to the way in which, in AD&D, narrating a missed attack as glancing of armour is mere colour - contrast, say, Burning Wheel where that is not mere colour and has mechanical significance and is a permitted narration only when the mechanics provide for it).
> 
> In 4e a higher level mage casts a more powerful magic missile spell. (Whether this is narrated as a single more powerful missile or a series of magical blasts pulse-laser style is a matter of discretion for the player of the wizard.) This is the same as the ability of a higher level fighter to strike more powerful blows, or fire more deadly shots with a bow or crossbow. There is no such thing in 4e as a mid-paragon mage casting the same magic missile spell with the same in-fiction power as a mid-heroic mage; or as a mid-paragon archer releasing an arrow with no greater deadliness of aim and power than a mid-heroic archer.
> 
> In 4e there is no "spell research" of the sort you describe - ie mechanics-first spell descriptions intended to exploit weak points in the rules. There are plenty of magical effects in 4e that can do AoE damage and will clear a field of minion ogres - this is because the magic of those mid-paragon wizards, sorcerers and invokers is more powerful than that of their mid-heroic precursors.
> 
> You are presenting a certain mechanical framework - AD&D - as if (i) it is a fictional framework and (ii) it is the only possible ficitonal framework. Frankly this is bizarre. There's nothing _inconsistent_, for instance, in a ficiton in which a more puissant archer can shoot down a fell beast with a single arrow (qv Legolas in LotR). The fact that AD&D doesn't allow for it simply reminds us of one of the oddities of AD&D, namely, it's relatively unrealistic treatment of archery.
> 
> Why?
> 
> Why?
> 
> What is the inconsistency in the fiction in which a ghoul which is a handy challenge for a mid-heroic PC is little challenge to a mid-paragon PC?
> 
> The maths of this are, for present purposes which is at the level of generalities, no different from minion rules. I can even make the point by rephrasing what you have said: a reduced chance to hit but significantly increased chance to kill as level advances is a nice reflection of - in the fiction - the character's skill increasing.
> 
> This is not a _theory_. It's a property that any given D&D variant either possesses or doesn't. Clearly 4e doesn't possess this property. The making of an attack roll doesn't per se tell us whether or not physical harm is inflicted on the foe; nor does it tell us whether or not damage in the mechaincal sense (ie depletion of hp) occurs as part of the resolution procedure.
> 
> This can easily be seen in the fact that 4e allows for hit point depletion on a failed attack roll; and allows for hit point depletion to be narrated as other than physical harm in the fiction; and clearly permits a failed attack roll against a minion to be narrated as the non-fatal infliction of physical harm.
> 
> Were it relevant, which I don't think it is, 4e D&D is not a resource management game in the way that AD&D is.



I had a great big long reply 3/4 typed in when my computer decided to crash; lack of patience means I'm not about to start over. 

But a few fast points:

4e really - really? - doesn't allow a PC to research and design a new spell and add it to the game/fiction?  That kinda puts a DM on the spot when she's asked "How were the spells I cast now first designed, and why can't I attempt the same thing?"

The numbers and recovery rates etc. are different but 4e is still a resource management game, just like all the other editions.

The inconsistency in the fiction is not that "a ghoul which is a handy challenge for a mid-heroic PC is little challenge to a mid-paragon PC", it's that the ghoul itself has to be changed in the fiction in order to make this the case, rather than the ghoul just stay as it was and let the skill/level advancement of the PC cover this off.


----------



## Sadras

Lanefan said:


> The inconsistency in the fiction is not that "a ghoul which is a handy challenge for a mid-heroic PC is little challenge to a mid-paragon PC", it's that the *ghoul itself has to be changed in the fiction* in order to make this the case, rather than the ghoul just stay as it was and let the skill/level advancement of the PC cover this off.




Bold emphasis mine. How is the change from x hit points to 1 hit point a change in the fiction?
I see it as a change in the mechanics. Usually minions are afforded a higher AC, higher saves and greater damage than their original counterparts, and yes their hit points are reduced to 1. But that is all mechanics.


----------



## Umbran

Manbearcat said:


> I do agree that we need to be thoughtful about pulling it all apart, but some systems focus on alleviating this burden, through clarified ethos and clear, concrete play procedures so that our role as intermediary (between the input of declaration, the processing of deriving resolution, and the output of that resolution) can be reduced in key ways (reduction in cognitive burden, reduction in table handling time, reduction in GM stress-load, increase in overall mental bandwidth available for deployment/transmission/absorption of other things such as creativity and improvisation and better active listening skills or perception of nonverbal cues).




Yep, the issue I raised can be resolved with strict adherence to a game process.  But, any time you engage in a game process, you are apt to lift a player out of immersion.  This is hardly an issue with, say, a complicated D&D combat, where there are so many dice flying around that one more process bit won't harm anything in that sense.  In the middle of a tense interpersonal role play, scene, though, asking a player to stop and restate their intents in specific game terms and format can be a total buzzkill, and worse if there's a bit of player-GM negotiation that goes along with it.

Real, practical play probably generally works in a compromise, or often taking on some uncertainty for sake of cognitively smooth play.


----------



## Tony Vargas

Lanefan said:


> 4e really - really? - doesn't allow a PC to research and design a new spell and add it to the game/fiction?



 Really really.  OK, actually really/not-really, he doesn't need to add a new 'arcane power' to the game in order to add a new 'spell' to the fiction - game/fiction are readily separable in 4e, because rule vs fluff text is clearly presented rather than mixed together - introducing new fiction can often be accomplished by finding the best possible representation extant in the mechanics, and adjusting it's fluff.  Thus instead of needing to research a new version of magic missile or cast 2e Sense Shifting or take 3e Spell Thematics, you just describe your mm as something else.

Or, another way to look at it is they're designing all their 'spells' (or other powers) 'new,' because the rest of the world isn't necessarily using PC classes. It depends on the DM's setting and the PC's concept.  Just because a spell is in the PH or Arcane Power doesn't mean it has necessarily ever been cast before - the history of the setting is up to the DM.

Finally, it's not like the spell research system back in the day was all that - it could be used to research an extant spell the caster just didn't know fairly straightforwardly, if very expensively, but a genuinely new spell was simply kicked to the DM, he either approved/re-wrote it or declared the attempt a failure (without telling the poor sucker if he'd had a chance & just been unlucky, or if his spell was hogwash and would never work).  
That level of arbitrary works in any system...

...hmm... I suppose in 4e a caster wanting to research a new spell or warrior working on a new maneuver could do anything from costly research to improvising actions (p42) in real fights.  Research could buy you an Alternative Reward - much like a magic item - like Grandmaster Training for a martial trick.  A new power could start as an improvised action, be 'researched' to purchase it as an Alternative Reward, then, if it worked out well in the game, swapped into an available slot as an Encounter or Daily power, making it 'official....'
… or maybe even 'sold' as Grandmaster Training' (though, making and selling items and their equivalents nets you 0 profit in 4e, because you're an adventurer, not a business man....)

Yeah, none of that probably helped, just thinking out loud.




> The numbers and recovery rates etc. are different but 4e is still a resource management game, just like all the other editions.



Resource management is still part of the game, as it always has been.  Maybe his point was just that the emphasis, in 4e, can shift off resource management more readily than in other eds because doing so won't shift encounter balance as profoundly, nor risk radical intraparty imbalances?  ::shrug::



> The inconsistency in the fiction is not that "a ghoul which is a handy challenge for a mid-heroic PC is little challenge to a mid-paragon PC", it's that the ghoul itself has to be changed in the fiction in order to make this the case, rather than the ghoul just stay as it was and let the skill/level advancement of the PC cover this off.



The ghoul doesn't change 'in the fiction' it's the same ghoul (it could even be the exact same individual who had fought the PCs to a draw many levels back, for instance), the PC is just so much more powerful, that the DM, rather than play through the PC auto-hitting ghouls that (non-critically) hit him only on a natural 20, and slowly mowing his way through a mechanically tedious encounter, chooses an alternate resolution threshold to defeat it.  Instead of hitting a low AC repeatedly, he hits an ~10 higher AC, once.  
It's really no different than, in 1e, giving the fighter 1 attack/level vs less than 1-HD monsters, and taking the average on their pathetic attack chance vs him, rather than rolling to hit 20 times a round, similarly, the minion's fixed damage is analogous to that old taking the average trick.  The basic D&D d20 resolution system is just limited in the disparity between combatants that it can handle, so, at some point, you have to do something, whether that's introducing called shots, contracting the scope of the game to fit the mechanics, taking averages for hordes instead of rolling dozens of times, or statting the (exact) same in-fiction monsters as minions - or even aggregating many into swarms (something 3e also did to good effect, and 5e hasn't tossed out that I'm aware of).

It's no different, in kind, to what DMs have always done.  It's just a little more dramatic in the disparity it can cover while still retaining functional, engaging play - and is already done for the DM.


----------



## Campbell

Umbran said:


> Yep, the issue I raised can be resolved with strict adherence to a game process.  But, any time you engage in a game process, you are apt to lift a player out of immersion.  This is hardly an issue with, say, a complicated D&D combat, where there are so many dice flying around that one more process bit won't harm anything in that sense.  In the middle of a tense interpersonal role play, scene, though, asking a player to stop and restate their intents in specific game terms and format can be a total buzzkill, and worse if there's a bit of player-GM negotiation that goes along with it.
> 
> Real, practical play probably generally works in a compromise, or often taking on some uncertainty for sake of cognitively smooth play.




I believe the idea that formal systems always decrease rather than increase a game's sense of immersion is flawed. Apocalypse World is a game that is designed to be as immersive as possible. Things like always addressing the player by his or her character's name, ending GM moves with "Character name, what do you do?" and basic moves that are triggered by the fiction are all features that I consider to be immersion enhancing. Blades in the Dark's focus on risk vs. reward, flashbacks, and vice mechanics are also immersion enhancing for me. Dogs in the Vineyard conflict and escalation mechanics mirror the characters thought processes incredibly well.

All that being said I have my own issues with intent based resolution. I'm a big believer in character identification and advocacy without investment in outcomes. I believe there is a danger when it comes to intent based resolution to drift into story advocacy - trying to fulfill a certain preconceived character or story arc rather than playing with integrity. If you're disciplined about sticking to character intent it can be avoided, but is something I am wary of. Furthermore if a game is mostly about whose creative vision works out then the game itself is not really contributing very much to the process. I prefer if we end up with results that neither you or I would choose, but are otherwise compelling.


----------



## Manbearcat

Campbell said:


> All that being said I have my own issues with intent based resolution. I'm a big believer in character identification and advocacy without investment in outcomes. I believe there is a danger when it comes to intent based resolution to drift into story advocacy - trying to fulfill a certain preconceived character or story arc rather than playing with integrity. If you're disciplined about sticking to character intent it can be avoided, but is something I am wary of. Furthermore if a game is mostly about whose creative vision works out then the game itself is not really contributing very much to the process. I prefer if we end up with results that neither you or I would choose, but are otherwise compelling.




Now this is an interesting bit.

Can you describe when you feel intent-based adjudication becomes degenerate?  Here is what Strike(!) has to say about it; either (a) misaligned/inappropriate intent: task relationship or (b) the job is too complex for one roll.  4e, Torchbearer/Mouse Guard, and Strike(!) are exactly the same here (they should be, Strike(!) was inspired by 4e, Mouse Guard, and Vincent Baker's works); too complex = go to the conflict (Skill Challenge in 4e) rules and find out what the PCs and the obstacle are each trying to accomplish to confirm their antagonistic relationship (intent).



> Strike(!) p 57
> 
> I’m going to state a rule here and then immediately contradict it.  But it’s still a rule. The rule is Say Yes or Roll Dice. When a player wants to do something, either you just “say yes” and they do it, or they have to roll and see what happens. The immediate response that springs to mind is “Well what if they want to invent nuclear fission or jump to the moon or convince the king to marry his daughter to the town drunk?” Okay, settle down. Here’s the trick—it’s always the GM’s call whether a task and intent pair are appropriate.  Getting to the moon is a valid intent, and jumping is a valid task for some intents, but together they are inappropriate. You can’t get to the moon by jumping. There is no roll. You can jump as high as you like, but you’ll never jump to the moon. It is inappropriate.  Trying to get the king to give his daughter to the town drunk is a reasonable intent, but you could never achieve it by simply arguing with him no matter how much of a smooth-talker you are. It is inappropriate. Don’t demand nonsense!
> 
> So what if the player comes back next session and wants to invent and build a rocket to get to the moon? That’s actually a reasonable task and intent, but it’s too big for one roll. You’d have to start by learning chemistry, then spend months or years on experiments to make explosives, then find blacksmiths who can make you what you need to test simple explosive projectiles, etc. The player doesn’t get to just make one roll for it because it is too complex.  That’s an extreme example, but similar requests occur all the time.  As GM, the phrase you want to have ready for this is “Okay, but first you would need to….”




Is it trying to game the system that you're worried about or do you not like the cognitive workspace of advocating for "big picture" or "long view" goals?  If so, do you feel that it diminishes some of the visceral experience or the immediacy of inhabiting _this _moment?  Something like Yoda's lament about Luke's lack of mindfulness; "All his life has he looked away...to the future, to the horizon.  Never his mind on where he was.  Hmm?  What he was doing."


----------



## pemerton

Lanefan said:


> 4e really - really? - doesn't allow a PC to research and design a new spell and add it to the game/fiction?  That kinda puts a DM on the spot when she's asked "How were the spells I cast now first designed, and why can't I attempt the same thing?"



AD&D has no system for a fighter to invent a new weapon. If a player of a fighter wants to introduce a new mechanical element into the system that has a correlate in the fiction - like, say, a new design of polearm or a javelin with better flight capabilities or whatever it might be - s/he has to establish a house rule.

In 4e there is nothing stopping house rules. Two of the PCs in my game have themes that I houseruled for them, in consultation with their players; and this included making up some new powers. A GM and player could houserule a new power for a mage, or a new ritual.

But there is no ingame process for generating new houserule elements comparable to the spell research system in classic D&D. And the play of a 4e mage is not based around the "spell for every occasion" approach of playing a magic-user in AD&D.



Lanefan said:


> The numbers and recovery rates etc. are different but 4e is still a resource management game, just like all the other editions.





Tony Vargas said:


> Resource management is still part of the game, as it always has been.  Maybe his point was just that the emphasis, in 4e, can shift off resource management more readily than in other eds because doing so won't shift encounter balance as profoundly, nor risk radical intraparty imbalances?



I can only report my play experiences. I've played a lot of AD&D. I've played a lot of 4e. The former has a strong resource-management element - worrying about hit points, managing spell load-outs, and - in some contexts, at least - managing inventory.

4e does not. Hit points are not precious as they are in AD&D, because of the very different healing mechanics. Healing surges are an important resource, but generate a very different dynamic from AD&D. The bulk of a PC's effectiveness in a non-combat situation comes from either skills or rituals, the former of which are not resource-limited and the latter of which are limited by components - in effect, money - and not by the sort of preparation that characterises inventory and spell load-out in AD&D. The bulk of a PC's effectiveness in a combat situation comes from encounter powers, which are a resource within the combat context but not beyond it: this is what makes 4e a scene-based game, whereas AD&D is not that.

If someone's only experience with 4e was playing 1st level PCs in a dungeon-crawl style scenario then maybe these significant differences from AD&D would not make themselves evident. But that is rather an edge case of 4e play, and not a reliable guide to what is typical for the system.



Lanefan said:


> The inconsistency in the fiction is not that "a ghoul which is a handy challenge for a mid-heroic PC is little challenge to a mid-paragon PC", it's that the ghoul itself has to be changed in the fiction in order to make this the case, rather than the ghoul just stay as it was and let the skill/level advancement of the PC cover this off.



Changing the resolution numbers (AC and other defences, hp, to hit, damage) used to resolve the combat is not changing the ghoul _in the fiction_. This has been my point throughout this exchange.


----------



## Umbran

Campbell said:


> I believe the idea that formal systems always decrease rather than increase a game's sense of immersion is flawed.




I didn't say "always decrease".  I said that when you engage in a game process, you are _*apt to*_ lift a player out of immersion.  Please do not shove my position to an extreme by restating it incorrectly.



> Apocalypse World is a game that is designed to be as immersive as possible. Things like always addressing the player by his or her character's name, ending GM moves with "Character name, what do you do?" and basic moves that are triggered by the fiction are all features that I consider to be immersion enhancing.




Yes, but moves are also the things that I've seen people find most immersion breaking - because they have to stop and translate from "what I want to do" to "game-defined moves".  It is often not entirely clear how a desired action fits into the moves you have available, and working that out is generally an immersion breaker.



> Blades in the Dark's focus on risk vs. reward, flashbacks, and vice mechanics are also immersion enhancing for me. Dogs in the Vineyard conflict and escalation mechanics mirror the characters thought processes incredibly well.




I have only played a session or two of Blades in the Dark based games, so I don't feel I can speak to them.  And, I'm sorry, but for my money, Dogs in the Vineyard's dice mechanic is one of the most immersion-breaking I have ever seen.  I have to sit and strategize which dice to use now as opposed to later, and then take authorial control to narrate bits that are sized just right so that I don't overstep to a conclusion that may not be determined yet.  I have never seen it do well at keeping the player's mind in the emotional moment of an interaction.



> All that being said I have my own issues with intent based resolution.




It ain't perfect, that's for sure.



> I'm a big believer in character identification and advocacy without investment in outcomes.




Players will be somewhat invested in outcomes, no matter what you do.  The trick is to manage everyone's expectations, and that's not always easy.



> I believe there is a danger when it comes to intent based resolution to drift into story advocacy - trying to fulfill a certain preconceived character or story arc rather than playing with integrity.




Grr.  The phrase "playing with integrity" is terribly emotionally loaded.  And, I don't agree that trying to fulfill an arc is necessarily not playing with integrity.  I think this assumes a definition of "playing with integrity" that isn't appropriate for all systems.


----------



## generic

Umbran said:


> Grr.  The phrase "playing with integrity" is terribly emotionally loaded.  And, I don't agree that trying to fulfill an arc is necessarily not playing with integrity.  I think this assumes a definition of "playing with integrity" that isn't appropriate for all systems.




Exactly.  [MENTION=16586]Campbell[/MENTION], I must ask, is it not "playing with integrity" to have a character with goals, or a character who is trying to fulfill an arc of some sort?  In my life, at least, I wouldn't be a very natural character, as I actually planned what to do with myself, including an 'arc' of education beyond what others might achieve.  

And, on the subject of story arcs, is it not okay for the villains to have such power (or, conversely, the players) that they can shape the world and the story?

Not all systems thrive on "natural" character resolution.

Now, my games actually do rely on "natural" resolution principles almost all of the time, but it seems terribly unfair to accuse of others of not playing with integrity because they guide stories rather than letting them evolve.


----------



## GrahamWills

Umbran said:


> Yes, but [PtbA] moves are also the things that I've seen people find most immersion breaking - because they have to stop and translate from "what I want to do" to "game-defined moves".  It is often not entirely clear how a desired action fits into the moves you have available, and working that out is generally an immersion breaker.






Umbran said:


> For my money, Dogs in the Vineyard's dice mechanic is one of the most immersion-breaking I have ever seen.  I have to sit and strategize which dice to use now as opposed to later, and then take authorial control to narrate bits that are sized just right so that I don't overstep to a conclusion that may not be determined yet.  I have never seen it do well at keeping the player's mind in the emotional moment of an interaction




Umbran's comments on what breaks immersion for them is very helpful. There is always a big discussion whenever people talk about "immersion-breaking". For me, having played both the above systems about half a dozen times each, I found DitV much less immersion-breaking than PbtA. But when I look at the mechanics behind each of them, Umbran's position seems naturally stronger. I agree with the generally-stated position that the more system you have, the more apt it is to break immersion.

But I think we might be underestimating the differences between how people perceive system. For me, when i played DitV, I still felt strongly in character. When establishing the stakes, I am continually thinking about how much my character cares about this. When I raise the same question, with the rider that I am now thinking about if I care enough to risk the consequences, and the decision to escalate a conflict feels visceral to me. I imagine myself yelling at the opponent and my fist balling up, ready to move to brawling. (I note that I have just moved from 3rd person to 1st person immersion even while discussing this topic).

But moves in PbtA, while mechanically much simpler, always have me looking at the playbook in a mild state of despair. I just want to know where the target lives, but the playbook says I get two questions and my character feels focused on just finding the target, so I guess I'll spend a few minutes thinking what else I might ask. 

I have a mathematically-inclined mind and am a professional statistician, so for me, judging probabilities and if/then rules are intuitive and natural. Maybe that explains why the Dogs rules are simpler for me to internalize -- not sure. But i think the search for a universal formula linking system to immersion is a chimeric one.


----------



## Tony Vargas

Umbran said:


> I didn't say "always decrease <immersion>".  I said that when you engage in a game process, you are _*apt to*_ lift a player out of immersion.  Please do not shove my position to an extreme by restating it incorrectly.



That's not much of a distinction.  You're at least implying that 'formal systems' as Campbell put it will more often break immersion, than, presumably, informal ones or lack of system.  His restatement, that they would 'decrease' (rather than 'lift out of') is hardly more extreme, if anything, it carries less of an implication that immersion is an all-or-nothing stake.



> Yes, but moves are also the things that I've seen people find most immersion breaking - because they have to stop and translate from "what I want to do" to "game-defined moves".  It is often not entirely clear how a desired action fits into the moves you have available, and working that out is generally an immersion breaker.



Again, you're asserting that formal system of moves breaks (not merely 'reduces') immersion.



> I'm sorry, but for my money, Dogs in the Vineyard's dice mechanic is one of the most immersion-breaking I have ever seen.  I have to sit and strategize which dice to use now as opposed to later, and then take authorial control to narrate bits that are sized just right so that I don't overstep to a conclusion that may not be determined yet.  I have never seen it do well at keeping the player's mind in the emotional moment of an interaction.



Now you're asserting virtual impossibility of a formal system providing immersion.  Also far more extreme than merely 'always decreases.'




> Grr.  The phrase "playing with integrity" is terribly emotionally loaded.



Yeah, so's "breaks immersion."


Ultimately, IMHO/X, immersion is a rarefied, not merely subjective but intensely personal, fleeting state, and attributing attaining or losing it - whether you consider it a binary state, as everything in your post strongly implies, or a continuum that can merely 'decrease' instead of 'break' as Campbell implies - to a /system/ is probably a pretty weak correlation.  It's much more an internal experience of the individual player, and it seems implausible that a system can be designed to enhance, diminish, break or evoke the that state across all gamers or even clearly-identifiable sub-groups of gamers, with any consistency at all.


----------



## Umbran

Tony Vargas said:


> That's not much of a distinction.




If you figure "always does X" and "creates a chance of X" are the same thing, then there isn't much of a distinction, I guess.



> Now you're asserting virtual impossibility of a formal system providing immersion.




I think it is safe to say that game rule systems don't provide immersion.  They may inhibit it, or encourage it, but they can't outright provide or create it.


----------



## Tony Vargas

Umbran said:


> If you figure "always does X" and "creates a chance of X" are the same thing, then there isn't much of a distinction, I guess.



Always diminishes could mean, to throw numbers at it, something as relatively trivial as reducing by 1%, while "apt to break" means a /likely/ to diminish by 100%.  

So, yeah, in retrospect, there is something of a distinction, in that the latter could be /more/ extreme.



> I think it is safe to say that game rule systems don't provide immersion.  They may inhibit it, or encourage it, but they can't outright provide or create it.



Yet, you perceive one system - DitV - as maximally immersion-breaking, while GrahamWillis finds that same system enhances his immersion. 

Consistent with immersion being a personal state, and the role system plays in it more to do with the how the individual feels about or engages with the system, than any specifics of the system, itself.


----------



## Lanefan

Sadras said:


> Bold emphasis mine. How is the change from x hit points to 1 hit point a change in the fiction?



Because toughness, in the fiction, is a constant: if it takes 35 points worth of damage for a merchant or a wolf or even another ghoul to kill Bob the Ghoul, that tells me it takes 35 points of damage for *anything* to kill that same ghoul, because that's how tough that ghoul is.

And sure, there'll be creatures and adventurers out there for whom dishing out 35 points of damage is a triviality, but that doesn't excuse them from still having to dish them out.


----------



## Lanefan

Tony Vargas said:


> Really really.  OK, actually really/not-really, he doesn't need to add a new 'arcane power' to the game in order to add a new 'spell' to the fiction - game/fiction are readily separable in 4e, because rule vs fluff text is clearly presented rather than mixed together - introducing new fiction can often be accomplished by finding the best possible representation extant in the mechanics, and adjusting it's fluff.  Thus instead of needing to research a new version of magic missile or cast 2e Sense Shifting or take 3e Spell Thematics, you just describe your mm as something else.
> 
> Or, another way to look at it is they're designing all their 'spells' (or other powers) 'new,' because the rest of the world isn't necessarily using PC classes. It depends on the DM's setting and the PC's concept.  Just because a spell is in the PH or Arcane Power doesn't mean it has necessarily ever been cast before - the history of the setting is up to the DM.



If they're already designing all their spells-powers as 'new' then the field's wide open to on-the-fly design whatever the frick we like, as this rationale immediately removes any requirement to stick to what's in the PH or other sourcebook(s).  I'm not sure this would be viable in any edition. 



> Finally, it's not like the spell research system back in the day was all that - it could be used to research an extant spell the caster just didn't know fairly straightforwardly, if very expensively, but a genuinely new spell was simply kicked to the DM, he either approved/re-wrote it or declared the attempt a failure (without telling the poor sucker if he'd had a chance & just been unlucky, or if his spell was hogwash and would never work).
> That level of arbitrary works in any system...



In the fiction it ought to be trivially easy for a DM to find a way to explain why a new spell failed, particularly if the player has the PC go and ask someone and-or has their PC do their research and design while in contact with other wizards.  In fact I'd say a DM who doesn't explain why it went wrong is shortchanging the PC/player.



> Resource management is still part of the game, as it always has been.  Maybe his point was just that the emphasis, in 4e, can shift off resource management more readily than in other eds because doing so won't shift encounter balance as profoundly, nor risk radical intraparty imbalances?  ::shrug::



Perhaps, though a DM/table can choose to ignore resource management in any edition should they so desire - nothing special about 4e in this regard.  That said, doing so would have different knock-on effects in each edition and maybe these are fewer or more subdued in 4e?



> The ghoul doesn't change 'in the fiction' it's the same ghoul (it could even be the exact same individual who had fought the PCs to a draw many levels back, for instance), the PC is just so much more powerful, that the DM, rather than play through the PC auto-hitting ghouls that (non-critically) hit him only on a natural 20, and slowly mowing his way through a mechanically tedious encounter, chooses an alternate resolution threshold to defeat it.  Instead of hitting a low AC repeatedly, he hits an ~10 higher AC, once.



I see the game-play efficiency rationale but to me the internal consistency is paramount; and when it conflicts with efficiency, efficiency just has to take a back seat.


> It's really no different than, in 1e, giving the fighter 1 attack/level vs less than 1-HD monsters, and taking the average on their pathetic attack chance vs him, rather than rolling to hit 20 times a round



Oh, I'll roll all 20 of those - if only because my game has crits and fumbles - and I'll also expect the player to roll for each attack vs. the mooks.


> similarly, the minion's fixed damage is analogous to that old taking the average trick.



Fixed damage in physical combat is something else I'll never use.  







> The basic D&D d20 resolution system is just limited in the disparity between combatants that it can handle, so, at some point, you have to do something, whether that's introducing called shots, contracting the scope of the game to fit the mechanics, taking averages for hordes instead of rolling dozens of times, or statting the (exact) same in-fiction monsters as minions - or even aggregating many into swarms (something 3e also did to good effect, and 5e hasn't tossed out that I'm aware of).



You're right that the system sometimes isn't granular enough to do everything that's asked of it, but otherwise the answer is to simply take the time to do it right.

That, and in the 4e adventure modules I've seen (and run!) it's rare that the design calls for hordes of minions - more common seems to be that there's maybe one minion for each non-minion in a given encounter, which makes the too-much-rolling issue a moot point.


----------



## Lanefan

Manbearcat said:


> Is it trying to game the system that you're worried about or do you not like the cognitive workspace of advocating for "big picture" or "long view" goals?  If so, do you feel that it diminishes some of the visceral experience or the immediacy of inhabiting _this _moment?  Something like Yoda's lament about Luke's lack of mindfulness; "All his life has he looked away...to the future, to the horizon.  Never his mind on where he was.  Hmm?  What he was doing."



I'm neither you nor [MENTION=16586]Campbell[/MENTION] and thus stand to be corrected if I'm wrong here, but both the post you're responding to and your response made me wonder if this is what you're both kind of getting at: the issue isn't one of advocating for long-term goals, it's one of player expectation that those long-term goals *will *be achieved as desired as opposed to *may *be achieved and maybe not exactly as desired.

Because yes, if all a player is in effect doing is playing through her own conception of her character's arc and using the other PCs, the setting, and the adventuring as no more than a backdrop then - other than providing said backdrop - what's the purpose of the game at all?


----------



## Lanefan

pemerton said:


> AD&D has no system for a fighter to invent a new weapon. If a player of a fighter wants to introduce a new mechanical element into the system that has a correlate in the fiction - like, say, a new design of polearm or a javelin with better flight capabilities or whatever it might be - s/he has to establish a house rule.
> 
> In 4e there is nothing stopping house rules. Two of the PCs in my game have themes that I houseruled for them, in consultation with their players; and this included making up some new powers. A GM and player could houserule a new power for a mage, or a new ritual.
> 
> But there is no ingame process for generating new houserule elements comparable to the spell research system in classic D&D.



Which is something of a departure not only from classic D&D; even 3e had rules and processes for generation of new houserule elements, mostly centered on magic item invention and construction.

As for fighters inventing a new weapon, it's a question of physical limitations.  There's only so many ways to build a handheld device designed to hurt or kill other living things, and one can fairly easily assume in the fiction that most if not all of those ways have been tried (of course, if someone wants to try something new anyway, more power to 'em).  But spells are much more wide open in what they can do, from the very mundane to the truly magnificent, and thus it's very reasonable to assume in the fiction there's still design space for new ideas.



> And the play of a 4e mage is not based around the "spell for every occasion" approach of playing a magic-user in AD&D.



Depends how one plays them, I suppose; and on what the setting/DM allows.



> I can only report my play experiences. I've played a lot of AD&D. I've played a lot of 4e. The former has a strong resource-management element - worrying about hit points, managing spell load-outs, and - in some contexts, at least - managing inventory.
> 
> 4e does not. Hit points are not precious as they are in AD&D, because of the very different healing mechanics. Healing surges are an important resource, but generate a very different dynamic from AD&D. The bulk of a PC's effectiveness in a non-combat situation comes from either skills or rituals, the former of which are not resource-limited and the latter of which are limited by components - in effect, money - and not by the sort of preparation that characterises inventory and spell load-out in AD&D.



What this tells me is that much of the non-hit-point resource management side has been concatenated down into managing one's finances, and that managing healing surges has somewhat taken the place of - or augmented - managing hit points.



> The bulk of a PC's effectiveness in a combat situation comes from encounter powers, which are a resource within the combat context but not beyond it: this is what makes 4e a scene-based game, whereas AD&D is not that.



Well, except for dailies, which do have to be managed if the DM is keeping the PCs under any sort of pressure through the day.  And all classes have to worry about this in 4e, not just casters; so in that way at least 4e expanded the resource management game a bit.



> Changing the resolution numbers (AC and other defences, hp, to hit, damage) used to resolve the combat is not changing the ghoul _in the fiction_. This has been my point throughout this exchange.



Already commented to this in other posts above.


----------



## Umbran

Lanefan said:


> Because toughness, in the fiction, is a constant: if it takes 35 points worth of damage for a merchant or a wolf or even another ghoul to kill Bob the Ghoul, that tells me it takes 35 points of damage for *anything* to kill that same ghoul, because that's how tough that ghoul is.




I suggest that "toughness" in the fiction is not an objective constant.  A thing that it tough for a shopkeeper to kill may not be tough for a 10th level fighter to kill.  When you were first level, the bugbear was tough.  When you're 15th, not so much....

This is because "a point of damage" is not a thing _in the fiction_.  The game abstraction may be a constant, but the fictional results are not.  The fiction doesn't know from points of damage.  The fiction knows of swinging swords and balls of fire.  So, how much effort does a competent fighter need to put into killing it before it dies?  That tells you how tough it is, not its hit points alone.  A high hit point, low AC thing may be considered tough.  So might a low hit point, high AC target.  The in-fiction toughness can be gotten at through more than one mechanical approach.


----------



## GrahamWills

Tony Vargas said:


> Yet, you perceive one system - DitV - as maximally immersion-breaking, while GrahamWillis finds that same system enhances his immersion




Actually, no, I stated "I agree with the generally-stated position that the more system you have, the more apt it is to break immersion."; what I actually stated is that I find DitV's system less breaking than PbtA's version. Not that either is more immersive than no system at all.


----------



## Campbell

Lanefan said:


> I'm neither you nor [MENTION=16586]Campbell[/MENTION] and thus stand to be corrected if I'm wrong here, but both the post you're responding to and your response made me wonder if this is what you're both kind of getting at: the issue isn't one of advocating for long-term goals, it's one of player expectation that those long-term goals *will *be achieved as desired as opposed to *may *be achieved and maybe not exactly as desired.
> 
> Because yes, if all a player is in effect doing is playing through her own conception of her character's arc and using the other PCs, the setting, and the adventuring as no more than a backdrop then - other than providing said backdrop - what's the purpose of the game at all?





There's more to it, but this is a big part of it.


----------



## Campbell

So when I talk about playing with integrity I am speaking to playing your character with integrity. What I mean by this is in the moment of play when you are making decisions for your character you should strive to only be guided by your sense of their hopes, dreams, goals and take on their emotions so they become your emotions and do this without regard for where you, the player, might hope things lead or some sense of "the story". To at all times be a curious explorer of the fiction, to finding out who this character really is when tested.

I'm not saying being guided by other things is universally bad play. I don't like really enjoy it, but everyone like has their own fun man. 7th Sea 2e and Fate are both really well designed games that cut against my interests. I'm glad they exist for people who enjoy them.

I would also add that I have nothing against characters with long term goals or capable antagonists. Both are things I celebrate and are welcomed whole heartily by me. I'm simply talking about a way of playing role playing games where we follow the fiction like a dog after a bone. Like, I want to feel the weight of my character's decisions in my bones. I want access to their unique insights. I want there to be actual weight to their relationships and emotions. I also want a commitment from the rest of the group to see what happens and not decide ahead of time what should happen. I want to be a fan of the other character and the world and see where journey takes us.


----------



## Tony Vargas

Lanefan said:


> Because toughness, in the fiction, is a constant: if it takes 35 points worth of damage for a merchant or a wolf or even another ghoul to kill Bob the Ghoul, that tells me it takes 35 points of damage for *anything* to kill that same ghoul, because that's how tough that ghoul is.



That's really not "in the fiction," though, that's /in the system/.  

In fiction, a creature that the hero has a hard time beating down, one time, might go down quickly, another.  And, IRL, randomness of terminal ballistics and the remarkable resilience and frightening fragility of human life is much, much stranger than fiction.



Lanefan said:


> If they're already designing all their spells-powers as 'new' then the field's wide open to on-the-fly design whatever the frick we like, as this rationale immediately removes any requirement to stick to what's in the PH or other sourcebook(s).  I'm not sure this would be viable in any edition.



 Page 42 could be interpreted that way, if you like.  But it's very clear, in 4e, that you can 'fluff' a spell however you like so long as it doesn't cross the line of changing the mechanics.  You don't /need/ a new arcane power to be published or a vague DM-fiat procedure to create a new mechanic in order to get a 'new' spell, /in the fiction/. You just take your idea for a new spell, pick an existing one with mechanics that fit, and re-skin it to match. 

It's the same thing 3e did with weapons after trimming the list so heavily and - with the glaring exception of the Katana - that worked just fine.  (Heck, voluminous as the 1e weapon list was, it /still/ used re-skinning equivalency.)



> In the fiction it ought to be trivially easy for a DM to find a way to explain why a new spell failed, particularly if the player has the PC go and ask someone and-or has their PC do their research and design while in contact with other wizards.  In fact I'd say a DM who doesn't explain why it went wrong is shortchanging the PC/player.



IIRC, the 1e spell-research rules specifically said the player wouldn't know whether he failed in his research because the DM deemed the spell impossible (unacceptable) or because he just got unlucky.  Of course, it's been a while... 



> Perhaps, though a DM/table can choose to ignore resource management in any edition should they so desire - nothing special about 4e in this regard.  That said, doing so would have different knock-on effects in each edition and maybe these are fewer or more subdued in 4e?



Not ignore in the sense of removing the resource restrictions, just shift the focus away from.  That is, in 4e, if you shift the pacing of play away from challenging PCs on a resource-attrition schedule, the classes remain balanced & contributing alongside eachother, and only the relative difficulty of encounters and other challenges is impacted.  In any other edition, deviating too much from expected pacing quickly makes resource-heavy classes overpowered - or, on the other extreme, overextended - compared to the resource-light classes, and the dynamic of play becomes uneven, with some players wondering why they even show up.



> I see the game-play efficiency rationale but to me the internal consistency is paramount; and when it conflicts with efficiency, efficiency just has to take a back seat.



Just remember that internal consistency is internal /to the fiction/, not the system.



> Oh, I'll roll all 20 of those - if only because my game has crits and fumbles - and I'll also expect the player to roll for each attack vs. the mooks.



That's fine for you.  1e didn't have crits or fumbles, and did recommend just 'taking the average' to save yourself rolling all those unlikely-to-hit/unlikely-to-miss attacks.  So the precedent for alternate resolution is there.




> That, and in the 4e adventure modules I've seen (and run!) it's rare that the design calls for hordes of minions - more common seems to be that there's maybe one minion for each non-minion in a given encounter, which makes the too-much-rolling issue a moot point.



You can have dozens of minions in a high level encounter, and they're quicker & simpler to deal with than dozens of wildly under-leveled monsters, while staying more relevant to the encounter.  That's the point, and it works pretty well.  

Classic D&D had a similar point - with fighters 1/level attacks, taking averages, and even falling back on chainmail (or later Battlesystem) - but successive eds were looking for better ways precisely because that didn't work so well. 4e found one.  5e tried something a little different (not /that/ different, for instance, all 5e monsters have a don't-roll-damage option like 4e minions) - BA, and TBH, it retains too many of the original issues, and introduces a new one: being outnumbered telling too heavily.


----------



## Campbell

So when it comes down to intent based resolution I have no real issues with it if players stick to character intent and are advocating for their character. Most of my issue comes down to the possibility for intent or stakes negotiation to slide into what the player wants to happen for story reasons completely outside of what their character is attempting. In some rare cases they might declare an intent that is actually a loss for their character. Basically the danger of player side railroading. I mean it's easy enough to avoid if the play group is disciplined. Like I don't think it's an issue that [MENTION=6696971]Manbearcat[/MENTION] or [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] really have to deal with.  Just like you can be disciplined and follow the fiction in GM mediated games.

In general I don't think we talk enough about player side railroading. Mostly because of the authority gap it tends to be highly dependent on the GM.


----------



## Tony Vargas

Campbell said:


> . Most of my issue comes down to the possibility for intent or stakes negotiation to slide into what the player wants to happen for story reasons completely outside of what their character is attempting. In some rare cases they might declare an intent that is actually a loss for their character. Basically the danger of player side railroading.



 I think I get what you mean, and that it doesn't seem to come up in a lot of RPGs.  Rather the opposite, really, as there are archetypes - like the reluctant hero - that you just can't do if you're trying to play from the headspace of the character, in an RPG that makes you fight for every moment if spotlight time or the stereotypical adventure hooks that straight up want to hire adventurers or pull you in with a treasure map or whatever.

It's all on the GM, and if one does step up with the ordinary people thrust into extraordinary circumstances, it's a coercive beginning, and railroading.


----------



## Lanefan

Campbell said:


> So when I talk about playing with integrity I am speaking to playing your character with integrity. What I mean by this is in the moment of play when you are making decisions for your character you should strive to only be guided by your sense of their hopes, dreams, goals and take on their emotions so they become your emotions and do this without regard for where you, the player, might hope things lead or some sense of "the story". To at all times be a curious explorer of the fiction, to finding out who this character really is when tested.
> 
> I would also add that I have nothing against characters with long term goals or capable antagonists. Both are things I celebrate and are welcomed whole heartily by me. I'm simply talking about a way of playing role playing games where we follow the fiction like a dog after a bone. Like, I want to feel the weight of my character's decisions in my bones. I want access to their unique insights. I want there to be actual weight to their relationships and emotions. I also want a commitment from the rest of the group to see what happens and not decide ahead of time what should happen. I want to be a fan of the other character and the world and see where journey takes us.



This all sounds just excellent when written down...but what do you do when the (IME) inevitable happens: two or more players/PCs want to follow the fiction in wildly different and incompatible directions at the same time?  Or if two or more PCs have or develop long-term goals that are directly opposed e.g. one wants to marry the Duke while another wants to kill him?  It's not like this could have been sorted out in session 0 - the Duke might not have been brought into the fiction until session 4.


----------



## Lanefan

Campbell said:


> So when it comes down to intent based resolution I have no real issues with it if players stick to character intent and are advocating for their character. Most of my issue comes down to the possibility for intent or stakes negotiation to slide into what the player wants to happen for story reasons completely outside of what their character is attempting. In some rare cases they might declare an intent that is actually a loss for their character. Basically the danger of player side railroading. I mean it's easy enough to avoid if the play group is disciplined. Like I don't think it's an issue that  [MENTION=6696971]Manbearcat[/MENTION] or  [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] really have to deal with.  Just like you can be disciplined and follow the fiction in GM mediated games.



 Put another way, then: as long as the player has the character do what the character would do, without regard for metaplot or metagame or out-of-game concerns, then it's all good?

If yes, I couldn't agree more!

Thing is, almost every time I say this I catch hell from someone - or several someones, and not always the same - who want out-of-game and metagame concerns to play a part; so put yer helmet on.   But to those someones I say poppycock!

As an example: if relationships within the party have deteriorated* to the point where my PC wouldn't want to run with that group any more, then _>foop<_ out it goes...and I've role-played myself right out of some games this way in the past, when no replacement PC was available. 

* - usually but not always involving - somehow - a failed romance or bad breakup with another PC.



> In general I don't think we talk enough about player side railroading. Mostly because of the authority gap it tends to be highly dependent on the GM.



I've tried bringing the concept up once or twice - other than that you're the first person I've seen mention it in here.


----------



## Lanefan

Umbran said:


> I suggest that "toughness" in the fiction is not an objective constant.  A thing that it tough for a shopkeeper to kill may not be tough for a 10th level fighter to kill.  When you were first level, the bugbear was tough.  When you're 15th, not so much....



In the view of the person doing the killing, sure.  But in the view of the bugbear on the receiving end, its toughness hasn't changed a whit and nor has anything else about it: it's the same bugbear.  All the changes that make the combat play out differently have happened on the attacker's side.  All of them.

And to reflect this in the fiction, nothing about the bugbear's numbers should change at all.  The fighter, on the other hand, is probably on her fifth character sheet by now...


----------



## Lanefan

Tony Vargas said:


> Page 42 could be interpreted that way, if you like.  But it's very clear, in 4e, that you can 'fluff' a spell however you like so long as it doesn't cross the line of changing the mechanics.  You don't /need/ a new arcane power to be published or a vague DM-fiat procedure to create a new mechanic in order to get a 'new' spell, /in the fiction/. You just take your idea for a new spell, pick an existing one with mechanics that fit, and re-skin it to match.



What if there isn't one?  There's great drooling gobs of design space between the mechanics of the existing spells.



> IIRC, the 1e spell-research rules specifically said the player wouldn't know whether he failed in his research because the DM deemed the spell impossible (unacceptable) or because he just got unlucky.  Of course, it's been a while...



Hmmm - I don't remember seeing that one - got a page number?  That said, it's the sort of thing I wouldn't put past Gygax...and if it is a rule, it's a dumb one and thus as DM I hereby exercise my prerogative to ignore the hell out of it and my limited persuasion skill to encourage all others to do likewise. 



> That's fine for you.  1e didn't have crits or fumbles



By original RAW, no; but there were various ideas for such put forth in Dragon over the years.



> and did recommend just 'taking the average' to save yourself rolling all those unlikely-to-hit/unlikely-to-miss attacks.



Another one I don't remember seeing; could that have been a 2e thing?



> You can have dozens of minions in a high level encounter,



If you're designing the encounter yourself then yes, you can have as many as your grid can hold.   I was referring to the published adventures, where even for the high level encounters there aren't often many minions...a typical ratio seems to be 1 or less for each non-minion in the encounter.



> Classic D&D had a similar point - with fighters 1/level attacks, taking averages, and even falling back on chainmail (or later Battlesystem) - but successive eds were looking for better ways precisely because that didn't work so well. 4e found one.  5e tried something a little different (not /that/ different, for instance, all 5e monsters have a don't-roll-damage option like 4e minions) - BA, and TBH, it retains too many of the original issues, and introduces a new one: being outnumbered telling too heavily.



Being heavily outnumbered*, even by mooks who normally on their own wouldn't be much of a threat, in fact should be a problem for anyone as sheer strength in numbers can swarm you under particularly if you're cut off from your party.  This is something D&D never really considers, though it probably should.

* - say, 8-to-1 or worse.


----------



## pemerton

Lanefan said:


> This all sounds just excellent when written down...but what do you do when the (IME) inevitable happens: two or more players/PCs want to follow the fiction in wildly different and incompatible directions at the same time?  Or if two or more PCs have or develop long-term goals that are directly opposed e.g. one wants to marry the Duke while another wants to kill him?  It's not like this could have been sorted out in session 0 - the Duke might not have been brought into the fiction until session 4.





Lanefan said:


> if relationships within the party have deteriorated* to the point where my PC wouldn't want to run with that group any more, then _>foop<_ out it goes...and I've role-played myself right out of some games this way in the past, when no replacement PC was available.



As per the post below, I think that [MENTION=16586]Campbell[/MENTION] favours a game that is not based around party play and that takes for granted that PCs may be opposed in various ways, including one wanting to woo the duke while the other wants to kill him:



Campbell said:


> My own falling out with 4e is due to a couple things. All the resolution mechanics are built around a team of PCs working in tandem where my favored approach is a collection of individuals with their own needs and desires that are sometimes allies, sometimes rivals, and occasionally enemies.



In my Burning Wheel game one PC was committed to saving a NPC that another was committed to killing. In my Prince Valiant game two PCs competed for the hand of a maiden. Etc. I think the games that Campbell favours (eg Apocalypse World) have this sort of thing but more and more intense.


----------



## Tony Vargas

Lanefan said:


> What if there isn't one?  There's great drooling gobs of design space between the mechanics of the existing spells.



 Not to hear folks going on about the saminess of powers, there wasn't. And what's the system for the DM creating or approving a new spell when there are hill-o-gp formulae for spell research? "Compare to existing spells.."


> Hmmm - I don't remember seeing that one - got a page number?



 DMG 116 (and 115, actually) its even a bit meaner than I remembered. 







> That said, it's the sort of thing I wouldn't put past Gygax...and if it is a rule, it's a dumb one and thus as DM I hereby exercise my prerogative to ignore the hell out of it and my limited persuasion skill to encourage all others to do likewise.



 Lol.


> By original RAW, no; but there were various ideas for such put forth in Dragon over the years.




That's about the size of it, huh?  1e doesn't ever really have to stand up on its own, it's 1e fixed up how we like it.


> Another one I don't remember seeing; could that have been a 2e thing?



 Probably not 2e hasn't stuck with me like 1e.  Anything that seems like a memorable (good) rule or bit of DMing advice I recall from 1e, though could as easily be from Sorcerers Scroll or Leomunds Tiny Hut - Gygax writing in the same style as the DMG, or Lakofka with another variant.


> If you're designing the encounter yourself then yes, you can have as many as your grid can hold.



The encounter guidelines devalued minions at higher level - so a regular encounter budget at epic could see the party outnumbered 6:1 by them.


> Being heavily outnumbered*, even by mooks who normally on their own wouldn't be much of a threat, in fact should be a problem for anyone as sheer strength in numbers can swarm you under particularly if you're cut off from your party.  This is something D&D never really considers, though it probably should.
> 
> * - say, 8-to-1 or worse.



Minions were pretty likely to hit, compared to underleveled standards of the same xp value, so they could add up to a real threat, that xp value for them wasn't window dressing.

5e, OTOH, makes being outnumbered a real issue, thanks to BA, the opposite problem as the olden days, potentially - 100 archers killing a dragon &c...


----------



## Sadras

Tony Vargas said:


> 5e, OTOH, makes being outnumbered a real issue, thanks to BA, the opposite problem as the olden days, potentially - 100 archers killing a dragon &c...




That's why I give dragons resistance to non-magical weapons, to highlight the hardiness of the dragon scales.


----------



## Umbran

Lanefan said:


> But in the view of the bugbear on the receiving end, its toughness hasn't changed a whit and nor has anything else about it: it's the same bugbear.  All the changes that make the combat play out differently have happened on the attacker's side.  All of them.




All the changes that make the combat play out differently are game-mechanics abstraction, not the fiction.  And, as we'll see in a moment, the combat probably doesn't play out differently in any meaningful sense.



> And to reflect this in the fiction, nothing about the bugbear's numbers should change at all.




The numbers are not the fiction.  The fiction is what you get only after all the numbers are crunched, and the thing is summarized with the numbers removed.  No game stat appears in the fiction.

Plus... the bugbear in the book is a guideline.  I can represent bugbears in my game any way I want - the Monster Manual numbers are merely one mechanical representation.  I can have bugbears that are smarter than average, or weaker, or smellier.  I can put up a bugbear warlord that has the stats of a 20th level fighter.  I can make a sickly bugbear that has the stats of a goblin.  Or, I can make a mook bugbear that has a high AC, and one hit point.  We are not beholden to the MM.  

There is a general expectation about how bugbears are not usually pushovers for low-level parties, yes, but so long as the experience roughly matches that most of the time, we are okay.  The only worry we have is if the first attempted hit downs him outright - but for a higher-level party, narrating that as an excellently aimed shot to a vital part is still generally acceptable.  If we have a crowd of them, that happening once or twice is okay.  It is only if I have a horde of them, and they are taken down like chaff, that am I violating the expected fiction.  

It isn't like we are talking about a well-known individual with an established backstory who might be asked to match those storied deeds in play.  Correct me if I am wrong, but we are probably talking about a generic guard a higher-level party will encounter once, and probably not have a conversation with other than, "Die, hairball!"  If I stat it out as a regular bugbear, the PCs are sure to get past it after a round or three.  If I stat it out as high-AC and 1 HP, the PCs are sure to get past it in a round or three.  The fiction is the same, either way - some nameless bugbear delays them for a round or three, and dies an ignoble death bleeding on the floor.


----------



## Tony Vargas

Umbran said:


> . ...  It is only if I have a horde of them, and they are taken down like chaff, that am I violating the expected fiction.



 Sounds like the cover of some Conan pastiche, actually.


----------



## Umbran

Tony Vargas said:


> Sounds like the cover of some Conan pastiche, actually.




You're not wrong.


----------



## Umbran

Campbell said:


> So when I talk about playing with integrity I am speaking to playing your character with integrity. What I mean by this is in the moment of play when you are making decisions for your character you should strive to only be guided by your sense of their hopes, dreams, goals and take on their emotions so they become your emotions and do this without regard for where you, the player, might hope things lead or some sense of "the story". To at all times be a curious explorer of the fiction, to finding out who this character really is when tested.




I think I understand.

However, let's talk about practicalities and human motivations for just a sec.  You've (generic you, not you-Campbell) got a few hours every couple of weeks to play at your hobby.  And there's a ton of other things you could do with that time.  You have to choose.  To be worth the time, the game needs a lot of bang-for-the-metaphorical-buck.  And the drunkard's walk through events may not deliver that bang.  

Sometimes, you gotta steer the boat, not just ride the water's eddy currents.  

Being honest about what you want out of a game, and seeking it rather than waiting quietly for someone else to provide it, is not lack of integrity.



> I'm simply talking about a way of playing role playing games where we follow the fiction like a dog after a bone. Like, I want to feel the weight of my character's decisions in my bones. I want access to their unique insights. I want there to be actual weight to their relationships and emotions.




You see, other than the *follow* the fiction, bit (which comes across to me as incredibly passive) I don't see any of that as in conflict with seeking particular story beats from time to time.  Seeking your preferred story is showing a distinct desire to have relationships and emotions - just ones that don't look like they'll happen otherwise.


----------



## Lanefan

Umbran said:


> However, let's talk about practicalities and human motivations for just a sec.  You've (generic you, not you-Campbell) got a few hours every couple of weeks to play at your hobby.  And there's a ton of other things you could do with that time.  You have to choose.  To be worth the time, the game needs a lot of bang-for-the-metaphorical-buck.  And the drunkard's walk through events may not deliver that bang.



I'd suspect this all has to be pre-assumed, that the player has willingly and repeatedly made the choice to turn up to the game, for any of the rest of this discussion to be meaningful.

And just like with anything else episodic, some nights are just going to work out better for a player than other nights - be it in terms of involvement, engagement, interest, or whatever.  Expecting every session to be perfect for every player every time is, well, just a little on the idealistic side. 



> Being honest about what you want out of a game, and seeking it rather than waiting quietly for someone else to provide it, is not lack of integrity.



Being honest about it doesn't lack integrity, but if what you want lacks integrity in itself (extreme example: you-as-player are going into the game with the specific intent of killing another player's PC due to an out-of-game feud with that player) being honest about it doesn't help very much.



> You see, other than the *follow* the fiction, bit (which comes across to me as incredibly passive)



It doesn't to me, in that there's an implication that not only are you following the fiction built by others but you're also contributing more or less equally to building it.



> I don't see any of that as in conflict with seeking particular story beats from time to time.  Seeking your preferred story is showing a distinct desire to have relationships and emotions - just ones that don't look like they'll happen otherwise.



Again, though, it comes down to a difference in expectations: seeking and even advocating for your preferred story, without further expectations, is fine; seeking it with an implied demand to the GM/game that not only will you find it but that it'll play out exactly as you want it to is not fine at all.


----------



## Lanefan

Umbran said:


> All the changes that make the combat play out differently are game-mechanics abstraction, not the fiction.  And, as we'll see in a moment, the combat probably doesn't play out differently in any meaningful sense.



No it doesn't, but that still doesn't excuse the underlying mechanical disconnects.



> The numbers are not the fiction.  The fiction is what you get only after all the numbers are crunched, and the thing is summarized with the numbers removed.  No game stat appears in the fiction.



Though the numbers and game stats are not the fiction in themselves, those numbers exist to reflect and define the fiction as best they can.  



> Plus... the bugbear in the book is a guideline.  I can represent bugbears in my game any way I want - the Monster Manual numbers are merely one mechanical representation.  I can have bugbears that are smarter than average, or weaker, or smellier.  I can put up a bugbear warlord that has the stats of a 20th level fighter.  I can make a sickly bugbear that has the stats of a goblin.  Or, I can make a mook bugbear that has a high AC, and one hit point.  We are not beholden to the MM.



Absolutely agreed.  But:

1. Though you can stat out a bugbear any old way you like, once you've statted it out *those stats are locked in* unless at a later point in the fiction something materially changes about that bugbear.  Thus, if you stat out Joe the Bugbear as an unusually smart but clumsy bugbear with 35 hit points and an AC penalty due to poor dex for when the 3rd-level party meets him, all of that should and must remain true when the party meets him again at 15th level.  The party's changed - higher level, better equipment, more skills and abilities, etc. - but ol' Joe hasn't.  He hasn't lost all his hit points, he hasn't put on better armour (or any armour!), he hasn't gained any skills or abilities - and to properly and accurately reflect this, none of his numbers should change from what they were.

2. And why should Joe's numbers be locked in once generated?  To allow him to consistently interact with the rest of the fictional world, and it with him, off-camera; and to thus allow the players to be correct in an assumption* that the parts of the game world they don't see function and interact in a manner consistent with what they do see.  Which flips around to say that when you stat out Bill the Bugbear to have only 1 hit point - which you can certainly do, no argument there - it means Bill has only ever had 1 hit point** so how the hell did he survive growing up in bugbear society?

I don't like using examples like this but I'll make an exception here: in a typical fantasy novel, is there ever a reason given to *not* assume things in that world work the same off-camera than they do on-camera?  No.  And this serves to allow readers to reasonably fill in how things happened on returning later to a changed scene e.g. the Hobbits return to the Shire to find Saruman has taken it over - we know how the Shire works and we know Saruman, so it's easy to fill in the gaps.  It also serves to give a sense of there being a complete world (or universe) out there beyond just what the words on the page speak of.

In an RPG where the numbers are supposed to reflect the fiction of what they represent, changing the numbers tells me there's been a change in the fiction...but here, Joe's numbers have changed yet Joe himself has not; and bang - there's the disconnect.  And changing Joe's numbers to reflect changes to something else in the fiction (in this case, the PCs) is also wrong, in that Joe's numbers are intended first and foremost to reflect what Joe is - they're intrinsic to (and thus tied to) him.

* - in a standard non-dreamworld medieval game setting, proving this assumption incorrect makes the setting - and the game - worthless.
** - you could, of course, say that Bill normally has more hit points but when the party meets him he's already been wounded such that he only has one left; but that would a) not explain Bill's charge into melee and b) start looking really contrived after a series of encounters where half the opponents have already been beaten within an inch of their lives.



> It isn't like we are talking about a well-known individual with an established backstory who might be asked to match those storied deeds in play.  Correct me if I am wrong, but we are probably talking about a generic guard a higher-level party will encounter once, and probably not have a conversation with other than, "Die, hairball!"  If I stat it out as a regular bugbear, the PCs are sure to get past it after a round or three.  If I stat it out as high-AC and 1 HP, the PCs are sure to get past it in a round or three.  The fiction is the same, either way - some nameless bugbear delays them for a round or three, and dies an ignoble death bleeding on the floor.



So if the fiction's the same anyway, why invalidate the setting behind it by messing with numbers that don't need to be messed with?  What purpose does it serve other than to tell the players that the setting is made of sand and thus they can't rely on things within it being and remaining consistent?


----------



## Ovinomancer

Lanefan said:


> No it doesn't, but that still doesn't excuse the underlying mechanical disconnects.
> 
> Though the numbers and game stats are not the fiction in themselves, those numbers exist to reflect and define the fiction as best they can.
> 
> Absolutely agreed.  But:
> 
> 1. Though you can stat out a bugbear any old way you like, once you've statted it out *those stats are locked in* unless at a later point in the fiction something materially changes about that bugbear.  Thus, if you stat out Joe the Bugbear as an unusually smart but clumsy bugbear with 35 hit points and an AC penalty due to poor dex for when the 3rd-level party meets him, all of that should and must remain true when the party meets him again at 15th level.  The party's changed - higher level, better equipment, more skills and abilities, etc. - but ol' Joe hasn't.  He hasn't lost all his hit points, he hasn't put on better armour (or any armour!), he hasn't gained any skills or abilities - and to properly and accurately reflect this, none of his numbers should change from what they were.
> 
> 2. And why should Joe's numbers be locked in once generated?  To allow him to consistently interact with the rest of the fictional world, and it with him, off-camera; and to thus allow the players to be correct in an assumption* that the parts of the game world they don't see function and interact in a manner consistent with what they do see.  Which flips around to say that when you stat out Bill the Bugbear to have only 1 hit point - which you can certainly do, no argument there - it means Bill has only ever had 1 hit point** so how the hell did he survive growing up in bugbear society?
> 
> I don't like using examples like this but I'll make an exception here: in a typical fantasy novel, is there ever a reason given to *not* assume things in that world work the same off-camera than they do on-camera?  No.  And this serves to allow readers to reasonably fill in how things happened on returning later to a changed scene e.g. the Hobbits return to the Shire to find Saruman has taken it over - we know how the Shire works and we know Saruman, so it's easy to fill in the gaps.  It also serves to give a sense of there being a complete world (or universe) out there beyond just what the words on the page speak of.
> 
> In an RPG where the numbers are supposed to reflect the fiction of what they represent, changing the numbers tells me there's been a change in the fiction...but here, Joe's numbers have changed yet Joe himself has not; and bang - there's the disconnect.  And changing Joe's numbers to reflect changes to something else in the fiction (in this case, the PCs) is also wrong, in that Joe's numbers are intended first and foremost to reflect what Joe is - they're intrinsic to (and thus tied to) him.
> 
> * - in a standard non-dreamworld medieval game setting, proving this assumption incorrect makes the setting - and the game - worthless.
> ** - you could, of course, say that Bill normally has more hit points but when the party meets him he's already been wounded such that he only has one left; but that would a) not explain Bill's charge into melee and b) start looking really contrived after a series of encounters where half the opponents have already been beaten within an inch of their lives.
> 
> So if the fiction's the same anyway, why invalidate the setting behind it by messing with numbers that don't need to be messed with?  What purpose does it serve other than to tell the players that the setting is made of sand and thus they can't rely on things within it being and remaining consistent?




Fundamentally, here's the thing:  what kills the bugbear isn't loss of hitpoints, it's a swordinnahead.  At low player level, where Joe has 35 hit points, it takes a few passes of reducing hitpoints to get to swordinnahead, but that's the bit that does the thing.  Once we get to swordinnahead, Joe is dead.  Now, at later levels, the heroes are way better at achieving swordinnahead, which is the relevant fictional endpoint for our poor Joe.  Again, it's not loss of 35 hitpoints that kills Joe, it's swordinnahead.  If we want to represent, in the fiction, the heroes' greater ability to achieve the swordinnahead state for poor Joe, then we can do lots of things.  Maybe we have a system where the heroes now can do 35+ hitpoints so it doesn't matter that Joe has 35 hitpoints -- any hit will result in swordinnahead and a dead Joe.  Or, we could reduce Joe's hitpoints, as they don't exist anywhere but as a pacing mechanism for achieving swordinnahead, and say that any successful hit on Joe will go straight to swordinnahead.

Hitpoints have no fictional reality in game.  They're a pacing mechanism to control how fast you get through a fight (or lose one).  As such, they're as malleable as encounters per day or days for a trip -- the exact number has no reality, only the applied pacing does.  This goes to minions not having fewer hitpoints being a violation of previously established fictional reality -- hitpoints never hit the stage in the fiction, so to speak -- but instead just being an alteration of the game pacing mechanisms.  The fictional result is that the heroes cause swordinnahead to Joe, either at the end of his hipoints, where previous "successes" have no fixed reality except to move closer to swordinnahead, or because they're minions and any successful hit causes swordinnahead.


----------



## pemerton

Lanefan said:


> Though the numbers and game stats are not the fiction in themselves, those numbers exist to reflect and define the fiction as best they can.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> In an RPG where the numbers are supposed to reflect the fiction of what they represent, changing the numbers tells me there's been a change in the fiction



Not to bang too hard on the same drum, but 4e is not a game in which the numbers "represent" or "reflect" any fiction. They are an action resolutoin device.

I'll requote from Vincent Baker to emphasise the point:

Roleplaying is negotiated imagination. In order for any thing to be true in game, all the participants in the game (players _and_ GMs, if you've even got such things) have to understand and assent to it. When you're roleplaying, what you're doing is a) suggesting things that might be true in the game and then b) negotiating with the other participants to determine whether they're actually true or not. . . .

Mechanics might model the stuff of the game world, that's another topic, but they don't exist to do so. They exist to ease and constrain real-world social negotiation between the players at the table. That's their sole and crucial function.​
4e's combat mechanics - hp, to hit numbers, damage, defences - are an action resolution framework. They are not a model of the fiction.



Lanefan said:


> Though you can stat out a bugbear any old way you like, once you've statted it out *those stats are locked in* unless at a later point in the fiction something materially changes about that bugbear.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> And why should Joe's numbers be locked in once generated?  To allow him to consistently interact with the rest of the fictional world



The numbers in 4e are a resolution system. When the resolution is different - eg the bugbear is facing PCs who are far more powerful than it - a resolution system is adopted that gives expression to this. All the numbers - defences, to hit, damage and hp - are changed. (You seem to be focusing only on the hp - I don't know why.)

4e's mechanics have nothing to do with "consistently interacting with the rest of the ficitonal world". That is not action resolution. It is not establishig the shared fiction by way of negotiation. Given that 4e is a relatively traditional RPG in its allocations of authority, the GM just makes that stuff up.



Lanefan said:


> if the fiction's the same anyway, why invalidate the setting behind it by messing with numbers that don't need to be messed with? What purpose does it serve other than to tell the players that the setting is made of sand and thus they can't rely on things within it being and remaining consistent?



Bugbears are made of flesh, not sand.

And as has been mentioned a few times in this thread already, 4e is _ficiton first_. The players' know the fiction in the same way that they know the fiction of a film or novel - from imagination and description.


----------



## pemerton

Umbran said:


> Sometimes, you gotta steer the boat, not just ride the water's eddy currents.
> 
> Being honest about what you want out of a game, and seeking it rather than waiting quietly for someone else to provide it, is not lack of integrity.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> *follow* the fiction, bit (which comes across to me as incredibly passive)



I think your metaphor is not that helpful.

Taken on its own terms, it presupposes that we are in the boat trying to get somewhere. But what if we're not? What if we just want to enjoy sitting in a boat? Then there's no need to steer.

But more importantly, I think it's inapt for RPGing. There are options in RPGing other than setting out to author a story or passively doing nothing. [MENTION=16586]Campbell[/MENTION] said "follow the fiction like a dog after a bone". I don't know much about dogs, but that doesn't sound passive to me. It seems active. And single-minded. And focused on a here-and-now rather than a long-term project or an ultimate destination.



Umbran said:


> The phrase "playing with integrity" is terribly emotionally loaded.  And, I don't agree that trying to fulfill an arc is necessarily not playing with integrity.  I think this assumes a definition of "playing with integrity" that isn't appropriate for all systems.





Campbell said:


> So when I talk about playing with integrity I am speaking to playing your character with integrity. What I mean by this is in the moment of play when you are making decisions for your character you should strive to only be guided by your sense of their hopes, dreams, goals and take on their emotions so they become your emotions and do this without regard for where you, the player, might hope things lead or some sense of "the story".



I think if a RPG is designed for it, then _playing with integrity_ in Campbell's sense will produce a story _wihtout anyone needing to aim for that outcome_.

This requires a particular approach to setting design and (what I would call) framing on the GM's part. And a particular approach to action resolution - ie that action resolution outcomes maintain the dynamism and the pressure to make choices that will result in more things happening.

To elaborate a bit: if the GM has designed the setting so as to support some particular dramatic arc then what Campbell is describing won't happen. Because either the player playing with integrity will result in a departure from that arc and hence the pressure to choose will be lost, and thus there will be no salient fiction to follow; or the GM will push towards the arc in resolving action declaration, which will undermine the player's attempt to play his/her PC with integrity.

Equally, if the GM has designed the setting without regard to the sorts of characters the players are creating for their PCs, then there will be no fiction to follow because the right sort of pressures won't be created. To give a simple example: if the PC is built with such-and-such a relationship, and then the GM presents the setting in way that doesn't impicate or bear upon that relationship at all, the player has no chance to play with integrity in respect of that part of the emotional life of the PC. If this generalises across the rest of the PC's emotional life, then the sort of play Campbell is describing won't be possible.

As best I can tell, this is why [MENTION=16586]Campbell[/MENTION] has identified some systems as better suited than others for the play experience he is looking for.


----------



## Umbran

Lanefan said:


> Expecting every session to be perfect for every player every time is, well, just a little on the idealistic side.




Well, yes.  And that would be an awesome point if anyone had suggested such.  

But nobody did, so far as I can see.  *I* certainly did not suggest anything about every session being perfect.

Which makes this a strawman we can discard now, hey what?  Do try to stick to arguing against things people actually say...




> Being honest about it doesn't lack integrity, but if what you want lacks integrity in itself (extreme example: you-as-player are going into the game with the specific intent of killing another player's PC due to an out-of-game feud with that player) being honest about it doesn't help very much.




Sure, going in with the intent of ruining someone else's day in game over out-of-game issues isn't acceptable.  But that's hardly the generic case I thought we were talking about.  



> It doesn't to me, in that there's an implication that not only are you following the fiction built by others but you're also contributing more or less equally to building it.




In a campaign scenario, over the long haul, that allows us a great deal of leeway to pass this sort of thing around, I would think.  One day, Player A gets to push a bit for their thing, another session, Player B does.  Overall, everyone makes equal contributions.  Seems pretty acceptable sharing, to me.


----------



## Umbran

Lanefan said:


> Though the numbers and game stats are not the fiction in themselves, those numbers exist to reflect and define the fiction as best they can.




The published numbers and game stats are, I think, intended to be a decent general purpose representation.  I don't think they are intended to be "the best" for all scenarios.  When I assemble a particular encounter, I'm going to choose the representation that fits the need of the moment, not necessarily the Monster Manual standard.



> 1. Though you can stat out a bugbear any old way you like, once you've statted it out *those stats are locked in* unless at a later point in the fiction something materially changes about that bugbear.




For the most part, unless there's a good reason, sure.  I'd agree that, once I've rolled initiative, I'm not going to suddenly change it from a standard bugbear to a mook bugbear.  I'll be using whichever representation I started with for the rest of that fight/encounter  to represent the creature.

But, if something in the narrative calls for it, I might change the bugbear's status between encounters, especially if those encounters are notably separate in time.  The Mook, if they earn a name, might become a standard bugbear.  And then might even get enhanced stats or even class levels if the interactions with the party warrant a more prominent state in the fiction that calls for a more detailed representation.




> So if the fiction's the same anyway, why invalidate the setting behind it by messing with numbers that don't need to be messed with?  What purpose does it serve other than to tell the players that the setting is made of sand and thus they can't rely on things within it being and remaining consistent?




1) I think the "invalidate the setting" is hyperbole.  You may violate their expectations if the overall and long-term effect is markedly different.  But one encounter is not going to suddenly dash the whole setting on the rocks.  Players are smart.  They can get the idea that a thing may have different mechanical representations.  

2) Why we'd do this was noted a long time back.  The full representation *has more bookkeeping*, and bookkeeping is pretty boring, and slows play down.  So, we might choose to ditch the full representation when it doesn't actually add much to the game.  It is a solid reason related to the quality of play for everyone at the table.


----------



## Campbell

*[*

@_*pemerton*_ is exactly right. Following the fiction is an active endeavor. In the moment of play we are playing our characters as if they were real people, but we do not get to play just any character. It is the responsible of players to create characters that are dynamic protagonists who go after the things they want in life and that we all can relate to and be fans of. It is also their job to honestly question who these characters really are. It is the job of the GM to provide honest adversity to these characters so there is legitimate tension that the whole table gets to feel. The job of the game system is to introduce the unwelcome into the whole affair.

Here's the most important thing: it is nobody's job to protect these characters or the game. Nobody gets to decide how things should go. To do so would do a great disservice to these characters and their struggles. It robs play of legitimate tension and real emotional content. There is significant risk that things might not go the way we want them to, but that's the price you pay for getting to see the unbridled versions of these characters, getting to see who they really are when faced with adversity. 

The following quotes address it from the player's side:



			
				 Blades in the Dark said:
			
		

> *EMBRACE THE SCOUNDREL’S LIFE*
> 
> The scoundrel’s lot is a tough one, to be sure. The world in which they are trapped is deeply, cruelly unfair—created by the powerful to maintain their power and punish anyone who dares to resist. Some of the systems of the game are built to bring these injustices into play. No matter how cool or how capable the PCs are, the heat will pile on, entanglements will blindside them, the powers-that-be will try to kick them down with no regard.
> 
> 
> Depending on who you are in real life, this predicament may come as a shock to you, requiring some new understanding on your part. Or it may be all too familiar. Either way, your character is not you. Their fate is their own. We’re the advocates and fans of our characters, but they are not us. We don’t safeguard them as we might safeguard ourselves or our loved ones. They must go off into their dark and brutal world and strive and suffer for what they achieve—we can’t keep them safe here with us. They’re brave to try. *We’re brave to follow their story and not flinch away.* When they get knocked down, we look them in the eye and say, “You’re not done yet. You can do this. Get back in there.” And, unlike in our own world, our characters in Blades in the Dark cannot be defeated by mere power. They can be hurt—and they surely will be—but their resistance is always effective. The tools of oppression ultimately break against their defiance.
> 
> 
> If we’re willing to step back a bit, to not suffer their trials as personal failures, to imagine them as perseverant when we ourselves might quail, we might get to see them win past pain and despair into something else. It’s a long shot, but they’re up for it.







			
				 Monsterhearts said:
			
		

> *Make each main character’s life not boring.
> 
> *
> As a player, part of your job is to advocate for your character. But being their advocate doesn’t mean it’s your job to keep them safe. It’s not. It’s your job to make their life not boring. It’s about figuring out who they are, what they want, and what they’ll do to get it – even if that exposes them to danger. Your character can’t emerge triumphant if you aren’t willing to see them through some .
> 
> Unlike some roleplaying games, Monsterhearts doesn’t have an endgame or an explicit goal to shoot for. You are left to determine what it is that your character wants, and pursue that in any way that makes sense to you. Since the default setting is a high school, there are a few goals that nearly everyone is going to have: saving face, gaining friends and social security, figuring out who their enemies are, getting social leverage on others, dumping their pain on other people. If you aren’t sure who your character is, start with those things and build from there. Soon, you’ll likely find yourself embroiled in situations that demand action, and what your character wants will emerge from that.
> 
> *Keep the story feral.*
> 
> 
> The conversation that you have with the other players and with the rules create a story that couldn’t have existed in your head alone. As you play, you might feel an impulse to domesticate that story. You form an awesome plan for exactly what could happen next, and where the story could go. In your head, it’s spectacular.All you’d need to do is dictate what the other players should do, ignore the dice once or twice, and force your idea into existence. In short: you’d have to take control.
> 
> The game loses its magic when any one player attempts to take control of the story. It becomes small enough to fit inside one person’s head. The other players turn into audience members instead of participants. Nobody’s experience is enriched when one person turns the collective conversation into their own private story.
> 
> So avoid this impulse. Let the story’s messy, chaotic momentum guide it forward. In any given moment, focus on reacting to the other players. Allow others to foil your plans, or improve upon them. Trust that good story emerges from wildness. Play to find out what happens next. Let yourself be surprised.





The following quotes do a better job at explaining it holistically:



			
				Vincent Baker said:
			
		

> *Resolution, Why?*
> 
> Well kids, I think it's time for the biggie.
> Here's some stuff I wrote on the Forge:
> The only worthwhile use for rules I know of is to sustain in-game conflict of interest, in the face of the overwhelming unity of interest of the players. Read this to include the in-game conflicts that drive Gamist and Simulationist play too, not just the Narrativist ones.
> 
> Any rules that don't do it, you're just as well off if you ditch 'em and play freeform. Lots and lots of RPG rules don't reliably do it.
> 
> Startling or very bad outcomes are pointless, sometimes disruptive, if they don't serve the game's conflicts. Hence fudging. Very good outcomes, or even very expected outcomes, vindicate the group's use of the rules, if the outcomes serve the game's conflicts.
> 
> You know the thing that happens where a group starts out playing Ars Magica (say) by the book, but gradually rolls dice and consults the rules less and less, until the character sheets sit in a folder forgotten? At first the rules served to build the players' unity of interest, so they used 'em. Now that the group's got unity of interest, it doesn't need the rules anymore. The only thing that's going to win that group back to using rules is something better than unity of interest.
> 
> Unity of interest plus sustained in-game conflict is better than unity of interest alone.
> 
> ...
> 
> Let's say that you're playing a character who the rest of us really like a lot. We like him a whole lot. We think he's a nice guy who's had a rough time of it. The problem is, there's something you're trying to get at with him, and if he stops having a rough time, you won't get to say what you're trying to say.
> 
> Our hearts want to give him a break. For the game to mean something, we have to make things worse for him instead.
> 
> I'm the GM. What I want more than anything in that circumstance - we're friends, my heart breaks for your poor character, you're counting on me to give him more and more grief - what I want is rules that won't let me compromise.
> 
> I don't want to hurt your character and then point to the rules and say "they, they made me hurt your character!" That's not what I'm getting at.
> 
> I want, if I don't hurt your character, I want you to point to the rules and say, "hey, why didn't you follow the rules? Why did you cheat and let my guy off the hook? That sucked." I want the rules to create a powerful expectation between us - part of our unity of interest - that I will hurt your character. Often and hard.
> 
> We have a shared interest in the game - we both like your character, we're both interested in what you have to say, we both want things to go well. We also have an ongoing, constant agreement about what's happening right this second - that's the loody poodly. The rules should take those two things and build in-game conflict out of them.
> 
> You can see it plain as day in a bunch of games. Look at how My Life with Master's rules create the expectation that the GM will constantly have the Master "hose" the PCs. In Universalis, getting coins back into your bank depends on your participation in conflicts. In Primetime Adventures, the characters' Issue plus Screen Presence tells the GM just what to do - if I back off of the Issue, I'm not playing the game. (And then Fan Mail brings everyone in, so - like in Universalis - it's not just between you and me.) In my game Dogs in the Vineyard, the escalation rules force us both to play our characters passionately - there's tremendous pressure on us to, y'know, stick to our guns.
> 
> What a bunch of other games do is stop short. They establish our agreement about what's happening right this second, they contribute to our shared interest in the characters and setting - and that's it. They don't provoke us. I can, by the rules, back off your character's issues, let the conflicts fizzle, compromise and go easy, and we sit there going "I dunno, what do you wanna do?" all night. Or just as bad, the dull "things work out for the best this time too" characteristic of Star Trek: the Next Generation and games where we all like each other's characters and nobody's provoked by the rules to inflict pain.​
> So: resolution, why?
> 
> The answer is: because interesting play depends on good conflicts, and creating good conflicts means hitting characters you like right where they're weak, and hitting a character you like, whose player is someone you like, right where she's or he's weak - it's _not easy_.
> The right rules will show you how to do it. They'll make it the only natural thing.
> 
> Here's when I knew that Dogs in the Vineyard was good: I was showing Meg the dice mechanic. We played through the conflict in the book - does your brother go and shoot the woman? She knocked her brother down and took away his gun, but their back-and-forth suggested an essential follow-up conflict. Meg was psyched. She was diggin' it. Now you know that Meg and I are happy long-time freeformers, and Meg especially doesn't have any patience for noncontributing rules. She launched straight into the follow-up conflict *and reached for the dice*.
> ​






			
				 Jesse Burneko / Play Passionately said:
			
		

> *Character Advocacy: Part I*
> 
> 
> Tension in fiction is created when two characters come into conflict. That tension arises from the uncertainty of the outcome. All we know is that something is about to change. In order to bring that same tension into role-playing that uncertainty must be present and it must be legitimate.
> 
> 
> That means that something within the game must be representing the fictional interests of the characters in conflict. That representation is what I call Character Advocacy. *In simplest terms when Protagonist meets Antagonist something within the game must be fighting for each side, either outcome must be within the realm of possibility and no one player should be able to guarantee an outcome either way.* In the classic Player/GM setup, by default the Player is the advocate for his character and the GM is the advocate for any adversity that character encounters.
> 
> 
> This is not the same as playing to win. Winning and losing is a wholly real world social thing. Winning is about the real player demonstrating that they are a superior games-man to another real player. Character advocacy is purely a fictional concern. Indeed the player and GM may have very well colluded heavily to bring the fiction to this point. The player and GM may even be rooting for the same side. But without legitimate representation for either side, the conflict is a straw-man and no system at all might as well have been deployed.
> 
> 
> Different games handle Character Advocacy in different ways and indeed some unusual and grey area applications exist. For example, in My Life with Master it’s pretty much a given that the Master will die. That’s not where the tension is. The tension is in who will be the minion to kill the Master and what epilogue conditions will each minion be left with when that happens. In Spione character advocacy is only specified during the Flashpoint phase of play and is lifted during the Maneuvers phase of play.
> 
> 
> This raises the question of strategy and rules mastery. Character advocacy is one of the main reasons why well designed rule sets are so important in supposedly “story oriented” games. *Well designed rules with story creation in mind allow players representing characters in conflict to push as hard as they want for success.* No one has to hand wave away rules to guarantee an outcome and no one player has the authority to “keep the story on track” or ignore rules for “the sake of the story.”
> 
> 
> It is the system’s fair and legitimate representation of the fictional character’s interests that opens the door for the kind of emotional investment and vulnerability that play passionately is about. That emotional investment is what Part II will cover.
> 
> *Character Advocacy: Part II*
> 
> 
> I hear a lot of stories about people who get tripped up in games because they want their characters to fail and don’t know how to work that into the system. A couple of questions that comes to mind when I encounter this situation are, “What is wrong with your character that you want him to fail?” or “Why is the situation so bland that failure is the more compelling option?”
> 
> 
> First, players wanting their characters to fail can be a sign of player driven railroading. The player is invested in how the story “should go” and not in the here and now tension of the situation. In all likelihood they are trying to build a specific story arc which requires failure at this juncture in order to setup some future situation they are looking forward to.
> 
> 
> Going a bit deeper, when a player is committed to his character’s failure it expresses to me a lack of emotional connection with the character. The player seems more interested in the fiction as a structural artifact than as an emotionally compelling narrative. Again, it represents that desire to always stay in author mode and never experience the situation as an audience member. Does the player have so little sympathy for the character’s plight that he would so casually will his failure?
> 
> 
> Playing passionately is about building and playing characters that we are personally invested in. This is not about avatarism where the character is some thin proxy for ourselves. I’m talking about just a simple basic connection with the character as if he were a real human being. This is where the trust and vulnerability enters play because, in my experience, when you’ve got that connection, seeing the character fail will be emotionally jarring if not outright painful.
> 
> 
> When that personal connection to the character enters play Character Advocacy becomes not just something the player does as a feature of the rules but something the player WANTS to do as a function of his emotional commitment to the character. Again, this is why well designed rule sets are critical. The fact that the rules are consistently applicable and not subject to the whims of a single player acts as a shield to that player’s investment. The success and failure of his character is a legitimate and fair outcome of the system and not simply his investment being toyed with by someone else.* Failure is narratively satisfying when it is most unwanted and when it is legitimately unexpected.*



​


----------



## Umbran

Campbell said:


> Here's the most important thing: it is nobody's job to protect these characters or the game. Nobody gets to decide how things should go.




I disagree, insofar as this is stated as if someone is dictatorially declaiming all the details and results.  Really, *EVERYBODY* gets to decide how things should go.

The idea that somehow, the play goes forward with *nobody having any influence* on how it goes would be... nonsensical and counterfactual.  It files in the face of how, for example, the GM generally decides what the antagonists are, and what themes to introduce when they put up complications, and such.  The GM has huge say in the way things go.  So, while they may not determine all results, if someone is going to claim that somehow the GM has no influence on the path of the game, we can just stop now.

So, what we are really talking is a continuum of influence on the path of the game, raging from "zero" to "I am just writing a novel by myself".  And any particular game will have some admixture of influences among the participants.  We are quibbling over where the dial sits, but stating it in absolute terms of "all or nothing", which, as far as I am concerned, gets in the way of understanding.


----------



## Lanefan

Ovinomancer said:


> Fundamentally, here's the thing:  what kills the bugbear isn't loss of hitpoints, it's a swordinnahead.  At low player level, where Joe has 35 hit points, it takes a few passes of reducing hitpoints to get to swordinnahead, but that's the bit that does the thing.  Once we get to swordinnahead, Joe is dead.  Now, at later levels, the heroes are way better at achieving swordinnahead, which is the relevant fictional endpoint for our poor Joe.  Again, it's not loss of 35 hitpoints that kills Joe, it's swordinnahead.  If we want to represent, in the fiction, the heroes' greater ability to achieve the swordinnahead state for poor Joe, then we can do lots of things.  Maybe we have a system where the heroes now can do 35+ hitpoints so it doesn't matter that Joe has 35 hitpoints -- any hit will result in swordinnahead and a dead Joe.  Or, we could reduce Joe's hitpoints, as they don't exist anywhere but as a pacing mechanism for achieving swordinnahead, and say that any successful hit on Joe will go straight to swordinnahead.



What this does is blow away the very real possibility that while the high-level heroes can do 35+ hit points that doesn't mean they're every time going to on a successful hit; the dice might say 24, meaning Joe gets one more chance at glory (or more likely, a chance to surrender or run like hell).

And if the heroes can guarantee giving out 35+ every time, that means you can leave Joe's numbers alone and still get the same end result...so why change them?



> Hitpoints have no fictional reality in game.



No, but they are a representation of something that does: Joe's toughness.  Not his toughness in relation to any specific thing else, but his toughness in relation to everything else put together.  And as PCs count as part of 'everything else put together' no matter what level they might be, Joe's intrinsic toughness doesn't change.



> They're a pacing mechanism to control how fast you get through a fight (or lose one).  As such, they're as malleable as encounters per day or days for a trip -- the exact number has no reality, only the applied pacing does.  This goes to minions not having fewer hitpoints being a violation of previously established fictional reality -- hitpoints never hit the stage in the fiction, so to speak -- but instead just being an alteration of the game pacing mechanisms.  The fictional result is that the heroes cause swordinnahead to Joe, either at the end of his hipoints, where previous "successes" have no fixed reality except to move closer to swordinnahead, or because they're minions and any successful hit causes swordinnahead.



Realistically, Joe's up against swordinnahead no matter what - the question is one of the underlying mechanics that get him there, and how (or if, even) those underlying mechanics relate to everything else other than just the one particular combat between Joe and a 17th-level warrior.

Let's say the same 17th-level warrior, after finishing off poor Joe, rolls up the line and finds her next opponent to be Bob, a 1st-level PC with less going for him than Joe had; Bob's staring down swordinnahead probably faster than Joe got it. But because Bob's a PC his numbers wouldn't change in the slightest - they're locked in to what it says on his character sheet.  So why in the name of mechanical and internal consistency isn't the same true for Joe?  Joe's every bit as much an inhabitant of the game world as Bob is and deserves the same consideration - his numbers are what they are and are locked in, and if Ms. 17th can still chop him down in one swing then so be it.  The only difference at the table is that on a hit Ms. 17th's player will have to roll the damage dice to make sure she gives out enough to finish Joe off.


----------



## Lanefan

pemerton said:


> Not to bang too hard on the same drum, but 4e is not a game in which the numbers "represent" or "reflect" any fiction. They are an action resolutoin device.
> 
> I'll requote from Vincent Baker to emphasise the point:
> 
> Roleplaying is negotiated imagination. In order for any thing to be true in game, all the participants in the game (players _and_ GMs, if you've even got such things) have to understand and assent to it. When you're roleplaying, what you're doing is a) suggesting things that might be true in the game and then b) negotiating with the other participants to determine whether they're actually true or not. . . .
> 
> Mechanics might model the stuff of the game world, that's another topic, but they don't exist to do so. They exist to ease and constrain real-world social negotiation between the players at the table. That's their sole and crucial function.​



What Mr. Baker fails to note in that quote (though for all I know addresses it elsewhere) is that the numbers serve another purpose: they provide the framework via which the players (and GM) can quantify elements of the fiction that need quantifying in order to give a playable game: base stats, combat skill levels, toughness, armour, etc.  Put another way, you say the numbers in 4e aren't a model of the fiction, but if they aren't then how are the players (and the GM, for that matter) expected to mechanically interact with the fiction on any sort of internally-consistent basis - what model can they use, if not the numbers?

The numbers aren't always absolutes in and of themselves, but what they do accomplish is to define relative differences between one thing and the next...and (here's the key bit) the next and the next and the next, *all at once*.  

This is the key bit why, you ask?  Because, using good ol' Joe the bugbear from the last post, Joe's 35 hit points tell us his relative toughness in comparison to every other creature in the game world...including but by no means limited to whatever he's fighting at the moment.  Joe's 7 intelligence gives us a good idea of how smart he is not only in relation to other bugbears but in relation to the world at large.  His current AC of 15 (or 5 if using descending AC)* tells us how difficult it'll be to get through his amrour and hurt him, no matter who or what is attacking.

* - of these three examples, this one lines up best with narration and imagination: it's pretty easy just on simple first glance to narrate armour so as to give everyone a reasonably good idea how well-defended a creature might be...which means by extension if a creature's AC changes later, there has to be a corresponding change in the fiction to account for this - better armour, or some (maybe lootable!) magical protection, or something.  Changing the AC without suitably changing the fiction makes a mockery of it all - it's like a codified version of a GM pulling numbers out of thin air just because she can.

Now, how does this relate to locking in the numbers?  Simple.  Joe might be a pushover when faced with a 17th level warrior but his toughness relative to the rest of the world hasn't changed; and the GM can't just change that on a whim without a good in-fiction rationale.

But that's only part of the equation here...



> 4e's combat mechanics - hp, to hit numbers, damage, defences - are an action resolution framework. They are not a model of the fiction.
> 
> The numbers in 4e are a resolution system. When the resolution is different - eg the bugbear is facing PCs who are far more powerful than it - a resolution system is adopted that gives expression to this. All the numbers - defences, to hit, damage and hp - are changed. (*You seem to be focusing only on the hp - I don't know why.*)
> 
> 4e's mechanics have nothing to do with "consistently interacting with the rest of the ficitonal world". That is not action resolution. It is not establishig the shared fiction by way of negotiation. Given that 4e is a relatively traditional RPG in its allocations of authority, the GM just makes that stuff up.
> 
> Bugbears are made of flesh, not sand.
> 
> And as has been mentioned a few times in this thread already, 4e is _ficiton first_. The players' know the fiction in the same way that they know the fiction of a film or novel - from imagination and description.



And the other part of the equation is this: all too often imagination and description simply aren't good enough, even if the GM gives the most in-depth narration you can conceive.  Why's that?  Because narrating the same scene to four different people is almost certainly going to paint four different pictures, one each in the imagination of each listener.  And when you add that none of those pictures might match the actual picture the narrator is trying to describe, unless the narrator has a drawing or photo of the scene to bring everyone together you're inevitably going to get questions and misunderstandings; which IME can lead to some thunderous arguments if players base their actions on imagined or mis-interpreted scene elements that differ from what the narrator had in mind.

Numbers can help with this, and maps, and all those other so-called fiddly things.  Still probably not perfect, but better than before.

And that's just a scene.  Now think about trying to narrate things that can't so easily be pictured, such as (on first observation) a creature's toughness or intelligence or combat skill relative to the rest of the world.  Here's where numbers become essential, not so much to help the narration but to guide the GM (usually, but sometimes the players) in playing and-or interacting with that creature and in what makes it tick, just like a player uses the numbers on a character's sheet as a mechanical representation of what that character's all about.

And for this mechanical representation of the fiction to work in any sort of consistent and trustworthy manner, the numbers, once set, have to remain so unless something materially changes about the creature**.  The players have to be able to trust that the setting is internally consistent enough in its mechanics that the ogre they met (and fled from!) at 1st level is mechanically going to be the same when they meet it again at 15th level, or when they go back to town and send their bosses out after it.

** - just like a PC.

Re the bolded bit in the quote above: I focus on h.p. as it's the most egregious and obvious change to a creature's stats caused by minionizing it.


----------



## Lanefan

pemerton said:


> I think your metaphor is not that helpful.
> 
> Taken on its own terms, it presupposes that we are in the boat trying to get somewhere. But what if we're not? What if we just want to enjoy sitting in a boat? Then there's no need to steer.



Fair enough, but if nobody steers the boat (which by implication also means nobody pays attention to where it's going) then one of several things will inevitably happen at some point:
 - the boat will aimlessly drift on the tide* 
 - the boat will get pushed into danger, or run aground, by the tide or by its own propulsion
 - the boat will, assuming the presence of the right equipment, steer itself on autopilot*

* - until either the boat runs out of fuel/wind or those sitting on said boat run out of beer.



> But more importantly, I think it's inapt for RPGing. There are options in RPGing other than setting out to author a story or passively doing nothing. [MENTION=16586]Campbell[/MENTION] said "follow the fiction like a dog after a bone". I don't know much about dogs, but that doesn't sound passive to me. It seems active. And single-minded. And focused on a here-and-now rather than a long-term project or an ultimate destination.



Depends how far away the bone is, I suppose.


----------



## Lanefan

Umbran said:


> The published numbers and game stats are, I think, intended to be a decent general purpose representation.  I don't think they are intended to be "the best" for all scenarios.  When I assemble a particular encounter, I'm going to choose the representation that fits the need of the moment, not necessarily the Monster Manual standard.



I agree with this, as long as there's some consistency in the end result and that exceptions are or become clearly evident as such.



> For the most part, unless there's a good reason, sure.  I'd agree that, once I've rolled initiative, I'm not going to suddenly change it from a standard bugbear to a mook bugbear.  I'll be using whichever representation I started with for the rest of that fight/encounter  to represent the creature.
> 
> But, if something in the narrative calls for it, I might change the bugbear's status between encounters, especially if those encounters are notably separate in time.  The Mook, if they earn a name, might become a standard bugbear.  And then might even get enhanced stats or even class levels if the interactions with the party warrant a more prominent state in the fiction that calls for a more detailed representation.



And this is fine, as the changes you're making in the numbers reflect a material change to the bugbear in the fiction: it learned how to fight and gained some skills, just as would be the case for a PC.  All is cool. 



> 1) I think the "invalidate the setting" is hyperbole.  You may violate their expectations if the overall and long-term effect is markedly different.  But one encounter is not going to suddenly dash the whole setting on the rocks.  Players are smart.  They can get the idea that a thing may have different mechanical representations.



And at the same time be thoroughly put off by it.



> 2) Why we'd do this was noted a long time back.  The full representation *has more bookkeeping*, and bookkeeping is pretty boring, and slows play down.



If it serves the integrity of the game to do the bookkeeping then do the flippin' bookkeeping. 



> So, we might choose to ditch the full representation when it doesn't actually add much to the game.  It is a solid reason related to the quality of play for everyone at the table.



As long as it's done in full awareness of all involved that the cost of doing so is paid via integrity of the fiction (and thus, the game) and believability of the setting then fill yer boots.  Problem is, that's a cost that many aren't prepared to pay and that many more don't even realize is being levied.


----------



## Ovinomancer

Lanefan said:


> What this does is blow away the very real possibility that while the high-level heroes can do 35+ hit points that doesn't mean they're every time going to on a successful hit; the dice might say 24, meaning Joe gets one more chance at glory (or more likely, a chance to surrender or run like hell).
> 
> And if the heroes can guarantee giving out 35+ every time, that means you can leave Joe's numbers alone and still get the same end result...so why change them?
> 
> No, but they are a representation of something that does: Joe's toughness.  Not his toughness in relation to any specific thing else, but his toughness in relation to everything else put together.  And as PCs count as part of 'everything else put together' no matter what level they might be, Joe's intrinsic toughness doesn't change.




No, they don't represent Joe's toughness.  They're an arbitrary number meant to provide pacing. This is why it's so hard to actually define what hitpoints are in the fiction -- are they meat, or skill, or divine protection, or armor, or luck?  Or all of that?  If luck, why can't luck change because you've run into seriously powerful heroes and your luck has run out?

Hit points just pace fights.  They don't represent anything.  You yourself are fine with variable hitpoints for the same creature type -- Joe's brother can have many more or many less hitpoints than Joe.  This isn't because Joe's brother is less tough -- his stats otherwise are the same.  Joe's brother has the same saves, the same damage, the same AC, all the same except Joe's brother's pacing time to swordinnahead is less.


> Realistically, Joe's up against swordinnahead no matter what - the question is one of the underlying mechanics that get him there, and how (or if, even) those underlying mechanics relate to everything else other than just the one particular combat between Joe and a 17th-level warrior.
> 
> Let's say the same 17th-level warrior, after finishing off poor Joe, rolls up the line and finds her next opponent to be Bob, a 1st-level PC with less going for him than Joe had; Bob's staring down swordinnahead probably faster than Joe got it. But because Bob's a PC his numbers wouldn't change in the slightest - they're locked in to what it says on his character sheet.  So why in the name of mechanical and internal consistency isn't the same true for Joe?  Joe's every bit as much an inhabitant of the game world as Bob is and deserves the same consideration - his numbers are what they are and are locked in, and if Ms. 17th can still chop him down in one swing then so be it.  The only difference at the table is that on a hit Ms. 17th's player will have to roll the damage dice to make sure she gives out enough to finish Joe off.




Joe is not the same as Bob.  I mean, we can already tell this because Joe doesn't get XP, or have rolled stats, or a class.  You're focusing on hp as if this is the one true thread throughout while ignoring all the other things that cut against this argument.


----------



## Campbell

Umbran said:


> I disagree, insofar as this is stated as if someone is dictatorially declaiming all the details and results.  Really, *EVERYBODY* gets to decide how things should go.
> 
> The idea that somehow, the play goes forward with *nobody having any influence* on how it goes would be... nonsensical and counterfactual.  It files in the face of how, for example, the GM generally decides what the antagonists are, and what themes to introduce when they put up complications, and such.  The GM has huge say in the way things go.  So, while they may not determine all results, if someone is going to claim that somehow the GM has no influence on the path of the game, we can just stop now.
> 
> So, what we are really talking is a continuum of influence on the path of the game, raging from "zero" to "I am just writing a novel by myself".  And any particular game will have some admixture of influences among the participants.  We are quibbling over where the dial sits, but stating it in absolute terms of "all or nothing", which, as far as I am concerned, gets in the way of understanding.




I did not say nobody influences the fiction. All players (including the GM) should have an impact on the fiction. I am saying that nobody should seek to take control of it or decide how it should go ahead of time. I am emphatically not talking about distribution of authority here. I am talking about everyone at the table making a principled decision to avoid story advocacy, play to find out what happens, be a fan of all the characters, and being curious explorers of the fiction. I am talking about the principles behind player (including the GM) decision making here.

I have no issues with a strong GM role. Most of the games I play and run assume a strong GM. Apocalypse World, Sorcerer, and Blades in the Dark all have a strong GM role. I think GM judgement is important in roleplaying games. I even run some more traditional games like Demon - The Descent, Exalted 3e, FFG Legend of the 5 Rings, etc. I have to ignore the story advocacy stuff there, but they all have a strong GM role. What's far more important to me are the principles behind the decisions the GM makes. Are they providing honest adversity? Are they trying to push the characters in a particular direction? Are they curious and excited about the fiction? Are they fans of the PCs?

It is my earnest opinion that a game that is centered on character advocacy and playing to find out what happens is a difference in kind and not degree from one that is focused on story advocacy from either the GMs or players and it mostly comes down to the principles of play rather than divisions of authority.


----------



## pemerton

Campbell said:


> I did not say nobody influences the fiction. All players (including the GM) should have an impact on the fiction. I am saying that nobody should seek to take control of it or decide how it should go ahead of time. I am emphatically not talking about distribution of authority here.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> It is my earnest opinion that a game that is centered on character advocacy and playing to find out what happens is a difference in kind and not degree from one that is focused on story advocacy from either the GMs or players and it mostly comes down to the principles of play rather than divisions of authority.



I think I have a pretty clear handle on what you're describing.

I'm curious about some applications.

I'll start with one sort of instance, which in my own experience I'm associating with Burning Wheel and 4e D&D play: the GM draws on PC relationships and belliefs/convictions (whether formally stated as in BW, or more likely informally presented as in 4e) to frame a situation, or to establish the outcome of a failed check, with an eye on provoking future conflict/adversity.

Eg in BW the PC (and the player of the PC) discovers a dark secret about an important relationship.

Is this too close to story advocacy for your taste?


----------



## Campbell

pemerton said:


> I think I have a pretty clear handle on what you're describing.
> 
> I'm curious about some applications.
> 
> I'll start with one sort of instance, which in my own experience I'm associating with Burning Wheel and 4e D&D play: the GM draws on PC relationships and belliefs/convictions (whether formally stated as in BW, or more likely informally presented as in 4e) to frame a situation, or to establish the outcome of a failed check, with an eye on provoking future conflict/adversity.
> 
> Eg in BW the PC (and the player of the PC) discovers a dark secret about an important relationship.
> 
> Is this too close to story advocacy for your taste?




Generally no. Framing is crucial and part of a GM's job is to sustain conflict and keep the fiction interesting, but I probably favor a somewhat more naturalistic approach when it comes to complications. The important bit for me is approaching it more with a sense of curiosity of what could happen. It should still be interesting. If characters are doing interesting things it will be. I like Burning Wheel, but I am at times a little wary of *Always Drive Play Towards Conflict*. Like sometimes it's okay to let things settle down so we can spend some time just getting to know these characters. That's my favorite part of Blades in the Dark downtime.

This post from Play Passionately kind of gets at it.



			
				 Jesse Burneko said:
			
		

> *Walk, Don’t Run To Conflict
> 
> *
> Fictional conflict is often the centerpiece of game design and as such the texts advocate “getting to the conflicts.” I believe that historically texts have over emphasized this central point from bad play experiences characterized by players spending whole sessions describing their characters shopping or having their characters sitting around chatting about their fictional lives. These kinds of play experiences were sometimes lauded as “incredible” because “we never had to roll the dice.” The central play skill was *avoiding* conflicts so as not to resort to “roll-playing.” These texts were written to show that dramatic confrontations that turned on die roll could be as emotionally engaging as any “pure” role-playing experience.
> 
> 
> Unfortunately this idea of “driving to conflict” has been taken to a problematic extreme. What I’ve observed is groups struggling to introduce conflict into a scene if it appears that scene is about to end without one. The central play skill has shifted to *making* conflicts. This leads to all kinds of weird pseudo-conflicts over things like whether or not someone realizes something, or notices something or even feels one way or another or worse whether it’s ninjas or pirates that attack. They feel forced and contrived… and that’s because they are.
> 
> 
> It comes down to the fact that play can be about “driving to conflict” without every single scene having a conflict in it. Indeed, for conflict to occur characters must have things over which they conflict. The difference between the kind of role-playing that early indie-texts were afraid of and good solid story building role-playing is that the scenes without conflicts point towards what conflicts will arise later. These non-conflict scenes establish key beliefs, priorities, loyalties, and passions which later elements of the narrative will threaten. With out scenes that first establish and then later update and develop these character elements “conflict” is essentially a meaningless term.
> 
> 
> 
> When you let go of the “must have conflict NOW” urge then play progresses much more smoothly and much more naturally. Establishing scenes becomes more about feeding curiosity, “I’d like to see how X and Y interact” or follow up action, “Given what’s just happened I’d like my character to do X.” The play skill involved becomes about *identifying* conflicts when they occur.
> 
> 
> Sit back. Relax. Play Passionately.


----------



## Manbearcat

Its interesting [MENTION=16586]Campbell[/MENTION].  You've expressed more thoughts as of late on your playstyle preferences.

Its made me wonder whether you would enjoy playing in my games or not.  I'm not sure you would.  The codified part of games such as Reflection in Dogs, Downtime in Blades, Town phase in Torchbearer, and certain aspects of Seasons in Mouse Guard (tantamount to Downtime) express the sort of "slow down and don't drive play toward conflict" you're advocating for in your most recent post.  I'm confident that you would enjoy the games I run in those systems (due to the phase-nature of play).

While we played that short 4e game and Dungeon World game together, I'm not certain that you would enjoy my home games in those systems (or Apocalypse World or Strike(!) ).  

I think its very likely that the pace of play in my "non-phase games" is likely an extreme minority taste.  Certainly most people on these boards wouldn't enjoy my games and, interestingly, I'm thinking that you likely wouldn't for similar, but somewhat different, reasons (in a Venn Diagram there would be some minor overlap).


----------



## Campbell

[MENTION=6696971]Manbearcat[/MENTION]

It's hard to tell. My enjoyment of a given game is so dependent on the players, characters and situations involved that one mix might work even if the pacing was quicker than is usually ideal while another game closer to my ideal pace might not work for me. There's really no way to make sure a game will work out before hand. You just have to try it. Like that 4e game hit all the right notes for me, but even with the slower pace I wasn't feeling Lucann in the Dungeon World game. You are probably right it would not be an ideal fit. I tend to be solidly on what Vincent Baker calls the left hand side of the Forge while I expect you and pemerton are in the middle.


----------



## Campbell

Lanefan said:


> Fair enough, but if nobody steers the boat (which by implication also means nobody pays attention to where it's going) then one of several things will inevitably happen at some point:
> - the boat will aimlessly drift on the tide*
> - the boat will get pushed into danger, or run aground, by the tide or by its own propulsion
> - the boat will, assuming the presence of the right equipment, steer itself on autopilot*
> 
> * - until either the boat runs out of fuel/wind or those sitting on said boat run out of beer.




Imagine that we stole the boat and if anything should happen to the boat we can just steal another one.

My personal take is that the game and these characters have no intrinsic value. Their value is in the experience we get in play. If we use them up, if they have nothing left to say, or if we no longer have an interest in following this particular fiction there are always more games and more characters. We're on a joyride here. In order to get the most of them we cannot protect them. Sometimes we get 6 sessions. Sometimes 12. Sometimes 100. There's no way to tell and we wouldn't want to if we tried.

I have been in games before where we have tried to hold onto the characters and situation well past their expiration date because of the sunk cost fallacy. Like no one was excited about the characters or what was going on. That just going through the motions thing feels like a bad relationship or a dead end job. Ever watch a TV show where they should have ended it like 3 seasons ago?


----------



## Umbran

Campbell said:


> I did not say nobody influences the fiction.




I know.  I was setting it up to knock it down, to point out that "zero influence on story direction" doesn't exist.  This gets us past the usual polar divide that the internet drives conversation to, and perhaps into a better place to discuss the middle ground.



> I am saying that nobody should seek to take control of it or decide how it should go ahead of time. I am emphatically not talking about distribution of authority here. I am talking about everyone at the table making a principled decision to avoid story advocacy, play to find out what happens, be a fan of all the characters, and being curious explorers of the fiction. I am talking about the principles behind player (including the GM) decision making here.




I don't think anyone can actually go to *zero* story advocacy.  The GM, especially - the GM is in fact pretty much always engaged in at least short-term story advocacy, implicitly.  Every framing of a scene is gong to be advocacy for the type of story that's going to happen in that scene.  



> Are they providing honest adversity? Are they trying to push the characters in a particular direction? Are they curious and excited about the fiction? Are they fans of the PCs?




The only one of these that is in question in this discussion is about pushing characters in a particular direction. 



> It is my earnest opinion that a game that is centered on character advocacy and playing to find out what happens is a difference in kind and not degree from one that is focused on story advocacy from either the GMs or players ...




I think that there's difference in degree, because, really, as human beings, some amount of desire for the story to go one way or another is going to show up in the decisions.  Purity of thought is denied us.  Someone's going to go, "oh, wait, wouldn't it be cool if..." and make character decisions with that in mind.  

It is my earnest opinion that dogma at the RPG table is a limiter of fun.  If you want to talk about guidelines and frameworks, sure.  But those things need a lot of bend and flex, or we deny ourselves the ability to reach a lot of fun for the sake of purity.


----------



## aramis erak

GrahamWills said:


> Actually, no, I stated "I agree with the generally-stated position that the more system you have, the more apt it is to break immersion."; what I actually stated is that I find DitV's system less breaking than PbtA's version. Not that either is more immersive than no system at all.




Not everyone shares that reductio... 

When I'm in an RP with no rules, I'm constantly trying to figure where the verisimilitude cliff is... 

I find it actually harder to stay in character without framed constraints, and without an estimable  chance of success.

In short, I generate game whether the mechanics are agreed upon or not, and don't enjoy not knowing the mechanics, or at least components of acceptance decision trees...


----------



## Campbell

I like fun as much as the next guy, but there are multiple types of fun. Not all types of fun can meaningfully coexist in the same game.

I realize that we all have the impulse towards story advocacy, to seize control of narrative. Real full throated character advocacy requires a certain amount of emotional vulnerability and discipline. We all have hopes and dreams for our characters. That's normal, but by embracing character advocacy in the moment we get to follow these characters down a road where we get to see who they really are. As fans we get to see them put through the crucible and experience real tension as to how things will turn out for them. 

When we start making decisions for the sake of story we create emotional distance, undermine tension, and decide we know what's best for everyone at the table. As a player when the GM undermines the rules or does not play their NPCs with integrity fr the sake of the story it destroys tension. Nothing feels authentic. More importantly they are not going on this journey with me. Same thing when another player makes decisions based on what they want to have happen. I can't play with the sort of emotional investment I want to if the other players are not approaching play with the same level of emotional vulnerability and commitment to their characters. Same thing from the other side of the screen. It's hard to be a fan of the character if the player is not putting their energy into playing him or her with integrity as if they were a real person.

Like I have played plenty of games where story advocacy is on the table and was able to enjoy myself, but not in the way I really want to. I am not going to invest deeply in a character if there is not a reciprocal relationship. It does not feel safe to me.  As a player I have felt what it's like when a GM has decided what my character's narrative arc should be. As a GM I have dealt with players who were upset by how dice rolls "defined their character". Both experiences were not positive for me. Those experiences have been rare, luckily.

Having preferences born of experience and dissatisfaction with mainstream games is not dogma. I'm not standing here telling everyone they should play a certain way. No one calls someone dogmatic because they want to play poker rather euchre. No one calls someone dogmatic because they prefer Overwatch to World of Warcraft.

The alternative that everyone should accept story advocacy into their games is dogmatic. It effectively is saying we all need to accept the mainstream approach.


----------



## pemerton

Campbell said:


> I tend to be solidly on what Vincent Baker calls the left hand side of the Forge while I expect you and pemerton are in the middle.



I don't know this terminology - can you elaborate?

Re your posts about pace and conflict and "downtime", do you have any/much play experience with Cortex+ Heroic/MHRP? It has some features I suspect you wouldn't like - eg you generally have to pay metagame currency ("plot points") to significantly exploit fictional positioning - and it also has a very high degree of "drive towards conflict" (perhaps as befits its 4-colour inspiration).

As I've become more experienced in GMing it, and also from a close read of published scenarios, I've become more comfortable with a range of techniques for ameliorating some implications of these features. But they're still there.


----------



## pemerton

I think story advocacy can be hard to resist, though I'm more familiar with it on the GM side than the player side ("player side railroading").

The games I play tend to lean heavily on the GM to narrate failure consequences. And because - to date - those don't include PbtA games except some fairly brief DW expereind, they don't tend to have the systematic approach to generating fiction/backstory that is part of those games, which tends to feed into a principled narration of failures.

That's not to say that my failure narration in (say) BW or Classic Traveller is _unprincipled_, but it's much more at large than (I think) PbtA would make it. (And this is what prompted me not far upthread to ask [MENTION=16586]Campbell[/MENTION] about approaches to framing conflicts.)

If there were no mechanics to impose discipline then I think it would be even harder to avoid story advocacy. Mechanics are what produce strange PC failures that push things where we weren't expecting, or produce sudden ends to NPCs and their plots. Upthread [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION] voiced concern about "bypassing challenges" by their deployment of (especially non-combat) mechanics. That seems to be a strong version of story advocacy - that we _have to_ play through this stuff if the game is to be what it is supposed to be.


----------



## pemerton

Lanefan said:


> What this does is blow away the very real possibility that while the high-level heroes can do 35+ hit points that doesn't mean they're every time going to on a successful hit; the dice might say 24, meaning Joe gets one more chance at glory (or more likely, a chance to surrender or run like hell).



Do you feel the same concern for the 1 hp kobold or orc or goblin in all those old modules? I mean, why can't those PCs just do 1/2 a point of damage and let those humanoids have one more chance at glory?

No system for combat resolution is infinitely granular. Boundries are drawn and limits on variability set. I mean, there's a chance that any outdoor combat will be disrupted by sudden torrential rain, but I don't know any RPG that expressly provides for this in its combat resolution system.

Your particluar concernt about 4e's minions is purely aesthetic. You're not showing that any inconsistencies have arisen or will arise.



Lanefan said:


> Let's say the same 17th-level warrior, after finishing off poor Joe, rolls up the line and finds her next opponent to be Bob, a 1st-level PC with less going for him than Joe had; Bob's staring down swordinnahead probably faster than Joe got it. But because Bob's a PC his numbers wouldn't change in the slightest - they're locked in to what it says on his character sheet.  So why in the name of mechanical and internal consistency isn't the same true for Joe?



The notion of "internal consistency" does no work here. By "mechanical consistency" I assume you mean something like _unchanging mechanical framing of the resolution_. In which case your example makes no sense. If your 4e D&D game involves a 17th level PC fighting a 1st level PC the system has nothing to offer you. You're on your own.

Much the same as you can't use the AD&D mechanics to resolve the difference between taking one or three slaps of a shoe to kill that spider you found in your bedroll.



Lanefan said:


> they are a representation of something that does: Joe's toughness.  Not his toughness in relation to any specific thing else, but his toughness in relation to everything else put together.





Lanefan said:


> What Mr. Baker fails to note in that quote (though for all I know addresses it elsewhere) is that the numbers serve another purpose: they provide the framework via which the players (and GM) can quantify elements of the fiction that need quantifying in order to give a playable game: base stats, combat skill levels, toughness, armour, etc.  Put another way, you say the numbers in 4e aren't a model of the fiction, but if they aren't then how are the players (and the GM, for that matter) expected to mechanically interact with the fiction on any sort of internally-consistent basis - what model can they use, if not the numbers?



The numbers are not a model. They're a resolution system.

The players and GM interact mechanically by deploying the resolution system. That verges on tautological, but I don't know what else you are asking.



Lanefan said:


> The numbers aren't always absolutes in and of themselves, but what they do accomplish is to define relative differences between one thing and the next
> 
> <snip>
> 
> Joe's 35 hit points tell us his relative toughness in comparison to every other creature in the game world...including but by no means limited to whatever he's fighting at the moment.



This simply isn't true in 4e.

An 8th level Ogre Savage has AC 19 and 111 hp. A 16th level Ogre Bludgeoneer has AC 28 and 1 hp (and never takes damage on a miss, because a minion). Which is tougher?

It's a trick question - they're of the same toughness, each wearing hide armour and wielding a greatclub, but statted differently for different resolution contexs.



Lanefan said:


> Joe might be a pushover when faced with a 17th level warrior but his toughness relative to the rest of the world hasn't changed



This is the same for the ogre savage and ogre bludgeoneer. There toughness relative to the rest of the world is what it is. It is a feature of the fiction. It doesn't need to be statted out. That's not what stats are for - they're not tools for zoologists and ecologists, they're tools for players of a game wishing to resolve action declaratoins in that game.



Lanefan said:


> all too often imagination and description simply aren't good enough, even if the GM gives the most in-depth narration you can conceive.  Why's that?  Because narrating the same scene to four different people is almost certainly going to paint four different pictures, one each in the imagination of each listener.  And when you add that none of those pictures might match the actual picture the narrator is trying to describe, unless the narrator has a drawing or photo of the scene to bring everyone together you're inevitably going to get questions and misunderstandings; which IME can lead to some thunderous arguments if players base their actions on imagined or mis-interpreted scene elements that differ from what the narrator had in mind.



Give me a concrete example, from actual play, of someone being confused about the fiction of an ogre because it was statted as a 16th level minion rather than an 8th level standard. Until you do, I simpy don't believe that this is an issue.



Lanefan said:


> And for this mechanical representation of the fiction to work in any sort of consistent and trustworthy manner, the numbers, once set, have to remain so unless something materially changes about the creature**.  The players have to be able to trust that the setting is internally consistent enough in its mechanics that the ogre they met (and fled from!) at 1st level is mechanically going to be the same when they meet it again at 15th level, or when they go back to town and send their bosses out after it.



Again, present me with an actual play example that actually proves this.

I've played a 4e game in which the same players, playing the same PCs, have fought hobgoblins statted as standard creatures (the PCs were around mid-heroic tier) and as minions and swarms in the form of hobgoblin phalanxes (the PCs were around mid-paragon tier). The players did not confused. They were not unable to trust the setting. On the contrary this helped confirm their sense of the setting - PCs who once had been well-matched by a single hobgobling could now leap into the midst of a phalanx of hobgoblins and cut them down. The phalanxes could replenish their numbers and thus their fighting strength by incorporating stray hobgoblins (mechanically: the swarm can kill an adjacent hobgobling minion to heal).

The issues you assert will arise do not. The fiction is clear. The resolution process is clear. No on is confused or misled. There are no inconsistencies, neither in the fiction nor at the table.

Your assertion that minions produce inconsistency in the fiction is completely without foundation. They do produce a difference between how 4e mechanics work and your own aesthetic preference. But that's not an inconsistency in anyone's fiction.


----------



## Campbell

The idea that we have to have representative mechanics to produce an internally consistent fiction is an interesting one to me. Some of the games I play only recommend stating out the parts of the NPC required in the game. So like we don't need combat stats for a teacher. Sometimes for trivial opponents they might resolve combat with a single roll. Several games take the same take that 4e takes where the important bit is reflecting ability relative to PCs. Exalted 3e calls out its abstractions and gives advice on when you should treat an NPC as scenery, trivial, part of a battle group, quick character, or as a fully statted character.

The really interesting thing to me is several games I play do not even feature NPC stats as a function of play. Sorcerer and Blades in the Dark lack any creature stats at all. Blades does not even have a combat system at all. Instead it relies on the GM using the same systems and judgement they use for every other situation to adequately reflect the fiction. Really this is how most mainstream games handle non-combat => GM takes into account fictional positioning to resolve what's going on in the fiction. I don't see many people claiming that the setting is made of paper because of that.

Sometimes these details even expand beyond NPCs to PC capabilities. In Masks we do not have any mechanical representation of a PC's powers. We handle everything through fictional positioning because the game is not about those details. I have never felt the setting was made of sand because of that. In Monsterhearts there are no rules for how strong or fast your PC is because that's like not what the game is about. We figure it out if it comes up.


----------



## Campbell

pemerton said:


> I don't know this terminology - can you elaborate?
> 
> Re your posts about pace and conflict and "downtime", do you have any/much play experience with Cortex+ Heroic/MHRP? It has some features I suspect you wouldn't like - eg you generally have to pay metagame currency ("plot points") to significantly exploit fictional positioning - and it also has a very high degree of "drive towards conflict" (perhaps as befits its 4-colour inspiration).
> 
> As I've become more experienced in GMing it, and also from a close read of published scenarios, I've become more comfortable with a range of techniques for ameliorating some implications of these features. But they're still there.




There was a chart that basically goes from left to right where games like Dogs in the Vineyard, Grey Ranks, and Sorcerer were on the far left and games like Primetime Adventures and Day Trippers were on the far right. The left hand side were games that retained a fairly traditional GM and player relationship and were solidly focused on character advocacy. The games on the right were more experimental, directly modeled narrative structures, and had a less direct relationship between player and character.

I own Marvel Heroic and have played in a few short games of. I had fun with it, but it was difficult to identify with my character and really step into their shoes. The extent to which narrative structures are built into the rules and the way fictional positioning worked took me out of it. If I was going to play it again I doubt I would try to go to that place. Definitely not an ideal game for me. Less egregious than Fate, but not the game for me.


----------



## Umbran

Campbell said:


> Imagine that we stole the boat and if anything should happen to the boat we can just steal another one.




Ugh.  That analogy doesn't serve you well here. 

Stealing suggests that someone's not going to be happy with us for taking the boat.  That means there's risk, there will be consequences.  We undertake a risk only if we have a purpose worth the risk.  Unless we are young and stupid, we are probably not going to take the risk of stealing the boat to float aimlessly down the river.  We are going to steal the boat when we have a purpose of going somewhere specific for which the boat is useful.  



> My personal take is that the game and these characters have no intrinsic value. Their value is in the experience we get in play. If we use them up, if they have nothing left to say, or if we no longer have an interest in following this particular fiction there are always more games and more characters.




That's fine.  For you.

The interesting point in this is the "if we use them up".   That's not what is happening in this analogy.  It is more, "if they get caught in an eddy or run aground and won't go any farther".  Those of us willing to steer are not going to end up in many backwaters by happenstance, and if we do, we can always gt ourselves back into a notable current.



> We're on a joyride here. In order to get the most of them we cannot protect them. Sometimes we get 6 sessions. Sometimes 12. Sometimes 100. There's no way to tell and we wouldn't want to if we tried.




Who is this "we"?  

If you want to say, "I am on a joyride here," I am more than fine with that.  But, the fact that folks disagree with you suggests there's no general, "we".


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## Campbell

When I use we in my posts I'm generally talking about the playgroup. I'm trying to reinforce the collaborative nature of what we (the play group) are doing. That it is a journey we are all on together and how we individually play affects each other. 

If you are not sitting down at the table with me I really don't care how you play - like at all. I mean I hope everyone tries different games and gets a chance to have diverse experiences.


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## Ovinomancer

Umbran said:


> Ugh.  That analogy doesn't serve you well here.
> 
> Stealing suggests that someone's not going to be happy with us for taking the boat.  That means there's risk, there will be consequences.  We undertake a risk only if we have a purpose worth the risk.  Unless we are young and stupid, we are probably not going to take the risk of stealing the boat to float aimlessly down the river.  We are going to steal the boat when we have a purpose of going somewhere specific for which the boat is useful.
> 
> 
> 
> That's fine.  For you.
> 
> The interesting point in this is the "if we use them up".   That's not what is happening in this analogy.  It is more, "if they get caught in an eddy or run aground and won't go any farther".  Those of us willing to steer are not going to end up in many backwaters by happenstance, and if we do, we can always gt ourselves back into a notable current.
> 
> 
> 
> Who is this "we"?
> 
> If you want to say, "I am on a joyride here," I am more than fine with that.  But, the fact that folks disagree with you suggests there's no general, "we".



Goodness.  Where on the character sheet did the non-D&D ganes touch you?


----------



## Campbell

I have always been upfront about the substantive risks in Playing Passionately (I'll use this instead of Playing With Integrity).

The first risk is the creative risk. The alchemy of these particular characters, setting, and situation might not result in a fiction the group feels like following. I mean the risk is there too in more mainstream play, but techniques can be used to make it more palatable.  My own feelings here is that I would rather drop something that isn't working than have to actively manage the game. Like we can try something else next week.

The second risk is an emotional risk. Players are called on to really embody their characters and actively advocate for them. This requires emotional vulnerability and has the potential to lead to hurt feelings especially in games like Monsterhearts or My Life With Master where some pretty personal and dark stuff can be at play. Also since we are all fans of these characters we grow to care for them, but as fans we cannot protect them. Emotional safety techniques can be really important especially when PCs are at odds. Story advocacy lets groups deal with similar issues with more emotional distance, but I would argue that distance means they are not really experiencing the same thing.

So what do we (the playgroup) gain for these risks?

We get to experience the unbridled authentic version of these characters. Each player gets to push hard and advocate fully for their character. They get to feel what they feel and play to find out who they really are under adversity. As fans of these characters we get to go on the journey with them, see who they become even when its unpleasant. We also know that redemption is legitimate and hard won.

We get to feel the tension of the conflicts in the game. Because we know the adversity is honest and no one will step in as an audience we all get to experience the dramatic tension involved and know that it is real, that anything could happen. Also because we take our time getting there we all know what's at stake. Playing to find out what happens is a lot of fun.

The GM gets to focus on honest adversity and providing context. They do not need to manage the game or the players. They get to sit back and bring it. With no plots to worry about they get to authentically play the world and provide antagonism. They get to play too.

*Addendum:* This play style is definitely not for everyone. It can be very intense and requires a lot of discipline from all participants. You can't be too attached to outcomes and things probably won't turn out the way you want. Usually I find the end result is better than what any of us could come up with alone, but the end result is not the point. What we experience in play is what matters.


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## Campbell

I will be frank here. A lot of players are not looking for the same sort of experience as I am. A lot of players like having a safety net. A lot of players are looking to fulfill a certain story arc. A lot of players like to follow along with a GM plot. A lot of players are not looking for real tension. A lot of players like maintaining emotional distance from their characters.

So one huge drawback of Playing Passionately is that passive players really have no place. If I'm running Apocalypse World and I ask what your character does I expect an answer from you and nobody else. Some players do not like that kind of pressure.

Mostly what I would like to see in this community is more self awareness of trade offs between different ways of playing instead of acting like you can have everything regardless of techniques or expectations at play. I would also like to see more honesty (with ourselves and others) about what we really want.


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## Ovinomancer

Campbell said:


> I will be frank here. A lot of players are not looking for the same sort of experience as I am. A lot of players like having a safety net. A lot of players are looking to fulfill a certain story arc. A lot of players like to follow along with a GM plot. A lot of players are not looking for real tension. A lot of players like maintaining emotional distance from their characters.
> 
> So one huge drawback of Playing Passionately is that passive players really have no place. If I'm running Apocalypse World and I ask what your character does I expect an answer from you and nobody else. Some players do not like that kind of pressure.
> 
> Mostly what I would like to see in this community is more self awareness of trade offs between different ways of playing instead of acting like you can have everything regardless of techniques or expectations at play. I would also like to see more honesty (with ourselves and others) about what we really want.




Yup.  This is pretty much why I run 5e primarily and get some Blades in on the side.  My players are, as a whole, more comfortable in the 5e playstyle rather than the more edgy Blades.  They like playing Blades, but only in spurts.  I adapt.


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## Tony Vargas

Campbell said:


> I would also like to see more honesty (with ourselves and others) about what we really want.



 OK, Mr Morden, I'll have a go:

I want the gateway to the TTRPG hobby to be a game that doesn't suck.


Ouch... oh well, let me just make a check...
...nope, my bitterness & cynicsm values just went up, again.  Apparently I'm at 'Tripple IPA' and 'insurance adjuster working past mandatory retirement,'  respectively.... 
..let's see, in the fiction that means "small children instinctively back away from you" ok, that's actually better than when they just "got really quiet" ... what else... cynicism.. preternatural.. no...hm, I'm up to "telestial?" weird.... ok.. "your date crawls out a restroom window after your Ghandi diatribe"  - Oh, see, that just breaks my immersion, I mean ...  i would never....

...a /date/ ....


----------



## Lanefan

pemerton said:


> If there were no mechanics to impose discipline then I think it would be even harder to avoid story advocacy. Mechanics are what produce strange PC failures that push things where we weren't expecting, or produce sudden ends to NPCs and their plots. Upthread [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION] voiced concern about "bypassing challenges" by their deployment of (especially non-combat) mechanics. That seems to be a strong version of story advocacy - that we _have to_ play through this stuff if the game is to be what it is supposed to be.



Not entirely sure how you draw that conclusion from what I said - maybe elaborate your reasoning?

I say this because story advocacy pro-or-con wasn't in my thoughts at all when I raise the piint about bypassing challenges; my concern was more that the mechanics in question might allow the players to in effect put the game on 'easy' mode and in doing so unintentionally reduce the fun* and engagement it might otherwise offer.

* - assuming, of course, that there's more fun to be had in overcoming challenges by meeting them and putting some effort in rather than overcoming them by simply leaving them to starboard.


----------



## Lanefan

Ovinomancer said:


> Joe is not the same as Bob.  I mean, we can already tell this because Joe doesn't get XP, or have rolled stats, or a class.



Where he should, and he should, and he might if he has the ability and-or willingness.

This is one thing 3e got bang-on right: that everyone in the setting rides on the same mechanical chassis - everyone has 6 stats, everyone can in theory gain XP and-or have a class (though they could also choose not to, this being the one place 3e messed it up), and so forth...and everyone has hit points...and an armour class, even if it's 10 for most people.

Put another way, in idealistic theory where everyone's stats have been generated  I should be able to take any human in the game world and make a PC out of it without changing a thing about its numbers.

Now whether the DM bothers to roll up those 6 stats for everyone - that's another question entirely.  But the underlying assumption is that she could, and that anyone we meet in the setting in theory has stats on a bell-curve just like we do except until the DM rolls them up nobody knows what they are.


----------



## Lanefan

pemerton said:


> Do you feel the same concern for the 1 hp kobold or orc or goblin in all those old modules?



No, because their hit point value tells me that in relation to pretty much anything else out there they're complete pushovers.



> I mean, why can't those PCs just do 1/2 a point of damage and let those humanoids have one more chance at glory?



A good and valid question; in that the hit point system is nowhere near granular enough to properly handle tiny creatures that have 1 at most along with unfortunate creatures such as these one-hit-wonder orcs and kobolds.  The problem, of course, is that to make it granular enough to distinguish between a kitten and a kobold the hit point numbers for creatures that are actually tough would be crazy big.  Either that, or it'd have to be on a j-curve where the difference between 1 and 2 h.p. is far less than the difference between 36 and 37 h.p., but that introduces its own can o' worms



> No system for combat resolution is infinitely granular. Boundries are drawn and limits on variability set. I mean, there's a chance that any outdoor combat will be disrupted by sudden torrential rain, but I don't know any RPG that expressly provides for this in its combat resolution system.



No, but it wouldn't be that difficult to add in to a lot of systems - every so-many rounds, say; or even once every so-many combats, the DM rolls d% and on 00 something odd happens - she then checks a table which could have entries including:

- a third "side"  - a creature awoken by the noise, a passing troop, something flying by, or anything else appropriate - enters the fray, initially fighting equally against everyone already involved
- someone unknown to either side is noticed by both sides to be observing the combat from a distance without - thus far - taking part in any way
- a sudden and potentially disruptive environmental change occurs:
- - - some ground gives way from below (collapse) or above (landslide)
- - - the weather changes suddenly and unexpectedly e.g. a torrential downpour begins, a strong wind arises, etc.
- - - a tree or large branch (or some rock, if underground) falls onto the battlefield potentially hitting at least one random combatant and making some terrain hazardous thenceforth
- - - smoke or fog from a known or unknown source suddenly obscures the battlefield, or parts of it
and so forth.

Hmmm...on further review the more I look at this the more I think it has some potential - I might just add it in to my own game.  Thanks for the inspiration! 



> The notion of "internal consistency" does no work here. By "mechanical consistency" I assume you mean something like _unchanging mechanical framing of the resolution_. In which case your example makes no sense. If your 4e D&D game involves a 17th level PC fighting a 1st level PC the system has nothing to offer you. You're on your own.



Without difficulty I can think of a few in-fiction situations where something like this might easily arise - dozens if one of the PCs in instead a levelled NPC - and I'd say that if the system can't handle it then that's down to the system, not me.



> Much the same as you can't use the AD&D mechanics to resolve the difference between taking one or three slaps of a shoe to kill that spider you found in your bedroll.



The AD&D mechanics could legitimately produce the correct result in either case (first-time killhit or a miss-miss-killhit sequence) and are thus reflective enough of reality to - in this case - be useful.



> The numbers are not a model. They're a resolution system.



Then where or what is the model? (and before you answer, note that an answer of "there isn't one" renders the setting as meaningless - we might as well be playing in Robert Jordan's Tel'aran'rhiod dreamworld where things change based on whatever a given dreamer happens to dream in the moment)



> An 8th level Ogre Savage has AC 19 and 111 hp. A 16th level Ogre Bludgeoneer has AC 28 and 1 hp (and never takes damage on a miss, because a minion). Which is tougher?
> 
> It's a trick question - they're of the same toughness, each wearing hide armour and wielding a greatclub, but statted differently for different resolution contexs.



Which tells me how tough they are relative to the PCs they're facing right this minute; but tells me absolutely nothing about how tough they are relative to each other or to anything else in the setting or to how tough they were yesterday or last week, which makes those numbers utterly useless for anything else beyond here-and-now interaction.  Waste of time - why even bother?

Put another way, *there's more to a setting than just the PCs*.  They're just a few of a great many inhabitants in it.



> This is the same for the ogre savage and ogre bludgeoneer. There toughness relative to the rest of the world is what it is. It is a feature of the fiction. It doesn't need to be statted out. That's not what stats are for - they're not tools for zoologists and ecologists



No.  They're tools for setting builders and-or encounter designers.


> they're tools for players of a game wishing to resolve action declaratoins in that game.



How can they be tools for players doing anything?  Hit points, AC, and so forth (usually) are not player-side information.


----------



## Campbell

Lanefan said:


> Not entirely sure how you draw that conclusion from what I said - maybe elaborate your reasoning?
> 
> I say this because story advocacy pro-or-con wasn't in my thoughts at all when I raise the piint about bypassing challenges; my concern was more that the mechanics in question might allow the players to in effect put the game on 'easy' mode and in doing so unintentionally reduce the fun* and engagement it might otherwise offer.
> 
> * - assuming, of course, that there's more fun to be had in overcoming challenges by meeting them and putting some effort in rather than overcoming them by simply leaving them to starboard.




This is why it can be dangerous to use D&D as a baseline for judging all RPG mechanics. Dungeons and Dragons is primarily a game about overcoming detailed challenges prepared by the DM. Burning Wheel is primarily a game about finding out who the PCs are as people. Detailed maps and prepared encounters are not a feature of play. What matters is that we can continue to press PCs to fight for their beliefs.

Another important detail is that generally the more audacious the intent the more difficult the check will be and the more room the GM has to establish consequences of failure.

So imagine we have a PC, Vertigan the Bold. He has the belief _I will claim my rightful place on the throne by vanquishing my brother, the usurper. _Vertigan has been thrown in his brother's dungeons after a failed coup attempt. He attempts to escape the dungeons by using a secret passage. His player's intent is _return safely to my brothers in arms who are hiding inside the citadel_. If he succeeds at what should be a fairly difficult check he will rejoin his comrades in the city. However on a failure he might end up deeper in the dungeon in a crypt where his father's remains are laying and be confronted by his father's ghost who thinks Vertigan killed him.


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## Tony Vargas

Lanefan said:


> The numbers are not a model. They're a resolution system.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Then where or what is the model? (and before you answer, note that an answer of "there isn't one" renders the setting as meaningless
Click to expand...


An interesting ultimatum, and one I'll answer, but, in return, I'm going to offer a comparable one, below.  Good luck with it.

So, the resolution system, is not the model of the antagonist side of the conflict, alone.  Rather, the broader system models the PCs and their story, including their antagonists, /as such/.  In fiction - and, I mean fiction you could actually hope to publish, even if only in a 30s pulp or 19th century penny dreadful - heroes do not stolidly fight the same foes in the same level of detail over and over again.  Rather, new or terrible threats get the detailed treatment, and familiar or trivial ones are finished quickly or even glossed over - because fiction is not meant to be boring.

The basic d20 dice mechanic can't handle a spread of more than +/-5 without becoming unwieldy, and at +/-10, it becomes worthless.  So you're either limited to modeling a narrow range of competence (sweet spot) with the game breaking down outside that, modeling improvement primarily off the d20 with geometrically exploding hp/damage (high level monsters with thousands of hps), or normalizing the range between heroes and adversaries (treadmill).

None are entirely satisfying, but each can be made to work.

So, in the treadmill version, you can't have adversaries with a nominal level outside the workable range of the d20 - less than +/-5 - so, instead, other factors have to vary when you would otherwise cross that threshold.  That's what secondary roles are in 4e.  A solo is an adversary that would be consistently beaten at even odds were you 9 levels higher, instead, at level, it's a meaningful challenge for the whole party.  A minion is a creature that would be consistently beaten at even odds were you 10 levels levels lower, but instead, at level, can be dispatched quickly, if not without risk.

Put those together and a single creature could be reasonably modeled as an adversary over a range of 20 levels.

How do we show, mechanically (In the fiction it's just presented as duch) it's the same creature? Or, for that matter, a comparable one?  Well, it's XP value can be held constant at those different levels.  

So, different stats on both sides of the conflict - increasing with level for the PCs, shifting with secondary roles for the same adversaries at those different levels - models both, and the story of their conflicts.



> Which tells me how tough they are relative to the PCs they're facing right this minute; but tells me absolutely nothing about how tough they are relative to each other or to anything else in the setting



 You could, were you inclined to "monsterbation," normalize a collection of creatures based on their relative XP values, and pit them against eachother.  You should get consistent results, in that the higher XPs will out do the lower.

Now, for that ultimatum:


> Put another way, *there's more to a setting than just the PCs*.



 Then what is the point of the game?  And if the answer is "the setting" or "internal consistency" or something of the sort, keep in mind that youre reducing your players to a mere audience.


----------



## Manbearcat

Lanefan said:


> Then where or what is the model? (and before you answer, note that an answer of "there isn't one" renders the setting as meaningless.




Why is "genre logic is the model (or litmus test)" not a sufficient answer to you?  Sincerely curious.

Let me ask you something in relation to Minions Lanefan.

Take some sort of Tentacle Monster (The Kraken or the like).  In non-4e D&D, you're going to get an instantiation of the Kraken (or, again, any genre tentacle monster such as in The Fellowship of the Ring) whereby to defeat the monster, you're just ablating its monstrous HP pool down to 0.  

By orthodox rules, the classic genre trope of lopping off tentacles isn't occurring in the sort of "fidelity to the model of fighting a Kraken/tentacle monster" that you're advocating for.  You can narrate the fiction as such (deploying genre logic), but you're not actually gaining any competitive advantage by dismembering the Kraken.  I'm assuming, by your logic, the model should produce that competitive advantage, with the fiction intersecting with that newly gained competitive advantage:

*The Kraken's tentacles go from x to x-, therefore the beast is less of a threat than it was moments before.*

In 4e D&D, the Minion rules actually enable this model (unlike other D&D).

1)  Kraken is a Solo with various attacks + rider effect and all kinds of traits and abilities:
2)  The Kraken has x # of (Minion) Tentacles that go along with the Solo creature.
3)  The Encounter Budget also includes Whirlpool Hazards that the Kraken needs to use its (Minion) Tentacles to grab and fling PCs into.

Sum told, the Encounter Budget is 4800 (including 1-3).  

Actually defeating (2) above would (a) model the bolded above (less attacks coming in on PCs and their vessel, less chance for PCs to be thrown into deadly Whirlpools, the Kraken (1) would then have to spend action economy to recover = impacts of encounter budget of 4800 are mitigated with a positive feedback loop) while (b) transliterating perfectly to the sort of genre fiction one would expect from a Kraken fight...

precisely the sort of modeling and transliteration to genre fiction that non-4e D&D doesn't produce (precisely because of its lacking of Minion mechanics).

Thoughts?


----------



## Tony Vargas

Manbearcat said:


> Take some sort of Tentacle Monster (The Kraken or the like)...
> By orthodox rules, the classic genre trope of lopping off tentacles isn't occurring ...
> Thoughts?



I think 1e had at least a few monsters with separate AC/hps for appendages,  and  IIRC 'killing' them reduced # attacks....

...yep, giant octopus & squid, and, MMII, Kraken.


----------



## Manbearcat

Tony Vargas said:


> I think 1e had at least a few monsters with separate AC/hps for appendages,  and  IIRC 'killing' them reduced # attacks.




I can't recall this but, assuming correct, I wonder how [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION] feels about this (individual HPs for appendages in 1e) and how that intersects with (or not) his feeling on Minions?


----------



## Tony Vargas

Manbearcat said:


> I wonder how Lanefan feels about this (individual HPs for appendages in 1e)



We've had 40 years to get used to it.


----------



## pemerton

[MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION] - all ficion in the world is created without models in the sense you are insisting upon, _except for_ a certain subset of the fiction created by RPGers.

In 4e, the fiction is estabished in that mainstream way. We know that paragon tier PCs are tougher than heroic tier ones because we have the descriptions of the tiers of plat that I posted upthread. We know that an ogre savage and an ogre bludgeoneer are of comparable toughness because we describe them both as generic ogres wearing hide armour and wielding greatclubs.

Because such ogres pose little threat one-on-one to mid-paragon tier PCs we stat them as 16th level minons. Because such ogres pose some real threat to mid-heroic tier PCs we stat them as 8th level standard creatures.

The fiction is prior to the use of stats to establish parameters for resolution. That's why some of us have called it "fiction first".

The fact that their are more elements in the fiction than PCs has no bearing on this. JRRT was able to decide that the orcs in Cirtih Ungol killed one another without using a "model" in your sense. Humans are generally pretty good at making up stories.



Lanefan said:


> pemerton said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> An 8th level Ogre Savage has AC 19 and 111 hp. A 16th level Ogre Bludgeoneer has AC 28 and 1 hp (and never takes damage on a miss, because a minion). Which is tougher?
> 
> It's a trick question - they're of the same toughness, each wearing hide armour and wielding a greatclub, but statted differently for different resolution contexs.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Which tells me how tough they are relative to the PCs they're facing right this minute; but tells me absolutely nothing about how tough they are relative to each other or to anything else in the setting or to how tough they were yesterday or last week, which makes those numbers utterly useless for anything else beyond here-and-now interaction.  Waste of time - why even bother?
Click to expand...


Why even bother? Because that's what some of us call _playing the game_ - finding out what happens in the here-and-now interaction. As per the topic of the thread, it's about establishling true descriptions of the events in the fiction.


----------



## hawkeyefan

> Put another way, there’s more to a setting than just the PCs.




I haven’t commented in a bit, but I’ve been reading along with the current thrust of the conversation, and the above bit jumped out at me because I think it comes up often in these discussions. 

The PCs....meaning the players and the characters they play...are what make a RPG a game. Anything in the setting has rules SOLELY for the purpose of interacting with the PCs. A game needs rules, the PCs are what makes it a game, therefore the rules are there for the PCs.

Beyond that, there’s no need for rules. 

I think the idea that a game MUST have some internal consistency that could be maintained in the absence of PCs is simply not true. It may be a preference, but even then I’m not quite sure I understand the need. What matters in the fiction without the PCs being involved in some way? Any such detail can simply be narrated, or if random chance is required in some way, then it can be decided with the roll of a die.  

It just seems like such a tail wagging the dog kind of situation.


----------



## GrahamWills

Campbell said:


> I have always been upfront about the substantive risks in Playing Passionately (I'll use this instead of Playing With Integrity).
> 
> The first risk is the creative risk [...]
> The second risk is an emotional risk [...]




No, they are not the primary risk. The primary risk is that since it is by definition a selfish way to play (in the sense that you prioritize your character above everything else), you will make the game less fun.

Overall, when I run a game, I require all my players to prioritize making the game fun for everyone above anyone else. A play style that says "if my character would do that I will do it even if it makes the game less fun for other people" would be counter to the social contract I expect.

Everyone has had the bad play experience typified by the paladin who refuses to engage with the story because "it's not what he'd do". This style of play leads to issues like that. Sure, it can work, but I'd argue that passionately embodying your character is just as easy and a much more pleasant experience when it is within a framework that makes it secondary to respecting the story and genre.


----------



## Ovinomancer

GrahamWills said:


> No, they are not the primary risk. The primary risk is that since it is by definition a selfish way to play (in the sense that you prioritize your character above everything else), you will make the game less fun.
> 
> Overall, when I run a game, I require all my players to prioritize making the game fun for everyone above anyone else. A play style that says "if my character would do that I will do it even if it makes the game less fun for other people" would be counter to the social contract I expect.
> 
> Everyone has had the bad play experience typified by the paladin who refuses to engage with the story because "it's not what he'd do". This style of play leads to issues like that. Sure, it can work, but I'd argue that passionately embodying your character is just as easy and a much more pleasant experience when it is within a framework that makes it secondary to respecting the story and genre.



This is presupposing a story plot or antagonist that the players are expected and required to team up to defeat.  Yes, in that style of play, this can be a problem because this style emphasizes team over individual.  But, if there is no prepared story and the game follows the action, then the paladin refusing doesn't derail the game, the game is now about what happens next.

This was the biggest hurdle for me to overcome in my understanding -- you have to throw out the entire D&D conception of how games work and accept a completely new paradigm of play.  One where the GM follows the players' moves and not the other way around.  There's literally nothing to derail.


----------



## Tony Vargas

Ovinomancer said:


> This is presupposing a story plot or antagonist that the players are expected and required to team up to defeat.
> ...
> This was the biggest hurdle for me to overcome in my understanding -- you have to throw out the entire D&D conception of how games work and accept a completely new paradigm of play.  One where the GM follows the players' moves and not the other way around.



I guess I'm a little taken aback to think that the idea of a GM-authored story has become "/the/ D&D conception of how games work" when, the first time I encountered it, it seemed so different from D&D as I'd seen it played (and read Gygax on it in the DMG).  OK, so maybe D&D did jump on the storyteller bandwagon with Dragonlance (which I completely ignored), but nothing much about 3e felt particularly 'story' focused, and 4e, which did seem to go there a bit more, was rejected as /not/ matching the D&D conception of how games work.  5e doesn't seem terribly story-focused, either, as a game.  APs, sure, you can lead the party through them by the nose to get a story out of them, but nothing about the game lends itself too well to that sort of play, it lends itself just as well to the party wandering off and becoming bandits, or fighting amongst themselves, or engaging in setting-tourism/sandbox-play, or focusing on acquiring treasure (OK, magic items) without regard to any overarching events.  ::shrug::


----------



## Campbell

GrahamWills said:


> No, they are not the primary risk. The primary risk is that since it is by definition a selfish way to play (in the sense that you prioritize your character above everything else), you will make the game less fun.
> 
> Overall, when I run a game, I require all my players to prioritize making the game fun for everyone above anyone else. A play style that says "if my character would do that I will do it even if it makes the game less fun for other people" would be counter to the social contract I expect.
> 
> Everyone has had the bad play experience typified by the paladin who refuses to engage with the story because "it's not what he'd do". This style of play leads to issues like that. Sure, it can work, but I'd argue that passionately embodying your character is just as easy and a much more pleasant experience when it is within a framework that makes it secondary to respecting the story and genre.




A player should not be prioritizing their character above all us. What they should be prioritizing is following the fiction, playing to find out, and being a fan of all the main characters (PCs). A player does not get to protect his character, push the story where he would want it, dictate how other players are allowed to interact with his character. He or she owes the other players a chance to follow their character on its journey even if that means the character might suffer, be changed in fundamental ways, or even die or be removed from play. By pushing hard for what your character wants you are making the game fun for everyone else.

Remember, we (the play group) are supposed to be fans of these characters. We care about them. We want what's best for them. When they hurt, we hurt. When your character is not involved in the action you should still be on the edge of your seat cheering on the other characters. You should feel the tension of the conflicts they are involved in. When things go well you should be happy for them. When they do not you should feel for them, but not look away. This fun of being an audience member is just as fundamental to this play style as character advocacy.

As a player you owe it to the other players to present the unbridled, most honest, most vulnerable version of your character. You push hard so as audience members they get to follow you on the journey. You create a character that has complex relationships with the other characters so they have something to play off of. You approach the fiction with curiosity so interactions with NPCs and other PCs feel genuine to everyone and the play group gets to derive meaning from play.

Here's the fun: genuine tension, being a fan of the characters, and seeing where their journeys lead.

What's selfish in this play style is deciding how things should turn out, cleaving to a character conception instead of approaching play with vulnerability and curiosity, not accepting the fallout of a failed conflict, deciding how other players are allowed to interact with your character, playing to reach a given story arc. In doing so you rob the game of tension, domesticate the fiction, and present a less than authentic version of the character to the audience.


----------



## Tony Vargas

Campbell said:


> Here's the fun: genuine tension, being a fan of the characters, and seeing where their journeys lead.
> 
> What's selfish in this play style is deciding how things should turn out, cleaving to a character conception instead of approaching play with vulnerability and curiosity, not accepting the fallout of a failed conflict, deciding how other players are allowed to interact with your character, playing to reach a given story arc. In doing so you rob the game of tension, domesticate the fiction, and present a less than authentic version of the character to the audience.



Yeah, that seems like a very specific style.  
I've certainly seen/experienced elements of that, at moments, in RPGs, even TTRPGs, over the decades, but never as a primary focus of play, let alone an exclusive one.  I can see how that would be very challenging, but might be equally rewarding.


----------



## Ovinomancer

Tony Vargas said:


> I guess I'm a little taken aback to think that the idea of a GM-authored story has become "/the/ D&D conception of how games work" when, the first time I encountered it, it seemed so different from D&D as I'd seen it played (and read Gygax on it in the DMG).  OK, so maybe D&D did jump on the storyteller bandwagon with Dragonlance (which I completely ignored), but nothing much about 3e felt particularly 'story' focused, and 4e, which did seem to go there a bit more, was rejected as /not/ matching the D&D conception of how games work.  5e doesn't seem terribly story-focused, either, as a game.  APs, sure, you can lead the party through them by the nose to get a story out of them, but nothing about the game lends itself too well to that sort of play, it lends itself just as well to the party wandering off and becoming bandits, or fighting amongst themselves, or engaging in setting-tourism/sandbox-play, or focusing on acquiring treasure (OK, magic items) without regard to any overarching events.  ::shrug::



We're clearly using story in different ways.  A printed adventure is a preset story for my purposes -- it's the prepared story beats and notes which the players are expected to engage.  All D&D is this -- players exploring the DM's prepared notes while the DM ad libs within those notes as required.  It's only this that leads to worries that a paladin refusing to engage the prepared plot points could be considered derailing the game.

Contrasted with "play to find out" styles where there are not prepared story beats to derail.

I'm not at all certain what you meant by story.


----------



## Tony Vargas

Ovinomancer said:


> We're clearly using story in different ways.  A printed adventure is a preset story for my purposes -- it's the prepared story beats and notes which the players are expected to engage.  All D&D is this -- players exploring the DM's prepared notes while the DM ad libs within those notes as required.



 And, old-school, the DM just let it develop - or degenerate - as the player's choices and dice fell.  The EHP in room 17 wasn't "The boss villain at the end," he was the guy who'd cast Insect Plague* at you, if you came into room 17.  The DM may or may not have a reason for him being there, but it wouldn't have anything to do with story arcs or character development, pacing or plot points, just that, hey, this dungeon full of evil monsters and undead could have an EHP as a leader or he could be there exploring the dungeon and acquiring undead servants and, much like the PCs, treasure, or I rolled XX on table G.



> It's only this that leads to worries that a paladin refusing to engage the prepared plot points could be considered derailing the game.



Ah, that I get, I just think I have a very archaic idea of what foundationally was the "D&D way," because working towards a story, rather than just scattering monsters, traps & treasure before the party like caltrops before a rioting crowd, seems like the hallmark of 'newer' (under 40yo) games.



> Contrasted with "play to find out" styles where there are not prepared story beats to derail.
> I'm not at all certain what you meant by story.



Imagine we're on UseNet, and it's the 90s. (But I repeat myself.)







* OK, probably not a great idea in a dungeon, but it was just the first notorious cleric spell that leapt to mind.  I suppose I should've said Flame Strike.


----------



## Campbell

Outside of more character focused play I'm a big fan of the sort of dungeon crawling and hex crawling D&D [MENTION=996]Tony Vargas[/MENTION] is talking about. Moldvay is my favorite incarnation.  I'm also a big fan of Classic Traveler, Stars Without Number, and Godbound.


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## Tony Vargas

Manbearcat said:


> Why is "genre logic is the model (or litmus test)" not a sufficient answer to you?  Sincerely curious.
> ...
> precisely the sort of modeling and transliteration to genre fiction that non-4e D&D doesn't produce (precisely because of its lacking of Minion mechanics).
> 
> Thoughts?



Replying to the same post a 2nd time, not sure if that's bad etiquette, but different topic than minions.

So, "transliteration of genre fiction" and "genre logic is the model?"  

Not sure I follow, but I often think of a good genre RPG as one that "models the genre."  So, an FRPG shouldn't model a medieval world, and, somewhat arbitrarily and not too logically integrated, a highly mechanistic magic system, and, within the modeled world, model creatures - some of whom may become heroes and some of whom may be played as PCs, but the intersection of those two sets may be slight, and others of whom may oppose heroes or PCs or terrorize & be called monsters or be terrorized by creatures they call monsters, but, really, all of whom are just creatures using the exact same modeling.  
Rather, the FRPG should model the fantasy genre, or a sub-genre thereof.  Within that genre, heroes are /different/ from monsters, villains, victims, exposition characters, and backdrop peoples, and /protagonists/ are a distinct sub-set of heroes.  Each sort of character in genre is different and needs to be modeled differently.  The elves of the misty wood might just be mentioned in passing, they don't need to be modeled, directly, at all, the orcs of fang gap may fight the protagonists, they need to be modeled as combat adversaries, the helpful wizard Vancegolf Mythreindeer provides exposition and lights a fire, he'll be modeled differently than the heroic young wizard protagonist, Larry Trotter, etc...
...then, the resolution systems should also model not physics or hypothetical 'laws' of magic implied by hand-waving in representative sampling of genre sources, but what magic actually /does/ in the genre.  If magic mostly provides exposition, or mostly sets the hero up to defeat the monster, then it's divination or buffing.  If magic routinely blows up swaths of enemies, it's the go-to offense for the game.  If magic acts as a foil forcing heroes to prove their courage, morality, & discipline, or confront their metaphorical demons, then PCs tend not to use it, themselves, but to overcome magical challenges.   

Or am I completely off base, here?


----------



## pemerton

hawkeyefan said:


> I think the idea that a *game *MUST have some internal consistency that could be maintained in the absence of PCs is simply not true. It may be a preference, but even then I’m not quite sure I understand the need. What matters in the fiction without the PCs being involved in some way? Any such detail can simply be narrated, or if random chance is required in some way, then it can be decided with the roll of a die.



I've bolded the word _game_. I think this can be parsed in two ways. The first is this: a _fiction_ does not need to have some internal consistency that extends beyond what is portrayed or implied. My favourite example of this is the elves in Lorien - what do they eat? And where does it come from?

In the context of RPGing, one standard response is: but what if the PCs decide to start a business trading food to the elves of Lorien? My response would be: for my part, if my 4e D&D game starts involving trading food to the elves something has gone wrong; and if it comes up in the context of Burning Wheel play then we will just use the generic economic activity economic rules. And then narrate the appropriate fiction around that. Either way I don't need a working model of elven agronomics.

The second parsing is: the _mechanics for a RPG_ do not need to present a universal model for determining what occurs in the ficiton. In some RPGs they purport to: Rolemaster is my own preferred example of such a game. Classic Traveller comes close in some places. This creates a certain aesthetic in play. But I think it's obvious that it's not the only possible aesthetic. As you (hawkeyefan) say, the requisite fiction can just be established via standard storytelling technqiues.


----------



## pemerton

GrahamWills said:


> Everyone has had the bad play experience typified by the paladin who refuses to engage with *the story* because "it's not what he'd do". This style of play leads to issues like that. Sure, it can work, but I'd argue that passionately embodying your character is just as easy and a much more pleasant experience when it is within a framework that makes it secondary to respecting *the story* and genre.



I've bolded your two uses of _the story_. In the sort of RPGing [MENTION=16586]Campbell[/MENTION] is describing there is no _the story_.

Here's Ron Edwards making the same point in 2003:

Story Now requires that at least one engaging issue or problematic feature of human existence be _addressed _in the process of role-playing. . . .

The _Now _refers to the people, during actual play, focusing their imagination to create those emotional moments of decision-making and action, and paying attention to one another as they do it. . . . Think of the Now as meaning, "in the moment," or "engaged in doing it," in terms of input and emotional feedback among one another. The Now also means "get to it," . . .


There cannot be any "_the _story" during Narrativist play, because to have such a thing (fixed plot or pre-agreed theme) is to remove the whole point: the creative moments of addressing the issue(s).]​
In reading this I don't think we need to put too much weight on the phrase _problematic feature of human existence_. That's just a way of trying to point to _theme_ or _drama_ or some similar sort of emotional depth or engagement that goes beyond the tension that is ineherent to a gambling game or tactical wargame or RPG as a result of its moments of decision. At least in my case, the literary quality of my RPGing is more at the soap opera or 4 colour comics end of the spectrum, than Ingmar Bergman or Graham Greene.



Ovinomancer said:


> a completely new paradigm of play.  One where the GM follows the players' moves and not the other way around.  There's literally nothing to derail.



I can report from experience that you can post this for many years but not be believed by the majority of those reading your posts.


----------



## pemerton

Campbell said:


> Outside of more character focused play I'm a big fan of the sort of dungeon crawling and hex crawling D&D [MENTION=996]Tony Vargas[/MENTION] is talking about. Moldvay is my favorite incarnation.  I'm also a big fan of Classic Traveler, Stars Without Number, and Godbound.



As I've often posted I suck at dungeon crawl both as GM and player.

I've been playing a lot of Classic Traveller over the past year or two, but not really in hex crawl mode. I've been leaning heavily on the patron and starship encounter systems, plus the implicit backstory of PC gen, to make it more like a sci fi drama. The internal lives of the characters are pretty shallow, but the dynamic of play is perhaps closer to Dungeon World than a hex crawl.


----------



## pemerton

Tony Vargas said:


> am I completely off base, here?



Not [MENTION=6696971]Manbearcat[/MENTION], but I had this thought in response: a lot of RPGers seemed to dislike Marvel Heroic RP because it didn't answer the question "Who is stronger? The Hulk or the Thing?"

And because it allowed Emma Frost's player to spend a point to put her d6 strength into a pool, which then gave her player the chance (however modest) to do better than The Hulk's player with d12 strength in the pool, they complained that it let Emma Frost beat The Hulk in an arm wrestle.

All of which just showed a failure to understand how the game works. In MHRP, if it's obvious to everyone at the table that Emma Frost can't beat The Hulk in an arm wrestle, then no conflict is framed, no pools built, no dice rolled. Conversely, if Emma's player puts her d6 strength into the pool and also her d10 Telepathy then maybe she _can_ beat The Hulk in an arm wrestle by making him act as if he's no stronger than a 2 year old baby.

Moral of the story: if the group's sense of genre and fictional possibility is strong and shared, then that is what guides framing and the boundaries of the possible; and then we only need mechanics to decide who's vision of what _is_ possible prevails. Those mechanics might reflect aspects of the protagonists and/or antagonists in some fashion (qv 4e D&D combat; most MHRP; PbtA though mostly on the protgonist side only) or may not (qv 4e skill challenges; MHRP rolls vs the Doom Pool; quite a bit of Hero Quest revised; etc). Either way they're not _models_ of anything. They're fiction-generation/confirmation devices.


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## Ovinomancer

Well, one did.


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## Tony Vargas

pemerton said:


> Not [MENTION=6696971]Manbearcat[/MENTION], but I had this thought in response: a lot of RPGers seemed to dislike Marvel Heroic RP because it didn't answer the question "Who is stronger? The Hulk or the Thing?"



 I just took one look at the multicolored charts and gave it up... I may be thinking of an earlier version.

But, I agree:  one appeal of a licenced RPG is "to see what the stats really are," and for a genre RPG theres an appeal in "doin' it right!" - subverting or defying genre conventions that rub you the wrong way, like why should the big dumb barbarian get the princess? Why is the sorcerer necessarily evil?  



> they complained that it let Emma Frost beat The Hulk in an arm wrestle.
> All of which just showed a failure to understand how the game works.



 And how the comics work. Less nominally powerful characters pull something and get away with showing up some much more powerful character at his thing.

(And the Hulks STR is notionally unlimited, he's stronger than the Thing, when angry enough. Hulk v Thor is not so straightforward.)



> Moral of the story: if the group's sense of genre and fictional possibility is strong and shared, then that is what guides framing and the boundaries of the possible; and then we only need mechanics to decide who's vision of what _is_ possible prevails. Those mechanics might reflect aspects of the protagonists and/or antagonists in some fashion (qv 4e D&D combat; most MHRP; PbtA though mostly on the protgonist side only) or may not (qv 4e skill challenges; MHRP rolls vs the Doom Pool; quite a bit of Hero Quest revised; etc). Either way they're not _models_ of anything. They're fiction-generation/confirmation devices.



 I feel like that's "modelling genre" or "modeling a genre story" or even modeling genre bits, assumptions, & tropes.


----------



## pemerton

Tony Vargas said:


> I just took one look at the multicolored charts and gave it up... I may be thinking of an earlier version.



That sounds like 1980s TSR Marvel Super Heroes. MHRP has no charts of any colour. It's a relatively straightforward but surprisingly intricate dice pool system. (Dice are d4 to d12, and express attributes, whether enduring - like the Hulk's strength - or fleeting, like the Hulk's telepathically implanted belief that he is a 2 year old baby; dice pool success is determined by adding two dice, and the effect of success is determined by choosing a third die which takes effect based on size, not result. Many but not all special abilities involve dice pool manipulation.)



Tony Vargas said:


> I feel like that's "modelling genre" or "modeling a genre story" or even modeling genre bits, assumptions, & tropes.



What I would quibble with in what you say is the word _model_. And in that quibbling I'm not taking issue with your post on its own terms, but in the context of the discussion with [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION] about minions.

I'll start with a non-RPG example to try to illustrate my thinking: a recipe for chocolate cake - _take these ingredients, prepare them in such-and-such a way, combine them in such-and-such a way, and then bake the resulting mixture for this long at this temperature_ - is not a model of a chocolate cake.

This isn't true of all recipes/instructions: for instance, the instructions that come with a typical box of Lego not only tell you how to build the whatever-it-is, but do so by providing a visual model of what it is you are trying to build. A route marked on a map also not only instructs you how to get from A to B, but visually models at least some of the geographic aspects of the process of doing so. A musical score also is both a recipe and a model (obviously as a model more specialised than maps and Lego instructions).

But a chocolate cake recipe is dissimilar from these other sorts of recipes. It lacks the characteristics (of representation of what is being produced; of isomorphism to the product or the process of production; etc) that would make it a model.

I'm somewhat labouring this analogy because I think it goes directly to the point about minion mechanics, or the MHRP mechanics for The Hulk and the Thing that produced the complaints I mentioned.

On the published MHRP character sheets both those characters are rated at d12 strength. Each also has additional relevant text on his PC sheet:

The Thing
SFX: _Haymaker_. Double Godlike Strength for an action, then add second-highest rolling die from that action to the doom pool.

The Hulk
SFX: Rage-Fueled Might. Add a die equal to your emotional stress to the doom pool to include your emotional stress in your next action. If your opponent includes your emotional stress in a reaction dice pool, step it up.

SFX: _Hulk Smash!_ Against a single opponent, double a Gamma-Charged Genetics die. Remove the highest-rolling die and add another die to your total.

SFX: _Strongest There Is!_ In a reaction against an opponent with a Strength power trait, spend 1 PP or step up your emotional stress to add a die equal to the opponent’s Strength to your dice pool.

Limit: _Limitless Anger_. When the doom pool includes at least 2d12 or you take emotional trauma, move all stress and trauma to the doom pool and activate Rampaging Hulk.

_Rampaging Hulk_
When Hulk loses control, his strength and power escalate beyond the limits of any other hero, but he becomes an almost mindless catastrophic force. While manifested, the Rampaging Hulk uses the current doom pool in place of an Affiliation die for all dice pools, similar to a Large Scale Threat. Dice added to or spent out of the doom pool affect the Rampaging Hulk’s power. The Rampaging Hulk’s dice may be targeted like a Large Scale Threat’s Affiliation dice with successful actions against him reducing the doom pool. If the doom pool is reduced to two dice, the Rampaging Hulk reverts back to Banner and all emotional stress and trauma are recovered.​
That additional text does not establish a model of anything, be that a character or a genre or a trope. But each is an element of a recipe - each sets out a process that ., when incorporated into other aspects of the resolution system such as dice pool building and Doom Pool mainpulation, will lead to results in the fiction that conform to our expectations in resepct of these characters and how their endeavours should turn out.

Likewise a minion's 1 hp is not a model of that minion's (imagined) toughness. It's an element of a recipe - it tells you that, on a successful hit, we're to narrate a fiction that involves the minion having been dispatched. It's not the whole of the receipe - other elements of the recipe include such principles as _don't use mid-paragon minions in mid-heroic encounter building_. If you ignore that element of the recipe then of course you'll get silly stuff like "glass jaw ninja" ogres - ogres who dance around and are almost impossible for their mid-heroic opponents to hit, but who fall down at the first touch.

I think the notion that mechanics can be a recipe without being a model - as I said in my earlier post, that mechanics can simply be _fiction generation devices_ or _fiction confirmation devices_ - is fundamental to appreciating the workings of most of the RPGs (including 4e D&D) that have been mentioned in this thread. Even Classic Traveller has resolution systems that as far as I can tell aren't meant to be models of anything, like the NPC reaction table.


----------



## Sadras

pemerton said:


> I've bolded your two uses of _the story_. In the sort of RPGing @_*Campbell*_ is describing there is no _the story_.




I think you can exchange _the story_ for _the party's course of action_  and [MENTION=75787]GrahamWills[/MENTION]'s issue will still stand. I don't think differentiating _story now_ or running a module/AP assists the debate between Grahamwills and Campbell when speaking about players prioritising their own characters (to be faithful to the concept) over everything else.  



Campbell said:


> A player should not be prioritizing their character above all us. What they should be prioritizing is following the fiction, playing to find out, and being a fan of all the main characters (PCs). A player does not get to protect his character, push the story where he would want it, dictate how other players are allowed to interact with his character. He or she owes the other players a chance to follow their character on its journey even if that means the character might suffer, be changed in fundamental ways, or even die or be removed from play. By pushing hard for what your character wants you are making the game fun for everyone else.




I agree with this. The options you listed:
(1) character might suffer;
(2) be changed in fundamental ways;
(3) die;
(4) removed from play.

The above requires much roleplaying maturity, particularly options (3) and (4) as some players become too attached to their creations, in the same way some GM's become to protective of theirs (be it NPCs, planned outcomes, settings...etc).

In the context of 5e, and I'm not sure what experience you have with that, I would say (2), possibly (1) might see an increase or change in personality traits. Using GrahamWills's example, the paladin might defer to the rest of the party's judgement for the course of action followed, with the risk of incurring a personality change or a further flaw - perhaps even a temporary loss in Inspiration.


----------



## pemerton

Sadras said:


> I think you can exchange _the story_ for _the party's course of action_  and [MENTION=75787]GrahamWills[/MENTION]'s issue will still stand. I don't think differentiating _story now_ or running a module/AP assists the debate between Grahamwills and Campbell when speaking about players prioritising their own characters (to be faithful to the concept) over everything else.



About a week ago upthread [MENTION=16586]Campbell[/MENTION] posted this:



Campbell said:


> My own falling out with 4e is due to a couple things. All the resolution mechanics are built around a team of PCs working in tandem where my favored approach is a collection of individuals with their own needs and desires that are sometimes allies, sometimes rivals, and occasionally enemies.


 
So Campbell is rejecting the notion of _the party's course of action_. The idea of _the party_ isn't essential to RPGing.



Sadras said:


> (1) character might suffer;
> (2) be changed in fundamental ways;
> 
> <snip>
> 
> In the context of 5e, and I'm not sure what experience you have with that, I would say (2), possibly (1) might see an increase or change in personality traits. Using GrahamWills's example, the paladin might defer to the rest of the party's judgement for the course of action followed, with the risk of incurring a personality change or a further flaw - perhaps even a temporary loss in Inspiration.



As I understand it - and maybe there's a gap in my understanding - 5e doesn't have the mechanical resources to easily implement this sort of intra-group conflict and its ramifications.

In my Classic Traveller game - which is built around team/party play - when the players (as their PCs) can't agree then I have them dice off: opposed 2d6 checks with a bonus to each side reflecting how many nobles it has and how much Leadership expertise it has. That is pretty light-touch (eg compared to a Burning Wheel Duel of Wits): it doesn't dictate any change to the character other than that _s/he agreed to go along with what the others wanted to do_. But I nevertheless imagine it would be regarded as too forceful for most 5e tables.


----------



## Sadras

pemerton said:


> So Campbell is rejecting the notion of _the party's course of action_. The idea of _the party_ isn't essential to RPGing.




Well this is fine, you've moved from _story now _to discuss character relationships.  



> As I understand it - and maybe there's a gap in my understanding - 5e doesn't have the mechanical resources to easily implement this sort of intra-group conflict and its ramifications.




Agree it does not, my intention is to implement mechanical resources. 
As the characters rise in levels I feel the need to increase the stakes, other than PC death, mission failure and in-game narrative loss with no mechanical consequence which allows for it to be ignored. And there is too much history to just abandon our 5e D&D for a game that possesses the necessary tools. This is the game I intend to run all the way to level 20 for once in my life. So I'm here borrowing, stealing and pillaging ideas!



> In my Classic Traveller game - which is built around team/party play - when the players (as their PCs) can't agree then I have them dice off: opposed 2d6 checks with a bonus to each side reflecting how many nobles it has and how much Leadership expertise it has. That is pretty light-touch (eg compared to a Burning Wheel Duel of Wits): it doesn't dictate any change to the character other than that _s/he agreed to go along with what the others wanted to do_. But I nevertheless imagine it would be regarded as too forceful for most 5e tables.




Maybe, I do not know. Personally I think your way of handling things is fine. I think maybe once (in my some 30 year experience of RPGing) has the table ever resorted to a dice off.


----------



## pemerton

Sadras said:


> As the characters rise in levels I feel the need to increase the stakes, other than PC death, mission failure and in-game narrative loss with no mechanical consequence which allows for it to be ignored. And there is too much history to just abandon our 5e D&D for a game that possesses the necessary tools. This is the game I intend to run all the way to level 20 for once in my life. So I'm here borrowing, stealing and pillaging ideas!



My tentative suggestion (tentative because I'm a random commentator on a message board, not an observer of let alone a participant in your game) would be to look for ways to connect _in-game narrative loss_ (or success) to _the mechanical scope of action_. By chance earlier today I was re-reading bits of a thread from late last year and saw the following post that I made to which you responded:



pemerton said:


> Sadras said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> the players were happy with the result and that the decisions they had taken had paid off (like bringing the father along and a few others).
> 
> 
> 
> 
> The presence of the father is interesting because of the very many different ways it might factor into adjudication. Some examples:
> 
> * Because the father is with you, persuasion is a superior option to what it otherwise might have been;
> 
> * Because the father is with you, persuasion is a viable option which it otherwise would not have been;
> 
> * Because the father is with you, when you try to persuade there are some moves open to you (eg playing on filial loyalty; threatening to executive him; etc) which otherwise wouldn't be possible.​
> Different approaches prioritise different sorts of engagement with the fiction, and different approaches to play. Thus, the first approach tends to reward a sort of puzzle-solving or resource-maximisation style ("Cool, we got the thing - in this case the dad - that will give us a bonus!"). The second and third might reward that, if the possibilities that are opened up are mechanically advantageous. But they might also shift the emphasis to something else - eg making it possible to play on filial loyalty, or threaten to execute the father, might not change the maths but change the thematic weight of what is going on in play.
Click to expand...


I think that 5e probably makes it fairly hard to change characters as a result of choices. But I don't think it makes it hard to change the mechanical scope of action as a result of choices. That just requires centring some aspects of fictional positioning that are perhaps not always centred in 5e play. If the fictional positioning is allowed to "cascade" then you can get quite interesting and perhaps even powerful unfolding of stakes and choices and consequences without needing to introduce new mechanical systems. It probably won't give you PCs with a rich inner life (of the sort that [MENTION=16586]Campbell[/MENTION] is looking for) but it may give you PCs who make thematically meaningful choices whose consequences can be seen etched on the surface of the gameworld.

In my experience some, even many, GMs, are hesitant to follow the fiction in this way. That is, they tend to set parameters for the mechanical scope of choice independent of the elements of fictional positioning I'm pointing to, and also tend to cabin the consequences of choices rather than allow the fictional positioning to "cascade". Further in my experience, this hesitation seems to have two main causes: (1) a desire for control over what is happening in the fiction (something like the "story advocacy" Campbell has referred to upthread); (2) a fear of what will happen - eg loss of certainty over how to frame challenges and adjudicate actions - if the fiction is allowed to take its own course.

If you do not have that sort of hesitation, then I reiterate my tentative suggestion (that little bit less tentatively!). If you do have such hesitation, then a further tentative thought would be that it may be hard to continue in that way and yet achieve the increase in meaningful stakes that I take you to be looking for.

None of the above is intended in the form of judgement or prediction or criticism (qv reasons why all comments are tentative). It's a sincere attempt to respond to what you have posted in the context of 5e D&D as best I understand that system.


----------



## Tony Vargas

pemerton said:


> That sounds like 1980s TSR Marvel Super Heroes.



'MSH' yes, that's what I was thinking of.



> What I would quibble with in what you say is the word _model_. And in that quibbling I'm not taking issue with your post on its own terms, but in the context of the discussion with Lanefan about minions.



So, I'm OK with the use of the word model, in general, and in the way I was using it, obviously.   I'm also fine with, say, a wargamer talking about modeling a specific sort of cannon used in the Battle of Trafalgar.  

When Lan or Saelorn or someone like that says something like 'model the world' or 'model a hobgoblin in the fiction,' though, I have an issue.  You can't model something that doesn't exist.  You can model 'the fiction,' but you're literally modeling /fiction/, so I'd say MHRP models the fiction churned out by Marvel, from the snippet you posted, pretty well.  But it doesn't "model the actual STR of the Thing," because The Thing only exists as fiction, not as a thing with any actual strength.

(Also, from that snippet, seems the Hulk is totally stronger than The Thing, so IDK what anyone's grousing about from that angle.)



> That additional text does not establish a model of anything, be that a character or a genre or a trope. But each is an element of a recipe - each sets out a process that ., when incorporated into other aspects of the resolution system such as dice pool building and Doom Pool mainpulation, will lead to results in the fiction that conform to our expectations in resepct of these characters and how their endeavours should turn out.



I'm not sure I buy the logic that using a system to generate an analog of a fictional story in a very different medium isn't 'modeling' in some reasonable sense.  But I do see the distinction you're drawing, if not the importance nor the validity of using or not using certain words to convey that distinction.



> Likewise a minion's 1 hp is not a model of that minion's (imagined) toughness.



The way I see, it's part of a model of a genre.  In this genre, heroes dispatch some foes very quickly, both to illustrate the prowess of the hero, and because said foes aren't too important to the story in any other way.  



> I think the notion that mechanics can be a recipe without being a model - as I said in my earlier post, that mechanics can simply be _fiction generation devices_ or _fiction confirmation devices_



 I'd draw the same distinction by saying modeling fiction instead of modeling something imagined in that fiction as if it had a real existence that model could be verified against.

I'd tie it back to the idea of 'simulationism,' as often used around here, as really being about the compromises made, particularly in wargaming, between a playable game and an accurate simulation - that is, simulationism prefers games that accept being worse games in the way that simulations must be worse games in order to be better (more accurate) simulations, in spite of simulating nothing by which such accuracy could be established.




pemerton said:


> So Campbell is rejecting the notion of _the party's course of action_. The idea of _the party_ isn't essential to RPGing.



I guess this points up the obvious, but easily overlooked inference that there's a spectrum between competitive games and cooperative games.



> As I understand it - and maybe there's a gap in my understanding - 5e doesn't have the mechanical resources to easily implement this sort of intra-group conflict and its ramifications.



Nor does it have great mechanical resources for functioning as a cooperative game.  5e, like TSR era D&D, makes a pretty poor example of anything, except the primacy of the GM's role, I suppose.


----------



## hawkeyefan

pemerton said:


> I've bolded the word _game_. I think this can be parsed in two ways. The first is this: a _fiction_  does not need to have some internal consistency that extends beyond  what is portrayed or implied. My favourite example of this is the elves  in Lorien - what do they eat? And where does it come from?
> 
> In the context of RPGing, one standard response is: but what if the PCs  decide to start a business trading food to the elves of Lorien? My  response would be: for my part, if my 4e D&D game starts involving  trading food to the elves something has gone wrong; and if it comes up  in the context of Burning Wheel play then we will just use the generic  economic activity economic rules. And then narrate the appropriate  fiction around that. Either way I don't need a working model of elven  agronomics.




Right, most fiction, especially fantasy  and sci fi and similar speculative fiction, will tend to fall apart the  more you prod at it like that. It needs internal consistency in what is  shown, as you say, but beyond that, it's probably best kept vague. 



pemerton said:


> The second parsing is: the _mechanics for a RPG_ do not need to  present a universal model for determining what occurs in the ficiton. In  some RPGs they purport to: Rolemaster is my own preferred example of  such a game. Classic Traveller comes close in some places. This creates a  certain aesthetic in play. But I think it's obvious that it's not the  only possible aesthetic. As you (hawkeyefan) say, the requisite fiction  can just be established via standard storytelling technqiues.




Yeah, the reason a goblin has lower stats than a dragon is due to  their status in genre fiction and mythology. But, they're really more  about how these creatures interact with the PCs because that's where the  game is being played. If someone needs to know who would win between a  goblin and a dragon, stats aren't needed. The GM should simply rely on  genre to make the decision. 

Stats are simply the middle man in this transaction, and there is no need for the middle man. 

I  think this relates to the discussion of minions because their  designation as such is due to their relationship to the PCs. My  experience with 4E is very limited, but minions were one of the things I  really liked about the system because it was a mechanical expression of  what we see all the time in genre fiction....the hordes of underlings. I  don't think that the minion stats are meant to reflect the creature's  overall place in the world, just how they compare to the PCs. 

If  the PCs are accompanied by some townsfolk they've rescued from the  gnoll invasion, I don't think that the mechanics dictate that a  townsfolk could take out a gnoll minion with one hit. That's just silly.  

I really think that's how all stats are meant to be viewed,  ultimately. They're there to help you establish the fiction, not to  dictate the fiction. Obviously, opinions will vary, but that one always  strikes me as a bit odd.


----------



## Tony Vargas

hawkeyefan said:


> If  the PCs are accompanied by some townsfolk they've rescued from the  gnoll invasion, I don't think that the mechanics dictate that a  townsfolk could take out a gnoll minion with one hit. That's just silly.



But is it genre?  I could imagine Xena & Gabby giving some refugees tips on using a sling, and then one of them, in one quick cut in one fight scene, takes out a minor bad guy with a sling stone. 

But, anyway, Gnoll minions?  There's two in the Compendium, at 8th & 12th, and minionizing standard Standard Gnolls would yield you 13+ level minions.  Townsfolk'd be very low-level minions, examples like 'Human Slave' 1st, Borovian Commoner 2nd, Harkenwold Bystander 1st, Human Rabble 2nd.   So, hitting a Gnoll minion would be quite the stroke of luck for one of those guys.


----------



## Sadras

Tony Vargas said:


> Nor does it have great mechanical resources for functioning as a cooperative game.




What are_ great mechanical resources_ of a cooperative game?


----------



## Lanefan

Campbell said:


> This is why it can be dangerous to use D&D as a baseline for judging all RPG mechanics. Dungeons and Dragons is primarily a game about overcoming detailed challenges prepared by the DM. Burning Wheel is primarily a game about finding out who the PCs are as people. Detailed maps and prepared encounters are not a feature of play. What matters is that we can continue to press PCs to fight for their beliefs.
> 
> Another important detail is that generally the more audacious the intent the more difficult the check will be and the more room the GM has to establish consequences of failure.
> 
> So imagine we have a PC, Vertigan the Bold. He has the belief _I will claim my rightful place on the throne by vanquishing my brother, the usurper. _Vertigan has been thrown in his brother's dungeons after a failed coup attempt. He attempts to escape the dungeons by using a secret passage. His player's intent is _return safely to my brothers in arms who are hiding inside the citadel_. If he succeeds at what should be a fairly difficult check he will rejoin his comrades in the city. However on a failure he might end up deeper in the dungeon in a crypt where his father's remains are laying and be confronted by his father's ghost who thinks Vertigan killed him.



Your example plays into the point I was trying to make: sure in this case it's a difficult check, but a hot-rolling player who makes a series of these successful checks is going to bypass all the interesting stuff, regardless of whether it's pre-authored or made up as a failure consequence, and quickly end up on the throne.  That really cool idea about the father's ghost in the crypt will never enter play, which is kind of sad.

That's all I was getting at.


----------



## hawkeyefan

pemerton said:


> About a week ago upthread @_*Campbell*_ posted this:
> 
> So Campbell is rejecting the notion of _the party's course of action_. The idea of _the party_ isn't essential to RPGing.
> 
> As I understand it - and maybe there's a gap in my understanding - 5e doesn't have the mechanical resources to easily implement this sort of intra-group conflict and its ramifications.
> 
> In my Classic Traveller game - which is built around team/party play - when the players (as their PCs) can't agree then I have them dice off: opposed 2d6 checks with a bonus to each side reflecting how many nobles it has and how much Leadership expertise it has. That is pretty light-touch (eg compared to a Burning Wheel Duel of Wits): it doesn't dictate any change to the character other than that _s/he agreed to go along with what the others wanted to do_. But I nevertheless imagine it would be regarded as too forceful for most 5e tables.




While it is certainly not essential, I do think that [MENTION=75787]GrahamWills[/MENTION]  has a point based on the fact that it is a group activity, and as such,  very often there is some level of shared goals for characters in the  game that serves the group. It need not be as specific or as immediate  as being an adventuring group in a fantasy setting, but it's very often  present in many games. 

As [MENTION=16586]Campbell[/MENTION] went on to elaborate, you have to try to make things as interesting for other players as possible, so if the spotlight is on your character, there should be that push toward interesting play. Players being fans of each other's characters is also a big part of this. Most players don't mind if there's a scene that doesn't involve their character as long as there is something compelling happening, and they have a reason to care. 

I don't think that playing with passion or integrity and playing with thought toward the party/group need to be mutually exclusive. 

For my Blades in the Dark campaign, the players have the common goals of the crew....to build a criminal empire, essentially....but they also have personal goals and desires. There are many things they agree on and others they don't. Even when they agree on a goal, they often disagree on how to go about it. There's a big schism in the group in regard to embracing the supernatural. One character is actively embracing the weird elements of the setting and consorting with ghosts and demons and the like. Another character has a strong mistrust of anything supernatural. As things have moved on, these two opposing views have become central to the game. Other characters have started to gravitate toward one character or the other, and it comes up almost every time they make plans for a score. We've not needed to resort to a roll off or anything like that....ultimately, they just have to decide as a group what to do. Luckily, it's been about an even split in those moments; I think if one side always got what they wanted, it might present more of a problem. 

But as it is, it's a really cool aspect of the game that I think would be missing if everyone just tried to "play along" and make things easy for the group. 

I don't think a game like 5E would not support this kind of intra-party friction, but I don't think it has mechanics that promote it. I think that the default assumption is to be more cooperative in such a game, which is fine. But there's no reason that you couldn't use Traits, Bonds, Ideals, and Flaws to create a lot of conflict within the group. I think that you just need to have a group that's mature enough to handle that kind of game.


----------



## hawkeyefan

Tony Vargas said:


> But is it genre?  I could imagine Xena & Gabby giving some refugees tips on using a sling, and then one of them, in one quick cut in one fight scene, takes out a minor bad guy with a sling stone.
> 
> But, anyway, Gnoll minions?  There's two in the Compendium, at 8th & 12th, and minionizing standard Standard Gnolls would yield you 13+ level minions.  Townsfolk'd be very low-level minions, examples like 'Human Slave' 1st, Borovian Commoner 2nd, Harkenwold Bystander 1st, Human Rabble 2nd.   So, hitting a Gnoll minion would be quite the stroke of luck for one of those guys.




Well, as I said my experience with 4E is pretty minimal, in the grand scheme. I wasn't worried about replicating actual game stats. 

But needless to say you kind of prove my point. All the mechanics you just kind of crunched....the levels, and conversion of monster level x to minion levely, and then comparing to minion level z.....and you arrive at the same conclusion!


----------



## Lanefan

Tony Vargas said:


> An interesting ultimatum, and one I'll answer, but, in return, I'm going to offer a comparable one, below.  Good luck with it.







> So, the resolution system, is not the model of the antagonist side of the conflict, alone.  Rather, the broader system models the PCs and their story, including their antagonists, /as such/.  In fiction - and, I mean fiction you could actually hope to publish, even if only in a 30s pulp or 19th century penny dreadful - heroes do not stolidly fight the same foes in the same level of detail over and over again.  Rather, new or terrible threats get the detailed treatment, and familiar or trivial ones are finished quickly or even glossed over - because fiction is not meant to be boring.



However, a TTRPG is not a novel, and in theory isn't limited by page count; and thus it can take the time that a novel can't and play through all the encounters.

Sometimes in a TTRPG you do end up fighting the same foes over and over - if you're in a war zone, for example, and keep encountering patrols of enemy soldiers.



> The basic d20 dice mechanic can't handle a spread of more than +/-5 without becoming unwieldy, and at +/-10, it becomes worthless.  So you're either limited to modeling a narrow range of competence (sweet spot) with the game breaking down outside that, modeling improvement primarily off the d20 with geometrically exploding hp/damage (high level monsters with thousands of hps), or normalizing the range between heroes and adversaries (treadmill).
> 
> None are entirely satisfying, but each can be made to work.
> 
> So, in the treadmill version, you can't have adversaries with a nominal level outside the workable range of the d20 - less than +/-5 - so, instead, other factors have to vary when you would otherwise cross that threshold.  That's what secondary roles are in 4e.  A solo is an adversary that would be consistently beaten at even odds were you 9 levels higher, instead, at level, it's a meaningful challenge for the whole party.  A minion is a creature that would be consistently beaten at even odds were you 10 levels levels lower, but instead, at level, can be dispatched quickly, if not without risk.
> 
> Put those together and a single creature could be reasonably modeled as an adversary over a range of 20 levels.



What you say is correct here, but the solution lies in a different direction: flatten the power curve and reduce the overall power gain as characters advance.  From all I can tell, 5e has done a pretty good job at this and thus a given monster can be and remain a viable opponent over a wider range of character levels without having to massage its numbers to suit the situation.



> How do we show, mechanically (In the fiction it's just presented as duch) it's the same creature? Or, for that matter, a comparable one?  Well, it's XP value can be held constant at those different levels.



Yes, along with all its other numbers.  A comparable-but-different creature might - well, very likely would - have different numbers e.g. better AC, lower potential damage output, etc., that ended up giving about the same XP value (and from all I've seen 4e is pretty non-granular with its XP values in the modules, usually rounding to the nearest 100).



> Now, for that ultimatum:
> Then what is the point of the game?  And if the answer is "the setting" or "internal consistency" or something of the sort, keep in mind that youre reducing your players to a mere audience.



Not to an audience, but I do see the setting as - to use a metaphor perhaps - a product of which the players are the end consumers.  What they do with it and-or how they consume it is up to them, but the product - the setting - is what it is.

The point of the game, then, is for the players to use that setting as a backdrop and milieu in which to play their characters; and for all involved to then generate some sort of story* as that play rolls along.

* - no matter how intentionally or not, nor how disjointed or not.


----------



## pemerton

hawkeyefan said:


> Most players don't mind if there's a scene that doesn't involve their character as long as there is something compelling happening, and they have a reason to care.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> I don't think that playing with passion or integrity and playing with thought toward the party/group need to be mutually exclusive.



Although even in the most famous of group adventure fantasy novels - LotR - the fellowship was sundered.

I think this is another place where attending to the difference between fiction and real world helps analysis. As you say, in the real world we want an engaged play group having a good time being engaged by the play of the game and the fiction it is creating. Whether in the fiction this has to take the form of a party, or can be the result of storlines that interweave in other ways, is a further question.

Neither 4e D&D nor Classic Traveller (to pick two games I'm pretty famiiar with) supports the second approach (one of many reasons why, contrary to the hype of its designers, Traveller can't do Star Wars). Burning Wheel, though, makes the "interweave" approach more feasible, and MHRP/Cortex+ even more feasible - in my expereince at least not so much because of genre but because of mechanics. They have systems which allow choices made by one player in the play of his/her PC to transmit, mechnically, to the situation of the other PCs without this requiring the PCs to be in fictional, collaborative proximity.

I see this as another place where knowing what a system can or can't do, and then approaching it in that light - or, perhaps, discoveirng in play what it can do and then following those implicit leads - makes more sense than trying to force one particular set of expectations onto any given system without regard to these sorts of differences.


----------



## Lanefan

Manbearcat said:


> Why is "genre logic is the model (or litmus test)" not a sufficient answer to you?  Sincerely curious.
> 
> Let me ask you something in relation to Minions Lanefan.
> 
> Take some sort of Tentacle Monster (The Kraken or the like).  In non-4e D&D, you're going to get an instantiation of the Kraken (or, again, any genre tentacle monster such as in The Fellowship of the Ring) whereby to defeat the monster, you're just ablating its monstrous HP pool down to 0.
> 
> By orthodox rules, the classic genre trope of lopping off tentacles isn't occurring in the sort of "fidelity to the model of fighting a Kraken/tentacle monster" that you're advocating for.  You can narrate the fiction as such (deploying genre logic), but you're not actually gaining any competitive advantage by dismembering the Kraken.  I'm assuming, by your logic, the model should produce that competitive advantage, with the fiction intersecting with that newly gained competitive advantage:
> 
> *The Kraken's tentacles go from x to x-, therefore the beast is less of a threat than it was moments before.*
> 
> In 4e D&D, the Minion rules actually enable this model (unlike other D&D).
> 
> 1)  Kraken is a Solo with various attacks + rider effect and all kinds of traits and abilities:
> 2)  The Kraken has x # of (Minion) Tentacles that go along with the Solo creature.
> 3)  The Encounter Budget also includes Whirlpool Hazards that the Kraken needs to use its (Minion) Tentacles to grab and fling PCs into.
> 
> Sum told, the Encounter Budget is 4800 (including 1-3).
> 
> Actually defeating (2) above would (a) model the bolded above (less attacks coming in on PCs and their vessel, less chance for PCs to be thrown into deadly Whirlpools, the Kraken (1) would then have to spend action economy to recover = impacts of encounter budget of 4800 are mitigated with a positive feedback loop) while (b) transliterating perfectly to the sort of genre fiction one would expect from a Kraken fight...
> 
> precisely the sort of modeling and transliteration to genre fiction that non-4e D&D doesn't produce (precisely because of its lacking of Minion mechanics).
> 
> Thoughts?





> I can't recall this but, assuming correct, I wonder how @Lanefan feels about this (individual HPs for appendages in 1e) and how that intersects with (or not) his feeling on Minions?



A few things here.

First, I hadn't made the connection between appendages and minions until you noted it here, but I can see the line of thinking that gets there.

That said, however, I handle these sort of appendages somewhat differently than 1e RAW would like me to.   I base my thinking on the idea that for a Human one of our arms counts as an appendage, but our arms don't have separate hit points from the rest of us in game terms...so why not have the same apply to all creatures?

So, if the MM lists separate hit points for appendages I'll ignore it and just give the creature more h.p. overall to compensate, while taking the appendage h.p. as a guideline for if someone intentionally tries to cut one or has no choice e.g. the Kraken's under the ship and the tentacles are all an attacker can reach - how much damage does it take to cut one off.  Then if an appendage does get cut I'll reduce the attacks to suit, but otherwise assume the damage is more evenly spread; and oftentimes it comes down to case by case based on the situation. (I've occasionally had creatures, for example, that have so many tentacles that it really doesn't matter how many you cut off there's still going to be more than enough to maintain its attack rate of, say, two per round per opponent.  For those the only time you'd attack a specific tentacle is if it has someone grabbed)

This actually comes up more frequently with Hydras, where cutting off a head sometimes isn't the best idea.   I've also on rare occasions had a player try calling a shot to take out a specific eyestalk on a Beholder, but as we don't really do called shots I either have to say no or just wing it depending on the specific situation.

If the game had a proper called-shot system or similar I'd do this all differently, but it doesn't and so I can get away with this rather rudimentary system.

With something like a Kraken, it's pretty easy in 1e to use a variant on morale rules to see how long it stays in the fight once it starts losing some tentacles and-or getting hurt in general.


----------



## Tony Vargas

Lanefan said:


> First, I hadn't made the connection between appendages and minions until you noted it here, but I can see the line of thinking that gets there.



It was used here & there.  I have some cute tentacle-minion counters from one of the Lair Assault modules, I still use.  /Usually/ minions are much lower-level monsters you 'kill' with a hit.  This is kinda the opposite, a much higher level monster so beyond you that you can't fight it, but you can annoy I tiny piece of it enough to retract and stop killing you.  At Epic, that device is used to let the PCs fight a living planet.



> That said, however, I handle these sort of appendages somewhat differently than 1e RAW would like me to.  So, if the MM lists separate hit points for appendages I'll ignore it and just give the creature more h.p. overall to compensate, while taking the appendage h.p. as a guideline for if someone intentionally tries to cut one or has no choice e.g. the Kraken's under the ship and the tentacles are all an attacker can reach



And oddity of 3e & later D&D is that, technically, a giant monster with reach can, well, reach out and hit/grab you, and take an AoO if you try to close with it, but, even as it's hitting you, both on it's turn, and with AoOs on yours, or even grabbing you, /you can't hit it back/.  Seriously?

One solution is the tentacle or whatever is a 'separate' creature (and not always minion), like the separate hp totals in 1e.



> If the game had a proper called-shot system or similar I'd do this all differently, but it doesn't and so I can get away with this rather rudimentary system.



I was flipping through the 1e MM after reading Manbearcat's post, and it was surprising, in a game without called shots, how many monsters had different ACs for different parts of their bodies.


----------



## Lanefan

pemerton said:


> [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION] - all ficion in the world is created without models in the sense you are insisting upon, _except for_ a certain subset of the fiction created by RPGers.
> 
> In 4e, the fiction is estabished in that mainstream way. We know that paragon tier PCs are tougher than heroic tier ones because we have the descriptions of the tiers of plat that I posted upthread. We know that an ogre savage and an ogre bludgeoneer are of comparable toughness because we describe them both as generic ogres wearing hide armour and wielding greatclubs.
> 
> Because such ogres pose little threat one-on-one to mid-paragon tier PCs we stat them as 16th level minons. Because such ogres pose some real threat to mid-heroic tier PCs we stat them as 8th level standard creatures.
> 
> The fiction is prior to the use of stats to establish parameters for resolution. That's why some of us have called it "fiction first".
> 
> The fact that their are more elements in the fiction than PCs has no bearing on this. JRRT was able to decide that the orcs in Cirtih Ungol killed one another without using a "model" in your sense. Humans are generally pretty good at making up stories.



And in part he could do that because both he in his mind and the readers in theirs could and did assume that those off-camera parts of the fiction happened in a consistent manner with the parts actually written out in the book.  We know how Orcs fight because we're given examples of it at various times in their dealings with the Fellowship's assorted members, and can extrapolate from there.

Put another way, the setting is consistent enough that were someone to stat out and run the battle between Orcs at Cirith Ungol the result would be - on average - consisent with running a battle between some other Orcs somewhere else, or (as written in the book) between the Orcs and the Fellowship at Rauros Falls.



> Why even bother? Because that's what some of us call _playing the game_ - finding out what happens in the here-and-now interaction.



This strikes me as the equivalent of standing twenty feet back from a window and saying that the only thing that matters is what you can see through that window right this minute; and further that just because we can see elements x and y through that window we can't extrapolate anything further.  This is somewhat ridiculous: we know damn well there's a great big world out there beyond the tiny bit that's shown through that window, and it's only logical to assume it largely functions exactly the same as the little bit we can see.

It's the whole "if a tree falls in the forest but nobody hears it, does it make a sound" question. (and yes it does, by the way  )


> As per the topic of the thread, it's about establishling true descriptions of the events in the fiction.



Yes, and doing that with any integrity either requires an assumption that off-camera things work the same as on-camera, or a clear statement going in that things work differently off-camera thus implying the setting is not consistent with itself.


----------



## Lanefan

hawkeyefan said:


> I haven’t commented in a bit, but I’ve been reading along with the current thrust of the conversation, and the above bit jumped out at me because I think it comes up often in these discussions.
> 
> The PCs....meaning the players and the characters they play...are what make a RPG a game. Anything in the setting has rules SOLELY for the purpose of interacting with the PCs. A game needs rules, the PCs are what makes it a game, therefore the rules are there for the PCs.
> 
> Beyond that, there’s no need for rules.
> 
> I think the idea that a game MUST have some internal consistency that could be maintained in the absence of PCs is simply not true. It may be a preference, but even then I’m not quite sure I understand the need. What matters in the fiction without the PCs being involved in some way? Any such detail can simply be narrated, or if random chance is required in some way, then it can be decided with the roll of a die.
> 
> It just seems like such a tail wagging the dog kind of situation.



I guess I see a setting as being incomplete if it can't in theory be used for more than just the here-and-now run of play in an RPG.  As player or DM, I should be able to take the setting and write a book about some NPC I've met (or run) and have the events in that book come out exactly as if they'd been played at the table, without having to make any changes to the setting's basic parameters.

Also, the players have to be able to trust that the interactions their PCs are having with the setting are - barring any material changes - going to be consistent from one event to the next; and also to be able to trust that their interactions with the setting will be consistent with how anyone else - be it a group of NPCs, another group of PCs, or whatever - would also interact with the same setting were they there in place of the PCs being played.


----------



## Lanefan

Ovinomancer said:


> This is presupposing a story plot or antagonist that the players are expected and required to team up to defeat.  Yes, in that style of play, this can be a problem because this style emphasizes team over individual.  But, if there is no prepared story and the game follows the action, then the paladin refusing doesn't derail the game, the game is now about what happens next.
> 
> This was the biggest hurdle for me to overcome in my understanding -- you have to throw out the entire D&D conception of how games work and accept a completely new paradigm of play.  One where the GM follows the players' moves and not the other way around.  There's literally nothing to derail.



I don't see how these two paragraphs relate to each other.

Your first paragraph is pretty much bang on: the Paladin doesn't derail anything but does change the focus...unless the Paladin or another character outright leaves the party due to their disagreements (which is a very possible outcome of playing true to character, believe me).

But the second paragraph regarding a complete playstyle change doesn't necessarily follow, unless you're thinking of the type of GM who can't (or worse, refuse to) hit curveballs thrown by the players - of which this would certainly be one.  Put another way, even in a GM-driven situation you can lead a horse (the players) to water (the story) but you can't make it drink (engage) if it doesn't want to.


----------



## Lanefan

pemerton said:


> I think the notion that mechanics can be a recipe without being a model - as I said in my earlier post, that mechanics can simply be _fiction generation devices_ or _fiction confirmation devices_ - is fundamental to appreciating the workings of most of the RPGs (including 4e D&D) that have been mentioned in this thread. Even Classic Traveller has resolution systems that as far as I can tell aren't meant to be models of anything, like the NPC reaction table.



Except that the mechanics, in this analogy, aren't a recipe at all - they're the operating instructions for the oven!

What you choose to bake or cook in that oven is up to you, the user; but the oven (i.e. the setting and game) is what it is regardless.


----------



## hawkeyefan

Lanefan said:


> And in part he could do that because both he in his mind and the readers in theirs could and did assume that those off-camera parts of the fiction happened in a consistent manner with the parts actually written out in the book. We know how Orcs fight because we're given examples of it at various times in their dealings with the Fellowship's assorted members, and can extrapolate from there.




Sure. And neither Tolkien nor the readers needed stats to understand all this. 



Lanefan said:


> This strikes me as the equivalent of standing twenty feet back from a window and saying that the only thing that matters is what you can see through that window right this minute




I think a better analogy is looking at a TV and saying the only thing that matters is the story that you’re watching, not what anyone’s doing in the kitchen.



Lanefan said:


> and further that just because we can see elements x and y through that window we can't extrapolate anything further. This is somewhat ridiculous: we know damn well there's a great big world out there beyond the tiny bit that's shown through that window, and it's only logical to assume it largely functions exactly the same as the little bit we can see.




But why do we care about what’s going on in the fictional world beyond what matters to the PCs? Same as with any story. Beyond the story, none of that really matters.


----------



## Tony Vargas

Lanefan said:


> And in part he could do that because both he in his mind and the readers in theirs could and did assume that those off-camera parts of the fiction happened in a consistent manner with the parts actually written out in the book.  We know how Orcs fight because we're given examples of it at various times in their dealings with the Fellowship's assorted members, and can extrapolate from there.



I mean, you can make whatever assumptions or extrapolations you want, about 'off camera' or glossed over sections, because they're not covered - you can also not bother doing so.



> It's the whole "if a tree falls in the forest but nobody hears it, does it make a sound" question. (and yes it does, by the way  )  Yes, and doing that with any integrity either requires an assumption that off-camera things work the same as on-camera, or a clear statement going in that things work differently off-camera thus implying the setting is not consistent with itself.



 Things /do/ work very differently off camera, when you're making a movie.  On-camera, you have a set, script, actors, lighting, foley, post-production, OMFG, so much stuff /working/ to make the scene.  Off-camera:  nothing.  That's working pretty differently.  

Things also work differently on-camera depending on the nature of the scene. Time compression, for instance.  If the self-destruct device is going off in one hour, the first 45 minutes may take 5 minutes on screen, the next 12 twice as long, and the last minute may take 5 or 10 minutes, as /each/ characters last minute of action is examined in minute detail.

The same things happen in RPGs constantly.  Minions?  Really no different.



Lanefan said:


> However, a TTRPG is not a novel



 Obviously.  If it were, it wouldn't be 'a model of genre fiction,' it'd just be "genre fiction."*



> Sometimes in a TTRPG you do end up fighting the same foes over and over - if you're in a war zone, for example, and keep encountering patrols of enemy soldiers.



Often you do in fiction, too.  Sometimes prettymuch exclusively.  Ripley, for instance, fought an Alien for a whole movie, then, next movie, a bunch of aliens, that were just like it, yet died a whole lot faster, then a big-bad Alien Queen that was at least as hard to finish as the original. 



> What you say is correct here, but the solution lies in a different direction



It's not unfair to note that an alternate solution could go in a different direction, but the 4e solution of secondary roles /is/ a perfectly valid solution - and, a powerful one, in that it allows greater ranges of levels /and/ competence, to be 'modeled' (or 'generated,' pem) by functional play.  







> flatten the power curve and reduce the overall power gain as characters advance.



That'd be modeling an entirely different story arc.  What's more, it'd be making the fiction being modeled a slave to the mechanics doing the modeling, which is the exact opposite of the point of modeling, in the first place.  
Really, looking at it that way, [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] 's idea of 'generating' rather than 'modeling' fiction makes more sense.



> From all I can tell, 5e has done a pretty good job at this and thus a given monster can be and remain a viable opponent over a wider range of character levels without having to massage its numbers to suit the situation.



It's a less effective solution to the same issue, which is why I brought it up.  5e manages to cover 20 levels, ~8 of them (4-11) , over which, most character don't get any better, at all, at most things, and only a little better - +4 - at things they're trained in.  Is that 'zero to hero?'  Does it really make sense alongside having 10 times the hps? 4 times the attacks? 5 times the damage dice?  11 times the slots? 40 times the spell points?  But only 20 or 40% (depending how you like to talk %s) better at a skill?

It's not, well, /internally consistent/.  ;P



> Yes, along with all its other numbers.  A comparable-but-different creature might - well, very likely would - have different numbers e.g. better AC, lower potential damage output, etc., that ended up giving about the same XP value (and from all I've seen 4e is pretty non-granular with its XP values in the modules, usually rounding to the nearest 100).



There's no rounding.  All 4e monsters of the same level & secondary role have the same xp value.  No fiddliness.  When buiding encounters you can largely skip adding up xp, and just go by levels & secondary role.



> Not to an audience, but I do see the setting as - to use a metaphor perhaps - a product of which the players are the end consumers.  What they do with it and-or how they consume it is up to them, but the product - the setting - is what it is.



Audience?  Consumers?  Whatever.  If the point is the setting, not the PCs, the PCs are just the spoons the players eat up whatever you serve them with, and the player role is ultimately passive.



> The point of the game, then, is for the players to use that setting as a backdrop and milieu in which to play their characters; and for all involved to then generate some sort of story as that play rolls along.



That's back to the point of the game being the PCs, because only the setting they /actually interact with/ matters. 












* - no matter how intentionally or not, nor how disjointed or not.


----------



## hawkeyefan

Lanefan said:


> I guess I see a setting as being incomplete if it can't in theory be used for more than just the here-and-now run of play in an RPG.  As player or DM, I should be able to take the setting and write a book about some NPC I've met (or run) and have the events in that book come out exactly as if they'd been played at the table, without having to make any changes to the setting's basic parameters.




Maybe I’m not fully understanding what you’re saying....but this is why I describe it as a tail wagging the dog situation. Game stats are meant to reflect story elements, not define them. 

Stories can be told and can be logical or internally consistent without everything having some kind of codified metric.



Lanefan said:


> Also, the players have to be able to trust that the interactions their PCs are having with the setting are - barring any material changes - going to be consistent from one event to the next; and also to be able to trust that their interactions with the setting will be consistent with how anyone else - be it a group of NPCs, another group of PCs, or whatever - would also interact with the same setting were they there in place of the PCs being played.




I don’t think consistency in this regard is a bad thing. I don’t think that stats are necessary to maintain such consistency. But I agree with you about this at it’s most basic. 

I just don’t know if it will matter all that much.


----------



## pemerton

Tony Vargas said:


> there's a spectrum between competitive games and cooperative games



A RPG might be fully non-competitive and hence at the cooperative end of your spectrum, and yet not involve party play in the sense that D&D and Traveller traditionally do.

In my Cortex+/MHRP games, sometimes the PCs are working cooperatively like a D&D party or a superhero team. And sometimes they are working separately but connected (in the fiction, and mechanically) to the same situation. Once or twice they've even been at cross-purposes.

But the game isn't competitive.

Likewise in the session I ran of The Dying Earth earlier this year: the PCs were mostly not interacting directly in the fiction, but what they were doing had implications for one another.

But that wasn't competitive either. It was a pretty light-hearted romp.

I would think of this as _radically non-caller_ RPGing. Early D&D had a notion of _the caller_ as an intermediary between the players and the GM (and possibly corresponding to the group leader in the fiction) intended to help manage the interaction between one GM and many players. When the PCs aren't in a group, and aren't necessarily cooperating, and perhaps are acting at cross-purposes, then the inverse principle applies: you don't want too many of them or else it becomes too hard as GM to manage the interweavings and as players it may be too long between goes.

For instance, my Dying Earth game had two players. I think three would also be fine, but five - my standard 4e group size - would be too many. I've done BW with four and I think even that is a bit crowded.


----------



## pemerton

Lanefan said:


> the solution lies in a different direction: flatten the power curve and reduce the overall power gain as characters advance. From all I can tell, 5e has done a pretty good job at this and thus a given monster can be and remain a viable opponent over a wider range of character levels without having to massage its numbers to suit the situation.



This is about aesthetic preference, and has nothing to do with consistency or coherence. And there are some of us who love 4e but have no interest in 5e precisely because they don't like the sort of gameplay experience its "solution" leads to.



Lanefan said:


> a TTRPG is not a novel, and in theory isn't limited by page count; and thus it can take the time that a novel can't and play through all the encounters.



A RPG actually does have an analogue of a page count, namely, the time available to the participants. In my case at least that is not endless, either in the short term or the long term.

But in any event, the fact that one _can_ doesn't mean that one _should_. These are - to reiterate - aesthetic preferences. They certainly don't go to the issue of _consistency of the fiction_. The ficiton doesn't become inconsistent just because (for instance) some episodes are purely narrated, some are resolved expeditiously, and some are resolved in loving detail. (I'm thinking here of how, in BW, one fight might simply be narrated as having occurred during a period of employment as a hired sword - in mechanical terms this would be part of upkeep resolution; another fight might be resolved using the Bloody Versus mechanic, which is a form of structrued opposed checks; and a crucial or capstone fight might be resolved using the Fight! mechanic, which is a melee resolution system comparable in intricacy to Runequest, Rolemaster or DrgonQuest.)



Lanefan said:


> Campbell said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Burning Wheel is primarily a game about finding out who the PCs are as people. Detailed maps and prepared encounters are not a feature of play. What matters is that we can continue to press PCs to fight for their beliefs.
> 
> Another important detail is that generally the more audacious the intent the more difficult the check will be and the more room the GM has to establish consequences of failure.
> 
> So imagine we have a PC, Vertigan the Bold. He has the belief I will claim my rightful place on the throne by vanquishing my brother, the usurper. Vertigan has been thrown in his brother's dungeons after a failed coup attempt. He attempts to escape the dungeons by using a secret passage. His player's intent is return safely to my brothers in arms who are hiding inside the citadel. If he succeeds at what should be a fairly difficult check he will rejoin his comrades in the city. However on a failure he might end up deeper in the dungeon in a crypt where his father's remains are laying and be confronted by his father's ghost who thinks Vertigan killed him.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Your example plays into the point I was trying to make: sure in this case it's a difficult check, but a hot-rolling player who makes a series of these successful checks is going to bypass all the interesting stuff, regardless of whether it's pre-authored or made up as a failure consequence, and quickly end up on the throne. That really cool idea about the father's ghost in the crypt will never enter play, which is kind of sad.
Click to expand...


Well, your reference to "the interesting stuff" as if that were somehow distinct from the actual experience of play is what led me, earlier, to identify your position as a type of story advocacy.

In BW play _the interesting stuff_ is what actually happens at the table. As Campbell said, the GM's main job is to _continue to press the PCs to fight for their beliefs_. If no one can think of any compelling way to do that then that particular campaign is over; but there's no particular reason to think that that would happen because the PC escapes the dungeon and hooks up with his brothers in arms; or more generally that that is going to be a function of a few "hot rolls".


----------



## Campbell

Lanefan said:


> I don't see how these two paragraphs relate to each other.
> 
> Your first paragraph is pretty much bang on: the Paladin doesn't derail anything but does change the focus...unless the Paladin or another character outright leaves the party due to their disagreements (which is a very possible outcome of playing true to character, believe me).
> 
> But the second paragraph regarding a complete playstyle change doesn't necessarily follow, unless you're thinking of the type of GM who can't (or worse, refuse to) hit curveballs thrown by the players - of which this would certainly be one.  Put another way, even in a GM-driven situation you can lead a horse (the players) to water (the story) but you can't make it drink (engage) if it doesn't want to.




In the play style I'm talking about we generally establish just enough setting to create characters and the things that drive them. The setting is generated as needed to provide context for these characters and meaningful antagonism between them and their goals. The point of play is to explore these characters and who they are as people. The setting is just a backdrop.


----------



## Campbell

Looking at a game like Apocalypse World or Masks through the prism of competition vs. cooperation is not quite right. It is neither of those. It's deeply collaborative. If I'm in a conflict with another player's character that might get violent as players we both like each other's characters and would probably like nothing more than for them to resolve their differences, but as fans of these characters that would not do them or the established fiction justice and we would rob the rest of the audience from seeing these characters in their most authentic form so we play with integrity and see what happens. We owe it to them.

This passage from Play Passionately covers it pretty well. Although it is addressing antagonism from the GM it works just as well if it comes from another player character. Less work for the GM.



			
				 Play Passionately said:
			
		

> That means that something within the game must be representing the fictional interests of the characters in conflict. That representation is what I call Character Advocacy. In simplest terms when Protagonist meets Antagonist something within the game must be fighting for each side, either outcome must be within the realm of possibility and no one player should be able to guarantee an outcome either way. In the classic Player/GM setup, by default the Player is the advocate for his character and the GM is the advocate for any adversity that character encounters.
> 
> 
> This is not the same as playing to win. Winning and losing is a wholly real world social thing. Winning is about the real player demonstrating that they are a superior games-man to another real player. Character advocacy is purely a fictional concern. Indeed the player and GM may have very well colluded heavily to bring the fiction to this point. The player and GM may even be rooting for the same side. But without legitimate representation for either side, the conflict is a straw-man and no system at all might as well have been deployed.




What @_*pemerton*_ says about being decidedly non-caller is exactly true. Even in games like Masks, Dungeon World, and Blades in the Dark that are decidedly about a group of characters with what should be in the fiction a strong united purpose we address the players individually. We ask what their character does and not what the group does even if that answer is to turn to the group. I expect them and only them to answer. I'll also ask questions to that character like "Can you believe he just did that?" or "Do you think that was the right call?" to help players think about what their characters think and because I'm really curious. We want to know who these characters are as individuals.


----------



## Campbell

Lanefan said:


> Your example plays into the point I was trying to make: sure in this case it's a difficult check, but a hot-rolling player who makes a series of these successful checks is going to bypass all the interesting stuff, regardless of whether it's pre-authored or made up as a failure consequence, and quickly end up on the throne.  That really cool idea about the father's ghost in the crypt will never enter play, which is kind of sad.
> 
> That's all I was getting at.




Why is success not interesting? If Vertigan's player succeeds we get to play through warm embrace of blood brothers. Vertigan is still a fugitive, in the citadel of his enemy. He still needs to decide his next move. Is now the right time to stage another coup? Draven, his younger bastard brother, thinks so, but Draven always sees blood. Vertigan's forces are still in disarray. To add to all that Vertigan gets word that the Lady Saris, his lover, has escaped her husband's estate to the south a fortnight ago, but has not yet arrived to the citadel. Bandits are known to travel the path. What does Vertigan do?

Success should be just as interesting and consequential as failure.


----------



## Tony Vargas

Sadras said:


> What are_ great mechanical resources_ of a cooperative game?



 Yeah, I did kinda undersell that, didn't I? 

An example of 5e mechanical support for a cooperative game would be the hp mechanic & BA - together they make outnumbering the enemy and focusing fire a simple, winning strategy, and allowing yourselves to be outnumbered, even by inferior foes, a losing one.  I would not call that a great, or strong, or good, or OK mechanical resource for a cooperative game  … it might rise to the level of 'rudimentary' and is essentially accidental.  In contrast, the 4e implementation of Roles would be an example of a mechanical resource that helps it function as a cooperative game, and, is even clearly intended as such.  I might rate it "OK," or, to be fair, since there's actually kind of a lot to role-support, even "good."  

Great?  Not sure I've seen one in an RPG.




pemerton said:


> A RPG might be fully non-competitive and hence at the cooperative end of your spectrum, and yet not involve party play in the sense that D&D and Traveller traditionally do.



A game could be downright competitive, and still involve such play - the PCs could be cooperating for survival, but competing for an ultimate goal, or just the richest rewards, for instance.  

I think I was just off-handedly pointing out a middle that seems to get excluded a lot.  (I can't actually recall if I meant it as a counterpoint...  looking back at the post, I was more or less agreeing, I think.)



> For instance, my Dying Earth game had two players. I think three would also be fine, but five - my standard 4e group size - would be too many. I've done BW with four and I think even that is a bit crowded.



This is just me going off on a tangent, but, y'know, 4e's worked surprisingly well, IMX, with a party of 2.  One stunning example: and adventure that had stymied a party of 5 for weeks was very successfully completed in one session, when only 2 players showed up.


----------



## Campbell

On the more character focused front both Masks and Scion 2e have strong support for cooperative game play.

In Masks every time you *enter battle against a dangerous foe as a team *you generate a *Team* pool that's based on team cohesion and unity of purpose in the fiction. You can spend *Team *from the pool to add +1 to another player's roll, but only if your character could legitimately help their character. This is a big deal in a system where labels/attributes top out at +3. There are also rules for defending another character from attacks. You can also *comfort or support* another character and if they open up they can choose to shift labels, clear a condition, or gain experience. There also other ways to shift labels (attributes) which can be helpful to help other players' characters succeed at what their trying to attempt. Finally, every playbook gets two Team moves to cover what happens when* you share a celebration with someone* or *share a weakness or vulnerability with someone*.

Scion is a game about a band of Scions, children of the gods, who are building their legend by accomplishing heroic deeds together to eventually maybe become gods themselves. Cooperative play is built directly into the experience system. Players get experience for accomplishing a set of player defined deeds. Short term deeds are meant to be something you can accomplish every session and are character specific goals, but there's experience bonus if all the player characters accomplish their short term deed in one session. Long term deeds are supposed to be something that becomes the focus of the game for a session or takes multiple sessions to achieve. These are character specific, but you can't get experience for another long term deed until every player character has accomplished theirs. Finally there's a band deed which represents a shared group goal that is supposed to represent a monumental task. This is shared by the entire band. Characters grow in Legend, the game's power stat when they have achieved one short term deed, one long term deed, and one band deed. So to progress individually it is to your advantage to help each other accomplish your individual goals.

Scion also uses a shared metacurrency, Momentum that is generated through failures and some other means. Spending it is a group decision. This can help to add group cohesion. Additionally one of the options you can spend extra successes on when you attack is to provide an Enhancement (bonus successes) to another player character's attack on the same opponent. It also has really strong defending rules.


----------



## Sadras

Tony Vargas said:


> Yeah, I did kinda undersell that, didn't I?
> 
> An example of 5e mechanical support for a cooperative game would be the hp mechanic & BA - together they make outnumbering the enemy and focusing fire a simple, winning strategy, and allowing yourselves to be outnumbered, even by inferior foes, a losing one.  I would not call that a great, or strong, or good, or OK mechanical resource for a cooperative game  … it might rise to the level of 'rudimentary' and is essentially accidental.  In contrast, the 4e implementation of Roles would be an example of a mechanical resource that helps it function as a cooperative game, and, is even clearly intended as such.  I might rate it "OK," or, to be fair, since there's actually kind of a lot to role-support, even "good."
> 
> Great?  Not sure I've seen one in an RPG.




Interesting. My immediate understanding for cooperative mechanics were resources such as Spells (Bless, Cure Wounds, Featherfall, Haste...etc), Bardic Inspiration, Flanking, Help action, Paladin Auras...etc


----------



## Tony Vargas

Sadras said:


> Interesting. My immediate understanding for cooperative mechanics were resources such as Spells (Bless, Cure Wounds, Featherfall, Haste...etc)



Spells are very flexible resources.  Regardless of class, any given caster could go his whole career without expending a single slot on a buff, healing, or other obviously-cooperative spell.  







> Bardic Inspiration, Paladin Auras



Those are decent examples of class features that primarily help someone else, yes, and they can't be readily diverted to other uses (the Aura can be under-developed by not devoting points to the right stat, but it'd be inefficient considering how good the aura can be).  And they're even on classes that, on examination of the mechanics, can be effective support characters if intentionally built & used that way. 

But support-orientation of some classes is only an element of what might make a game (/with classes/) cooperative.  Do other classes 'need' that support or synergize with it?  Together, with those synergies, what can they accomplish?
For instance, the most basic form of support in D&D is healing.  With healing, you can get through a longer 'day,' which put more pressure on the daily-resource classes to conserve their resources, and thus contribute less to each encounter...
...using spells or class abilities to enable more frequent recharges would be much more synergistic, and leads, in D&D, to balance-wrecking 5MWDs. OTOH, healing can help keep a specific ally active in a specific encounter, and thus continue making all his per-round contributions through the whole thing, which at least shores up that character's contribution when it might otherwise drop.



> Flanking, Help action



Optional rule & questionable efficiency, respectively, so more poor-to-OK support for cooperation, if you work at achieving it.  

But, still, even taken all together, nothing I could credit as "great mechanical resources" as a functional cooperative game.  
The system mastery and favorable rulings (because nothing works without the DM) involved in unlocking and interlinking the potential cooperative synergies (and avoiding dissynergies and pitfalls like the 5MWD) in 5e, could be seen as a challenging cooperative game, in itself, though.


----------



## hawkeyefan

So in regard to cooperative mechanics....I don't know if this will qualify exactly as what [MENTION=996]Tony Vargas[/MENTION] is describing, but Blades in the Dark has some good examples. 

The most basic is the option to assist another player with any action roll. You simply state how you help them, and then spend 1 stress, and they get an additional d6 to roll for their action. Every action roll in Blades is a dice pool of d6s, with a full success on 6, partial on 4-5, and failure on 1-3. So it's a pretty meaningful element in the game, and can really swing things toward success. As mechanics go, it's pretty straightforward, so I don't know how "great" this would be considered. 

Players also have the option to have their characters suffer the consequences of a failed action by another character. So if my character failed his Skirmish roll, and was about to take Harm by getting stabbed in the gut by his opponent, another character can step in and take the hit for me. So they would suffer the Harm instead of my character, although they could attempt to reduce the Harm by making a resistance roll, and/or applying armor. 

You can also take Group Actions. So let's say the whole team wants to sneak across a courtyard toward a manor. You choose one Leader for the group action, and then everyone rolls the relevant Action (in this case Prowl) and everyone shares the best result of all the group rolls. The Leader has to take 1 stress for each failed roll. This really increases the chance for everyone to succeed, but at risk to the leader of the group action. 

Beyond those methods, there are several playbook abilities that are very much designed around assisting other crew members. Some are tweaks to the above actions, others are more focused on helping the group overall through downtime or Crew Advancement. 

One of the biggest cooperative aspects of the game is the Crew. The group has its own character sheet, means of gaining XP, and cool options or abilities when the Crew advances. I'd have to say this is likely the most compelling group mechanic I've seen in a RPG. It really pushes the idea of the team working toward mutual goals and mutual benefit. 

What adds to that is the fact that a lot of the other game elements can really push for conflict among the group. It's a nice balance where you have people that are working together, but have conflict and difference of opinion that actually matters.


----------



## Tony Vargas

hawkeyefan said:


> So in regard to cooperative mechanics....I don't know if this will qualify exactly as what [MENTION=996]Tony Vargas[/MENTION] is describing, but Blades in the Dark has some good examples.



I guess on some level I'm defining a negative space or something. 



> One of the biggest cooperative aspects of the game is the Crew. The group has its own character sheet, means of gaining XP, and cool options or abilities when the Crew advances. I'd have to say this is likely the most compelling group mechanic I've seen in a RPG. It really pushes the idea of the team working toward mutual goals and mutual benefit.



Everything leading up to this, yes, it's stuff that works to cooperate, but that last ties it together.



> What adds to that is the fact that a lot of the other game elements can really push for conflict among the group. It's a nice balance where you have people that are working together, but have conflict and difference of opinion that actually matters.



That's probably part of what separates a tense character-driven RPG that's cooperative from a solid cooperative boardgame, like Pandemic...


----------



## pemerton

So I read the following in the review of PF2 just posted on the front page:

You should also read the introductory chapter because it’s a great introduction to roleplaying games in general. It’s everything you’ve ever tried to describe about our favorite hobby condensed into an easy-to-digest single page. It's the culmination of all the wisdom our hobby has fumbled its way into since the dawn of TTRPGs.​
To my mind, this is the sort of thing that pushes against solid analysis of RPGs and the play experience they deliver. Rather than trying to explain what is distinctive or noteworthy about PF as a RPG, and the sort of play experience it seems likely to  provide, it asssumes there is some single thing called RPGing that has a cumulated wisdom that the Paizo designers have summed up for us.

I'm guessing, for instance, that that 'culmination of all the wisdom" says nothing about how to place pressure on a character to reveal his/her true character in the way that has been discussed in this thread.


----------



## Arilyn

pemerton said:


> So I read the following in the review of PF2 just posted on the front page:
> You should also read the introductory chapter because it’s a great introduction to roleplaying games in general. It’s everything you’ve ever tried to describe about our favorite hobby condensed into an easy-to-digest single page. It's the culmination of all the wisdom our hobby has fumbled its way into since the dawn of TTRPGs.​
> To my mind, this is the sort of thing that pushes against solid analysis of RPGs and the play experience they deliver. Rather than trying to explain what is distinctive or noteworthy about PF as a RPG, and the sort of play experience it seems likely to  provide, it asssumes there is some single thing called RPGing that has a cumulated wisdom that the Paizo designers have summed up for us.
> 
> I'm guessing, for instance, that that 'culmination of all the wisdom" says nothing about how to place pressure on a character to reveal his/her true character in the way that has been discussed in this thread.




Well, to be fair, it's an introduction to a F20 game. I know it's frustrating that it seems many F20 players aren't even aware of other styles of play, but I'm not sure that a one page introduction to PF2 is the place to get into all the rpging techniques out there. The truth is that the majority of players are going to be happy sticking to a more traditional style. I feel players that want more will hopefully look around and find Story Now, diceless games, Burning Wheel philosophies, etc. It's not really in Paizo's best interest to encourage players away from typical F20 play. You can do your style of putting pressure on the character in F20, but it's going to be a more awkward fit?


----------



## pemerton

Arilyn said:


> Well, to be fair, it's an introduction to a F20 game. I know it's frustrating that it seems many F20 players aren't even aware of other styles of play, but I'm not sure that a one page introduction to PF2 is the place to get into all the rpging techniques out there.



I'm not commenting on what's in the PF2 book. I'm commenting on the review. It makes sense for the PF2 book to explain what sort of play experience one might expect from the game it presents. It is flat-out wrong, though, for a reviewer to characterise such an explanation as "the culmination of all the wisdom our hobby has fumbled its way into since the dawn of TTRPGs".

I mean, in the "how to play" parts of In a Wicked Age Vincent Baker suggests as one of the material requisites for play a bottle of wine, and at a certain point says words to the effect of _if you're done building your character and others are still going, maybe it's time for you to pour the wine_. No one would suppose that tthat is universal advice for all RPGing; and clearly Baker isn't suggesting that it is. PF2 and it's advice (which I suspect doesn't tell us when is a good time to pour the beverages) is no different in this respect.


----------



## Campbell

I actually consider Pathfinder 2e pretty progressive as far as most mainstream role playing game texts is considered. There is general sense for the most part that the rules should be followed and a healthy respect for following the fiction. No where in the text does it suggest overriding the rules or changing the fiction for the stake of the story. The advice for setting DCs is entirely from the context of the fiction. It also returns time and time again to the idea that the game belongs to the whole group. There are allowances for GM judgement calls, but the examples are always as an advocate for the fiction. I'm a big believer in GM judgement applied in a disciplined way. Although there are continued calls to "the story" the text clarifies that the story is about the player characters and the choices they make. It also makes overtures to several indie techniques like lines and veils, setting stakes, and failing forward. There is also no mention whatsoever about fudging dice rolls. 

It also generally does a good job of clarifying that it's talking about how to play Pathfinder, not role playing games in general. There's really only one section I find problematic. Here it is:



			
				 Pathfinder Core Rules said:
			
		

> *What Is a Roleplaying Game?
> 
> *
> A roleplaying game is an interactive story where one player, the Game Master (GM), sets the scene and presents challenges, while other players take the roles of player characters (PCs) and attempt to overcome those challenges. Danger comes in the form of monsters, devious traps, and the machinations of adversarial agents, but Pathfinder also provides political schemes, puzzles, interpersonal drama, and much, much more.
> 
> The game is typically played in a group of four to seven players, with one of those players serving as the group’s Game Master. The GM prepares, presents, and presides over the game’s world and story, posing challenges and playing adversaries, allies, and bystanders alike. As each scene leads into the next, each player contributes to the story, responding to situations according to the personality and abilities of their character.
> 
> Dice rolls, combined with preassigned statistics, add an element of chance and determine whether characters succeed or fail at actions they attempt.




I have no objections to this as a description of playing Pathfinder. In fact it sounds like a game I could be interested in playing or running. This is not a knock on Pathfinder as a game. Where it falls down is as a description of all roleplaying games. As an example Monsterhearts and Masks are definitively not concerned with overcoming challenges. Like you advocate for your character and we play to find out what happens, but your goal as a player is to play with integrity and passion. Overcoming gamist challenges and skilled play is not really the objective. 

This can be seen clearly in their experience systems. In Masks you mark potential for failing a roll, opening up to a team mate, for exposing a weakness or vulnerability, and for going along when provoked by a team mate. There are other conditions, but you get the idea. In Pathfinder you get experience for defeating monsters, winning social conflicts, and achieving objectives. I was actually impressed with all the non combat awards, but fundamentally you got rewarded for winning. That's good. Pathfinder is a game about overcoming challenges, but not all roleplaying games are.

Basically what I'm saying is that you don't really need to define what a roleplaying game is. You can just define what your game is. I think it's actively helpful to do so because you can clarify exactly how your game is played with less carryover baggage. This is what Masks does. It's actually what Pathfinder does for the most part - just not in that one section, but is far as mainstream texts go it's pretty good in this regard. Far better than most.


----------



## pemerton

[MENTION=16586]Campbell[/MENTION] - a thoughtful post about PF2. I'll suggest, at least half-seriously, that you write a brief review! I think your take will shed some interesting light that many other reviews will not.

I think the idea of _overcoming challenges_ is rather complex, or at least multi-faceted, in the RPG context. In what I suspect might turn into a long-ish post, I'll try and work through four examples I know well from experience.

4e D&D clearly involves the PCs confronting challenges; and, as players, one central goal is to overcome them. It says so right on the tin: _the world needs heroes_. And heroes overcome challenges and thereby make things better in the world. It's the GM's job to frame the challenges. At least as I have played 4e the players have quite a role to play in establishing the fictional context and components for the GM in framing those challenges, by the way they build their PCs and thereby hook them into the cosmological conflicts of the setting. In the actual play, it's the _trying_ to overcome that takes precedence - in combat working through your character's mechanical possibilities, in combat and moreso in non-combat looking for ways to engage and leverage the fiction. You can get a lot of fun game in before you find out whether or not you actually succeeded in overcoming; and you get XP for trying (in skill challenges, and for the foes you bested in a combat even if you lost it overall) and not just for succeeding. This is a significant contrast with AD&D.

The maths of 4e tend to make PC success the norm. I therefore think it's not strongly _gamist_ in the classic D&D sense. There is a tactical optimisation element in combat; but at least as I've experienced it a lot of the pleasure is in finding out how the victory transpires, what this reveals about the characters, what the costs are, as well as a lot of fun fantasy colour.

Burning Wheel involves the PCs confronting challenges or obstacles, because they are _fighting for what they believe_. The game incentivises _trying_ through a combination of its fate point award rules (which are triggered by playing to your character's goals/personality rather than by winning) and its advancement rules (which require taking on impossible obstacles as well as possible one) and its approach to failure (which is one of the earlier articulations of "fail forward" ie failure is by reference to intention, not task, and so propels the story forward by setting up new obstacles).

The maths of BW make failure commonplace. For this reason, among others, it's very gritty compared to 4e. There is undoubtedly a lot of scope in BW for skilled play - the player in my group who plays a super-tactical sorcerer in 4e is, in BW, the best at scripting both for Duel of Wits and Fight! (BW's social and melee resolution frameworks) and is very good at optimising his chekcs to get PC advancement without too much PC setback. But at least for me both as GM and player what I enjoy is the story and character dimension. I find at a system that it really lets the character come to life in play.

Prince Valiant is at its heart about playing knights. Mostly when we play Prince Valiant in our group its 3 players, all knights (one started as a squire but got knighted in play). There is another member of the group who occasionally joins us for Prince Valiant and plays a wandering entertainer, but the action is still oriented around knightly deeds with the entertainer a companion of theirs. There are undoubtedly challenges in the sense of jousts to be fought, maidens to be rescued, boars to be hunted, etc but the emphasis of play is on _participating_ in these challenges in a knightly fashion, not winning them. The PCs in my game have probably lost as many jousts as they've fought but that hasn't stopped them advancing (a lot of XP - called Fame in the system - are earned for participation and others are eanred for performing valiant or noteworthy deeds; that doesn't requre winning).

There is really no gamist aspect to Prince Valiant. It is mechanically very simple and is all about making choices for your PC and finding out what happens. Even though failure is quite common it is not at all gritty because the consequences of failure tend not to be severe either in the fiction or the system, and you don't fail to be a good knight just because you lost a joust or two!

Finally Classic Traveller. This doesn't really involve _challenges_ at all. The PCs aren't heroes, aren't knights, and aren't fighting for what they believe. As we play it, it's about taking on missions from patrons who - given the PCs' histories and skill-sets - have a reason to seek them out. It's also about accounting and buying and selling so as to try and meet the upkeep costs on your spaceship. It can get gritty, but not with the same emotional intensity as Burning Wheel. Of course there are obstacles in the way of the PCs getting what they want - that's pretty much the mininum for any sort of story - but they aren't what play is about. And there's little room for skilled play in Traveller of the sort that figures in BW and 4e, simply because of how the mechanics work - you're just declaring actions and hoping to roll well while adding a bonus that you have no control over (PC gen is largely random and PC growth during play is close to nil).

When I look at the PF2 text Campbell quoted - _A roleplaying game is an interactive story where one player, the Game Master (GM), sets the scene and presents challenges, while other players take the roles of player characters (PCs) and attempt to overcome those challenges. Danger comes in the form of monsters, devious traps, and the machinations of adversarial agents, but Pathfinder also provides political schemes, puzzles, interpersonal drama, and much, much more_ - that seems to me to actually describe Prince Valiant rather well, and also 4e D&D, even though those two systems produce very different play experiences. From this I infer that while no doubt true of PF2 it doesn't take us very far in understanding what the PF2 play experience will be. I'd start with _how common is loss?_, and _what are the consequences for loss?_ as questions whose answers can vary wildly across RPGs and the answers to which will help tell us a bit more about how PF2 plays.


----------



## GrahamWills

Ovinomancer said:


> >_Overall, when I run a game, I require all my players to prioritize making the game fun for everyone above anyone else. A play style that says "if my character would do that I will do it even if it makes the game less fun for other people" would be counter to the social contract I expect._
> 
> This is presupposing a story plot or antagonist that the players are expected and required to team up to defeat.  Yes, in that style of play, this can be a problem because this style emphasizes team over individual.  But, if there is no prepared story and the game follows the action, then the paladin refusing doesn't derail the game, the game is now about what happens next.




Are you responding to a different post by mistake? I am talking about respecting other players and you seem to be responding about fully pre-plotted stories. There's no question about de-railing anything; you're dragging plot in to a conversation that it wasn't part of.

For the canonical paladin example, the problem is that very often no-one except the paladin player want the game to be about what happens next. It's a selfish move by the player that says "and now the game is about me, my character's desires and his inner self". The point is that you are changing the game in a way that prioritizes what you think is fun at the expense of everyone else. Its why players who say "that's what my character would do" vie with rules-lawyers as the most disliked form of player a GM has to handle. I'd honestly prefer to run for someone who cheats occasionally rather than someone who is not willing to have their character do something "out of character" to make the game fun for all.


----------



## Lanefan

Arilyn said:


> Well, to be fair, it's an introduction to a F20 game. I know it's frustrating that it seems many F20 players aren't even aware of other styles of play, but I'm not sure that a one page introduction to PF2 is the place to get into all the rpging techniques out there. The truth is that the majority of players are going to be happy sticking to a more traditional style. I feel players that want more will hopefully look around and find Story Now, diceless games, Burning Wheel philosophies, etc. It's not really in Paizo's best interest to encourage players away from typical F20 play. You can do your style of putting pressure on the character in F20, but it's going to be a more awkward fit?



Stupid question: what does 'F20' mean here?


----------



## Ovinomancer

GrahamWills said:


> Are you responding to a different post by mistake? I am talking about respecting other players and you seem to be responding about fully pre-plotted stories. There's no question about de-railing anything; you're dragging plot in to a conversation that it wasn't part of.
> 
> For the canonical paladin example, the problem is that very often no-one except the paladin player want the game to be about what happens next. It's a selfish move by the player that says "and now the game is about me, my character's desires and his inner self". The point is that you are changing the game in a way that prioritizes what you think is fun at the expense of everyone else. Its why players who say "that's what my character would do" vie with rules-lawyers as the most disliked form of player a GM has to handle. I'd honestly prefer to run for someone who cheats occasionally rather than someone who is not willing to have their character do something "out of character" to make the game fun for all.



Yes, the reply was intentional.  If you are playing a game where there is a) no expectation of what comes next except that it will follow current play and b) paladin's recalcitrance drives the story somewhere in an unappreciated direction, your problem is far more fundamental than playstyle -- you have a fundamental mismatch of what game everyone is playing and need to address that outsude of play.  I assumed you weren't talking about this and so addressed a difference in a), as that will cause a similar problem.

If you intended to discuss how mismatched expectations will cause bad play, okay, but that's true of any style so it's not a valid criticism.


----------



## Arilyn

Lanefan said:


> Stupid question: what does 'F20' mean here?




Not a stupid question. It's a term I picked up from Robin Laws' and Ken Hites' podcast. Refers to fantasy games coming off D&D which use d20. It's a good term that I latched on to, and have been using without thinking that it's probably not that wide spread.

Look at me using jargon. Usually I'm the one that's confused.So proud.


----------



## Campbell

GrahamWills said:


> Are you responding to a different post by mistake? I am talking about respecting other players and you seem to be responding about fully pre-plotted stories. There's no question about de-railing anything; you're dragging plot in to a conversation that it wasn't part of.
> 
> For the canonical paladin example, the problem is that very often no-one except the paladin player want the game to be about what happens next. It's a selfish move by the player that says "and now the game is about me, my character's desires and his inner self". The point is that you are changing the game in a way that prioritizes what you think is fun at the expense of everyone else. Its why players who say "that's what my character would do" vie with rules-lawyers as the most disliked form of player a GM has to handle. I'd honestly prefer to run for someone who cheats occasionally rather than someone who is not willing to have their character do something "out of character" to make the game fun for all.




From the start I have approached this discussion with the assumption of an overwhelming unity of purpose. The central conceit is that this is what we have all agreed to do. We have created a powerful set of expectations. This is the fun the group wants to have. If that is not the case we need to discuss if this is the game we want to play. Maybe we'll play something else. Maybe we'll go our separate ways and find games that suit us. Playing Passionately is something to do together. It really does not meaningfully work if we do not have strong collaborative partnerships and a shared commitment. That's why being fans of each others characters is so important because to go where we need to go we need to know we will not abandon each other. Otherwise it's not fun.

In general I'm done with games where there is no unity of purpose. Whatever the aims of play I want us to embrace them wholeheartedly. Like if we're after gamist play including a strong focus on skilled play of the fiction let's do that. We can work together and celebrate each others triumphs and talk about them later. It's not my bag, but if we're going to be story advocates let's do that hard too. Let's play off each other and create grand arcs. If it's about the GM's story than let's play into it. Again not my bag, but the important part is let's have clear expectations and enjoy one another's play. I just have to know what we're all about. I've been in games where everyone is trying to have their own individual fun and nobody pays attention when other people are contributing. It sucks. It sucks so much harder than playing a game that is not ideal for me. I need dance partners.

Look that paladin's player may be trying to Play Passionately on his own and that is totally not appropriate if clear expectations have been set to the contrary, but the same is true of a Monsterhearts player or GM who tries to take control of the story while the rest of us are committed to playing to find out. Both are clear violations of the social contract. Here's the thing: the impulse behind both isn't like wrong or selfish in isolation. The selfish part is trying to play a completely different game than we've agreed to. It's like if we agreed to play euchre and a player starts placing bets and talking crap about the great hand they have. Let's not shame the desire. Just the behavior.

I would like to note that I have also seen this sort of recalcitrant behavior in games like Apocalypse World where a player latches on and won't let go. In my experience this sort of behavior is not evidence of wanting to play to find out, but rather holding really hard onto a character concept rather than approaching play with curiosity and emotional vulnerability. When another player has their character interact with yours you are supposed to really consider the impact. In my experience its indicative of wanting to control how the game will play out. This can be fine when it occurs in the context of a collaborative group who will negotiate this things, but that is not what we are doing when we Play Passionately.

I am willing to discuss this further if we can really consider what the other person is saying.


----------



## aramis erak

pemerton said:


> [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION] - all ficion in the world is created without models in the sense you are insisting upon, _except for_ a certain subset of the fiction created by RPGers.




Certain authors are notorious for having laid out the world in excruciating detail before putting pen to paper about the story itself. I would argue that, given their age at time of writing, neither Tolkien nor CS Lewis were RPGers, but both noted their worlds are modeled first, then written. Doc Smith clearly has more ideas than make it into Lensman, things that retain internal sense, but are not actually detailed out in the novels, and has a deep seated sense of how it worked. Verne was notorious for his attentions to minute (and manufacturable) detail; his radium driven Nautilus is astonishingly excellent as a prediction of the technology. And HG Wells was a gamer, albeit a miniatures wargamer, not an RPGer, but his writings have the same level of world creation as any RPG-fiction writer. 

Hell, I'd love to see what HG would have done with an RPG... as his _Little Wars_ is a delightful read, and not a bad game at all. 



			
				Campbell said:
			
		

> A player should not be prioritizing their character above all us. What they should be prioritizing is following the fiction, playing to find out, and being a fan of all the main characters (PCs).



 In your playstyle, perhaps.

In Burning Wheel, playing to push your character's goals over those of other characters is explicitly part of the intent. And why the game has a "any conflict needs a roll" rule within it.

Alien, the preview "Cinematic Starter Kit" explicitly has hidden agendas for the PCs.

You're being rather noisesomely chauvinistic  about your play style over all others.

My preferred style is no in-party violence, and only limited in party conflict. I want players to engage both with their character and the story... 

But there are many styles of play that, in the right groups, work. 




hawkeyefan said:


> Maybe I’m not fully understanding what you’re saying....but this is why I describe it as a tail wagging the dog situation. Game stats are meant to reflect story elements, not define them.



The character building process in quite a few games _begins_ with generating game stats, not story elements.
Old school D&D, for one.
Traveller... the backstory even is generated mechanically in CT, MT, TNE, T4, T20, and T5....
R Talsorian Games' Cyberpunk (2013/2020) and Mekton (I, II, Z) have random backstory generation and random attribute generation (albeit roll them all, then place).

Many groups, the story arises out of play, not out of some prior fictional stricture. The character often arises out of the stats and the play, rather than the other direction. GM as operating system for an open world, rather than GM as story pusher.

Some people can't handle random generation conceptually. Others can't handle non-random conceptually, tho' that's a bit less common.  Most can handle either, but prefer one or the other. 

Ideally, the game arises out of a combination of the group-members' desires and their interactions with the rules at a level comfortable for all involved.


----------



## aramis erak

Sadras said:


> Interesting. My immediate understanding for cooperative mechanics were resources such as Spells (Bless, Cure Wounds, Featherfall, Haste...etc), Bardic Inspiration, Flanking, Help action, Paladin Auras...etc




Those are a limited form. I'd call them direct cooperation measures...

But there are more indirect methods...

AMSH had an option for a group Karma Pool, which all players could donate to and draw from as needed.

The One Ring has the fellowship pool, generated at start of adventure/story, which one can draw from if no one objects; if more than half the group objects, drawing from it generates a point of shadow.

These are passive cooperation methods; they require no effort at time of use by the others to justify.

Then, there are options like in Modiphius 2d20 where you give up your later action to help someone on their action.

And in Fria Ligan's Alien (and Tales from the Loop, and Mutant Year Zero) when the group has to overcome something, the group picks ONE person to roll, based upon who has the best chances, but then the others provide help, and the group is to abide by the one roll. 

In Burning Wheel, helping someone binds one to the results... be they good or bad.


----------



## Ovinomancer

aramis erak said:


> In your playstyle, perhaps.
> 
> In Burning Wheel, playing to push your character's goals over those of other characters is explicitly part of the intent. And why the game has a "any conflict needs a roll" rule within it.
> 
> Alien, the preview "Cinematic Starter Kit" explicitly has hidden agendas for the PCs.
> 
> You're being rather noisesomely chauvinistic  about your play style over all others.
> 
> My preferred style is no in-party violence, and only limited in party conflict. I want players to engage both with their character and the story...
> 
> But there are many styles of play that, in the right groups, work.




What bothers me about this part of your post is that it's seeking injury so that it can respond with insult.  [MENTION=16586]Campbell[/MENTION] has been explicit that he's discussing how his preferred playstyle works, has taken pains to contrast to other styles without demeaning them, and was, in the part you quoted, directly responding to question about his preferred playstyle.  You had to be looking to be offended, here. Expressing enthusiasm for and answering questions about how one might like to play should be seen as a good thing, not something to prompt you into pulling out the dictionary to say "foul, unpleasant, and excessive prejudice," especially when a casual read disproves such a statement. 

Also, and I say this with obvious irony given my routine typos, it's noisome.


----------



## aramis erak

Ovinomancer said:


> Also, and I say this with obvious irony given my routine typos, it's noisome.




Google it.  I did. None of the dictionary sites on the first page agree with you.


----------



## Lanefan

aramis erak said:


> Certain authors are notorious for having laid out the world in excruciating detail before putting pen to paper about the story itself. I would argue that, given their age at time of writing, neither Tolkien nor CS Lewis were RPGers, but both noted their worlds are modeled first, then written.



I'll throw in that these two also to some extent collaborated with each other and quite likely discussed their world-building while in process of doing it; they and some others had a literary group they called the Inklings, who met each week (on Tuesday, I think) in a particular pub in Oxford.  There's now a commemorative plaque in said pub, above the table they used to frequent; or at least there was when I was last there in 2014.


----------



## Campbell

I do not know what Luke Crane's intent was there, but it does not necessarily follow that because dice are involved that the players are competing. The relationship between what is happening in the fiction and the attitude of the players towards each other may not correspond one to one. As audience members we could be loving it. Like on one level we're feeling what our characters are feeling, but we step out of every time a die is rolled or there's a break in the action and we're loving what's going on like a good TV show. We can't wait to find out where this goes. Or not.

Like that's just how I think about it.  That dance between audience and author and actor is really compelling to me.

In this thread I did not plan to go on such a long tangent about one of the ways I like to play role playing games. I made a throw away comment about how I did not like stake setting mechanics, and things snowballed. I never meant to imply it was the way or even the best way to play role playing games. I will maintain that playing Sorcerer, Apocalypse World, or Masks according to the techniques laid out in the texts facilitate an experience that is hard to replicate with a different set of expectations and techniques, They excel at helping us create and experience deeply personal stories about the main characters as people in motion. They have unique risks not found in mainstream games too. Their not like objectively better games. I never meant to imply that. For one thing they are near useless for adventure stories. The villains in Masks are not salient. They are only there to serve as reflections on the heroes struggle.

I should clarify I don't like seek out character conflict in my play. I just do not like shy away from it, but mostly just when I play or run this sort of game. I like other games too. I love a good gamist romp. I don't care if it's more focused on skilled play of the fiction or the mechanisms of the game although I really want the fiction salient or might as well be playing a board game. With a good group firing on all cylinders appreciating each others play cooperative gamist play is wonderful. Combining the two is even better sometimes. That's why I love Blades in the Dark. Simple mechanisms that promote skilled play of the fiction while the rewards systems promote exploring the characters. Chocolate and peanut butter.

At the end of the day I know what these techniques have to offer because I have experienced them first hand. Other sets of techniques offer their own advantages like the fun of being surprised by the GM or module writer's story. I get that's fun for a lot of people and I legitimately do not begrudge them that. I also get that you can filter in some character exploration, but in my experience something has to take priority in any given moment of play. I know I experienced that in my attempts to combine gamist fun with character exploration fun. I mean a lot of it comes down to me just really enjoying the tension of no one at the table knowing how things will turn out and everything coming down to our decisions and the dice. That's really compelling to me on both sides of the screen in a way that's hard to explain. Like I don't think it's wrong to not enjoy that or to want to manage it. I just do not think it's required for a good game.


----------



## Ovinomancer

aramis erak said:


> Google it.  I did. None of the dictionary sites on the first page agree with you.




Well, I did.  And Bing.  And DuckDuckGo.  The only two results I've seen (aside from Google putting up top, "Did you mean: noisome?") are Wikitionary and Lexico.  The wiktionary entry is.. sparse.. and has no references.  The Lexico entry at least references a source, but Lexico is a collaboration of Oxford press and Dictionary.com.  I mention this because Dictionary.com doesn't even have an entry for noisesome.  It's also not in the Merriam-Webster online dictionary.  I suppose you can choose to stand on those first two, the "anyone can add" dictionary and the one that doesn't agree with it's own source material.  You do you.


----------



## hawkeyefan

aramis erak said:


> Certain authors are notorious for having laid out the world in excruciating detail before putting pen to paper about the story itself. I would argue that, given their age at time of writing, neither Tolkien nor CS Lewis were RPGers, but both noted their worlds are modeled first, then written. Doc Smith clearly has more ideas than make it into Lensman, things that retain internal sense, but are not actually detailed out in the novels, and has a deep seated sense of how it worked. Verne was notorious for his attentions to minute (and manufacturable) detail; his radium driven Nautilus is astonishingly excellent as a prediction of the technology. And HG Wells was a gamer, albeit a miniatures wargamer, not an RPGer, but his writings have the same level of world creation as any RPG-fiction writer.
> 
> Hell, I'd love to see what HG would have done with an RPG... as his _Little Wars_ is a delightful read, and not a bad game at all.




A couple things on this.

I don’t think that developing backstory and setting and having very structured worldbuilding done ahead of writing is a negative thing. For Tolkien and Lewis and many other writers, it works for them to work a lot of this stuff out ahead of tine. Although due to revision and multiple drafts, it’s hard to say how much was actually SET ahead of time and not adjusted as needed. I expect there was a lot more in flux with all the Middle Earth backstory than we tend to think. 

Having said that, even if these writers had established their world perfectly and unchangingly before they wrote their actual novels, I don’t think that’s the same as having mechanics dictate story. Backstory isn’t a game mechanic, as you go on to establish yourself. 





aramis erak said:


> In your playstyle, perhaps.
> 
> In Burning Wheel, playing to push your character's goals over those of other characters is explicitly part of the intent. And why the game has a "any conflict needs a roll" rule within it.
> 
> Alien, the preview "Cinematic Starter Kit" explicitly has hidden agendas for the PCs.
> 
> You're being rather noisesomely chauvinistic  about your play style over all others.
> 
> My preferred style is no in-party violence, and only limited in party conflict. I want players to engage both with their character and the story...
> 
> But there are many styles of play that, in the right groups, work.




I don’t think anyone is being offensive in advocating for their preferred playstyle. 



aramis erak said:


> The character building process in quite a few games _begins_ with generating game stats, not story elements.
> Old school D&D, for one.
> Traveller... the backstory even is generated mechanically in CT, MT, TNE, T4, T20, and T5....
> R Talsorian Games' Cyberpunk (2013/2020) and Mekton (I, II, Z) have random backstory generation and random attribute generation (albeit roll them all, then place).
> 
> Many groups, the story arises out of play, not out of some prior fictional stricture. The character often arises out of the stats and the play, rather than the other direction. GM as operating system for an open world, rather than GM as story pusher.
> 
> Some people can't handle random generation conceptually. Others can't handle non-random conceptually, tho' that's a bit less common.  Most can handle either, but prefer one or the other.
> 
> Ideally, the game arises out of a combination of the group-members' desires and their interactions with the rules at a level comfortable for all involved.




I don’t disagree with any of this. But I don’t think it contradicts the point I was making. Or at least the point I was trying to make. Game stats, however they may be established as part of the game, reflect a fictional aspect of the game world. My point is that stats are truly only needed when the game world interacts with the PCs. The stats need not be some fundamental expression of all of the physics of the fictional world. I think that defining things at such a scope just breaks down. So it’s best (in my opinion) to rely on stats only when needed. 

The PCs fight a dragon? Yes, roll everything out because that’s the game. That’s why everyone’s there. The PCs witness another party fight a dragon? No stats needed, just call it based on what the fiction has established and what it demands.


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## Arilyn

hawkeyefan said:


> A couple things on this.
> 
> I don’t think that developing backstory and setting and having very structured worldbuilding done ahead of writing is a negative thing. For Tolkien and Lewis and many other writers, it works for them to work a lot of this stuff out ahead of tine. Although due to revision and multiple drafts, it’s hard to say how much was actually SET ahead of time and not adjusted as needed. I expect there was a lot more in flux with all the Middle Earth backstory than we tend to think.
> 
> Having said that, even if these writers had established their world perfectly and unchangingly before they wrote their actual novels, I don’t think that’s the same as having mechanics dictate story. Backstory isn’t a game mechanic, as you go on to establish yourself. ( Quote)
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Tolkien was continuously tinkering with the mythology of Middle Earth, right up to his death. There are contradictions in his writings because of this. The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings don't really feel like quite the same place. Gollum is not quite the same character, and yet we praise Tolkien for the depth and richness of his world building. It certainly wasn't all thought out before hand, but the continual changing hasn't taken away from the authentic feel of Middle Earth.  So yes, nothing was set in stone, and a lot was tinkered with as needed. Apparently, Tolkien claimed than when he first wrote the scene with Strider at The Prancing Pony, he didn't know who he was, and whether he was a good guy or a villain.
> 
> As for C.S. Lewis? I'm sure things were always changing. Tolkien complained about his friend's chaotic world building, after all.


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## pemerton

Campbell said:


> I do not know what Luke Crane's intent was there, but it does not necessarily follow that because dice are involved that the players are competing.



The Sword is a free demo adventure for Burning Wheel that is also reproduced in the Adventure Burner. The following is from scenario intro:

The Sword is a very simple, one-scene scenario designed to introduce new players to Burning Wheel. To keep play focused on the important aspects of learning the rules, the players are placed in conflict with one another. This isn't the normal mode of play for Burning Wheel. The player-versus-player aspect is used only to facilitate demonstration.​
Various examples throughout the BW rulebooks - some of which are contrived, some of which seem to be drawn from actual play - present both cooperative and competitive scenarios as between the PCs. The statement of principles for players in the game says the following (I'm quoting from Revised p 269; the text is identical in Gold as best I recall):

Finally, there is the sacred and most holy role of the players. In Burning Wheel games, players have a number of duties:

* Prime among them is the responsibility to offer hooks to their GM and the other players in the form of Beliefs, Instincts and traits. . . .

* Players in Burning Wheel use their character to drive the story forward - to resolve conflicts and create new ones. Players are _supposed_ to push and risk their characters, so they grow and change in unforeseen ways. . . .

* Participate. Help enhance yur friends' scenes and step forward and make the most of your own. It doesn't matter if you "win," so long as the story spins in a new and interesting direction. If the story doesn't interest you, _it's your job to create interesting situations and involve yourself_. If a player's desires and priorities are disruptive for the group as a whole, then it's that player's job to excuse himself from the game and find another group. . . .

. . . Listen to the other players, riff off of them, take their leads and run with them. Expand on their madness, but also rein them in when they get out of hand. Remember that you're playing in a group, and _everyone_ has to have fun.​
I think this is actually pretty close to what [MENTION=16586]Campbell[/MENTION] has been talking about in his recent posts. The fiction might involve PC cooperation and/or conflict, but the table is meant to be collaborative - not around story (_unforeseen ways_, _new and interesting directions_) but around engaging, character-pushing situations.


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