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Post by howandwhy99 on Aug 28, 2015 1:55:02 GMT -6
There is never a predetermined storyline in game. This includes D&D. That's why fail forward doesn't work.
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Post by Finarvyn on Aug 28, 2015 7:22:13 GMT -6
There is never a predetermined storyline in game. This includes D&D. That's why fail forward doesn't work. That's a pretty strong statement. I don't use "fail forward" much in my own games but I know that it seems fine for many folks so it's hard to argue that it doesn't work. Perhaps better to say "it doesn't work for me."
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Post by tetramorph on Aug 28, 2015 10:38:33 GMT -6
Help me out:
"Fail forward."
Definition, please?
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Post by cooper on Aug 28, 2015 10:52:07 GMT -6
Failing forward is a core system mechanic of the "new wave" narrative interpretations of dungeons and dragons (like dungeon world, Torchbearer, and burning wheel to name a few). The concept is simple. A failed roll still gives the player what they attempt, but at a cost, sometimes an extreme cost depending on the level of failure, or a chain of failures.
Take climb walls. A failed roll still means the character climbs up the tower up to the Wizards laboratory, but he drops his sword on the way up, or he is spotted by the Wizards pet gargoyle and now has to fight a battle, or even something less dangerous like the window he wanted to climb into is now considered stuck closed. "Failing forward" puts exciting challenges in front of players for bad dice rolls. You get what you want, but with a monkey wrench. It's basically the same concept behind a poorly worded wish spell. Sure, you get your wish, but the DM gets to be a jerk about it.
Think of a low level thief. It's not that he's bad at hearing noise, or detecting traps, he just happens to have really bad luck and something unexpected always keeps happening to him, he can't so much as pick a pocket without that pocket belong to a powerful wizard, or the captain of the guard! Just his luck he always seems to get caught up in crazy scenarios.
When a high level wizard casts a cleaning spell in his manse, he snaps his fingers and it's done. When his apprentice bumbles through the same spell, all hell breaks loose!
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Post by tetramorph on Aug 28, 2015 11:24:55 GMT -6
cooper, that really helps. Explained as such, it doesn't sound so bad. I'm not sure 0e needs to import that interpretation of rolls at an atomic level. From the description, it seems to me that the entire 0e game is a "fail forward"! Thanks
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Post by kesher on Aug 29, 2015 8:58:03 GMT -6
That was a great explanation, cooper!
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Post by howandwhy99 on Aug 29, 2015 15:08:05 GMT -6
There is never a predetermined storyline in game. This includes D&D. That's why fail forward doesn't work. That's a pretty strong statement. I don't use "fail forward" much in my own games but I know that it seems fine for many folks so it's hard to argue that it doesn't work. Perhaps better to say "it doesn't work for me." This isn't whether it works in my game or not. It's not possible in a game. It is a technique for a story making activity, but not a game. Example: A soccer player kicks the ball at the goal and scores. That's success. But what about any other action on the field? Do we "fail forward" with every kick of the ball? Make the erroneous claim that every kick enters the goal? D&D is a game because it must have its design in existence prior to playing it. Just as you don't run a 100 meter dash before measuring it.
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Post by cooper on Aug 29, 2015 18:29:13 GMT -6
I guarantee you howandwhy99 that dungeon world and torchbearer have as much, if not more, 'gamist' structure to play than even d&d does. To be honest, I have no idea what the rest of your post is trying to analogize. You're best bet is to play those games I mentioned before coming down emphatically that it is "not possible". ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ .
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Post by howandwhy99 on Aug 29, 2015 19:31:47 GMT -6
Those aren't even games. You're confusion is the prejudiced Forge theory. The Big Model never once talks about games. That is a storytelling theory. It isn't even about games. That is a theory for creating group stories. Games are never stories. Games are patterns to be deciphered. If you don't have a game in place prior to play, you can't play a game. It's like running a race without setting a distance. Yes, you can run to express yourself and that expression may be conceived of as a narrative, but there are no such things as actual narratives either. Storytelling is a culture of thinking.
EDIT: The only way anyone can play D&D, or any RPG for that matter, is to remove oneself completely from the deliberate misinterpretation held up as dogma by the Forge.
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Post by tetramorph on Aug 29, 2015 20:02:22 GMT -6
Seems to me you could make a story making game.
It would be a game with rules and all that. You win or conclude by telling a story.
Doesn't seem to me that the distinction between games and narratives is so hard and fast.
Especially as the only way to do so would be to tell a story.
I believe there are actual stories. But then again, as I've said before, I am just a good old fashioned Platonist anyway.
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Post by derv on Aug 29, 2015 20:26:41 GMT -6
The Allegory of the Cave seems like it might apply to this discussion then
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Post by howandwhy99 on Aug 30, 2015 2:04:02 GMT -6
Seems to me you could make a story making game. It would be a game with rules and all that. You win or conclude by telling a story. That's a game you play where your prize is telling a story after the fact. Two separate things. A game objective can only be an objective pre-existing in the game. Like 3 x's or o's in a row or a home run. "Invention" itself cannot be an objective in a game. Gameplay is the act of discovery. Stories are a sequential pattern of references. Games are preset coded patterns to be deciphered by a player. A shrub maze is a game. Playing a game (discovering a pre-existing design) is completely the opposite of making a story (improvising without regard of pre-existing states or results and understood only within the limiting ideas of narrative theory). And here is your absolutism. The One True and Only Way. How does it sound in reverse? Storytelling never actually occurs. Story is an idea within our culture, not an actuality beyond that. Other cultures, like most all in history, did not have story telling because they were simply different from ours.
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Post by cadriel on Aug 30, 2015 5:13:56 GMT -6
That's a game you play where your prize is telling a story after the fact. Two separate things. A game objective can only be an objective pre-existing in the game. Like 3 x's or o's in a row or a home run. "Invention" itself cannot be an objective in a game. Gameplay is the act of discovery. Dave Wesely's Braunstein games revealed something totally new in a refereed war game: given an objective and a situation, players can do literally anything they want to do. Some people tried to quantify absolutely everything and anything, but it remains the core point: you can do anything. It seems foolish to then say that, in such a game, you are limited to "an objective pre-existing in the game." D&D is fundamentally different from tic-tac-toe or baseball, in an important and already well described way. I think that goes back around to the original point: the idea behind "no-numbers" play is to let players do anything, unencumbered by figuring out what combination of "moves" or other rules gadgetry will let them do something interesting in the imagined world. The referee in a Braunstein-type game facilitates this by being able to decide how to proceed.
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Post by Finarvyn on Aug 30, 2015 5:22:53 GMT -6
[admin voice]
Please, let's not get into a "Forge versus non-Forge" argument. That line of discussion leads to anger and locked threads.
Just trying to be proactive here. We've done this before.
[/admin voice]
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Post by howandwhy99 on Aug 30, 2015 5:41:35 GMT -6
Dave Wesely's Braunstein games revealed something totally new in a refereed war game: given an objective and a situation, players can do literally anything they want to do. Some people tried to quantify absolutely everything and anything, but it remains the core point: you can do anything. It seems foolish to then say that, in such a game, you are limited to "an objective pre-existing in the game." D&D is fundamentally different from tic-tac-toe or baseball, in an important and already well described way. I think you're just wrong. D&D requires every referee to select rules unknown to the players prior to play. And then use them to generate maps and stats of those maps for every construct in the game. Why do you think we are required to have referee campaign maps in OD&D, modules, and stats for everything before they can be added to the game? The referee is never allowed to improvise. That's rule #1 in D&D. To be a fair and impartial referee they are only to reveal elements from behind the screen - another essential element to D&D which hides the code being deciphered (aka enabling game play). Players cannot do everything, just as in life. Players may attempt anything, but the results are due to the game's design. Just like in trivia or the game Mastermind. Finarvyn: Could you please keep other people from referencing the Forge and Big Model on this site? As the most effective anti-D&D effort in history I hardly want to be told it applies to D&D while here.
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Post by cadriel on Aug 30, 2015 6:44:54 GMT -6
I think you're just wrong. D&D requires every referee to select rules unknown to the players prior to play. And then use them to generate maps and stats of those maps for every construct in the game. Why do you think we are required to have referee campaign maps in OD&D, modules, and stats for everything before they can be added to the game? The referee is never allowed to improvise. That's rule #1 in D&D. To be a fair and impartial referee they are only to reveal elements from behind the screen - another essential element to D&D which hides the code being deciphered (aka enabling game play). Players cannot do everything, just as in life. Players may attempt anything, but the results are due to the game's design. Just like in trivia or the game Mastermind. Mike Mornard (@gronanofsimmerya) put it a few threads back: D&D is a descendant of Free Kriegsspiel. The rules are just laying out the scenario; the referee's judgment is absolute. There is a great deal that not only can, but must be improvised. It is physically impossible to account for every place, character and situation that the players, who have total freedom in the imagined world limited only by the referee's judgments. My "campaign map" might have a bunch of gnolls in it, but at best I may know what their relationship to the kobolds down the corridor is. Once the players start to interact with the situation, it is going to evolve in a way that requires intensive improvisation. No version of D&D that I have ever read (and I've pretty much read all of them, though I admit to skipping bits of 3e and 4e) has ever had as "rule #1" that improvisation is not allowed, and I'm not aware of any quote from anyone who matters (pretty much Dave or Gary to be honest, as far as defining D&D) forbidding the practice.
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Post by Finarvyn on Aug 30, 2015 6:56:21 GMT -6
Finarvyn: Could you please keep other people from referencing the Forge and Big Model on this site? As the most effective anti-D&D effort in history I hardly want to be told it applies to D&D while here. Well, I did post a "please no Forge" post right before your most recent one, so I'm trying to keep this place clear of that potential powderkeg. On the other hand, discussion of "fail forward" seems legit here since it's being applied to OD&D campaigns, and I have no problem with discussing the merits of how Torchbearer or other RPGs might offer ideas to help one's OD&D campaign as long as we're not OD&D-bashing. Short of thread locking and poster banning, there's not much I can do to "keep other people from referencing the Forge" here. In general it's not a problem here, but I thought I'd give folks a gentle reminder just in case.
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Elphilm
Level 3 Conjurer
ELpH vs. Coil
Posts: 68
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Post by Elphilm on Aug 30, 2015 6:58:23 GMT -6
It's pretty funny how the RPG Pundit and his ilk have poisoned the well so thoroughly by now that not even old school gamers can mention the word "story" on an RPG forum without someone running from the bushes screaming incoherent screeds about how evil The Forge was. Here's a quote from Dave Arneson to blow your mind: My emphasis was always on the story telling and problem solving,
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Post by howandwhy99 on Aug 30, 2015 7:01:35 GMT -6
Well, if you ever get curious as to why OD&D and AD&D were designed as they were, given how wargames are designed, played, and theorized about, you can PM me.
This is the old 70s debate about whether one is describing or narrating. D&D referee's describe what's going on upon the gameboard behind the screen. And that is legitimately an act of storytelling. If only to impart information to players on a person-by-person and piece-by-piece basis given their actions in the game. Playing a game not as a game, but as a creative story-making act used to be harmful act in any game. A "screw you" to the other players.
"We're trying to score and win the game, but Teddy keeps plotting with the other team about what narrative we should all portray next play and whether or not the audience would like that."
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Post by Stormcrow on Aug 30, 2015 9:41:06 GMT -6
Seems to me you could make a story making game. You can, and it's a lot of fun. But it's not a role-playing game.
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Post by tetramorph on Aug 30, 2015 10:23:41 GMT -6
Seems to me you could make a story making game. You can, and it's a lot of fun. But it's not a role-playing game. Well, yes. I think perhaps there are story-making games that are also, in some sense "role-playing games." But it would certainly not be a wargames campaign. And, yes, I was speaking theoretically and broadly. I was in no way endorsing that approach to our hobby of choice. Just trying to join the conversation. I am still old school, my friend.
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Post by Finarvyn on Aug 30, 2015 15:39:25 GMT -6
Seems to me you could make a story making game. You can, and it's a lot of fun. But it's not a role-playing game. At the risk of derailing this thread again ... I don't follow. I've played a lot of Amber Diceless (highly story driven; minimal mechanics) and it sure felt like a role-playing game.
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Post by derv on Aug 30, 2015 16:35:07 GMT -6
You know, I really have not looked deeply into "story games". Maybe the well has been poisoned? I'm not sure I would attribute that to the Pundit either. It actually has more to do with the approach in which many story gamers seek to influence the manner in which other's play their games, which often comes across as condescending to those who enjoy the tactical elements of roleplaying.
That is my disclaimer.
Fundamentally, it seems the primary difference has to do with Plot. Plot is essential in creating a story. Without the plot, there is no story. So, it would seem to me that story games are driven by the plot.
On the other hand, roleplaying is not driven by nor even necessarily concerned with a Plot. There may be Plots when roleplaying, particularly when using commercial modules, and a narrative can develop as a result of roleplaying, but this is not it's focus nor what drives it's mechanics. It is only the consequence of continual play. You can have a very enjoyable night of roleplaying without coming close to developing a Plot to a story.
I'm accustomed to "fail or succeed" and move on. Not sure that I would adopt "fail forward".
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Post by peterlind on Aug 30, 2015 17:04:40 GMT -6
First, to respond to the OP: From the standpoint of the players, knowledge of their character's Fighting Ability (i.e. chance to hit a particular AC), Armor Class, and Saving Throw are not required to play the game. In my early days, I did not necessarily know some of these numbers and would just tell the GM what I rolled. The GM would then tell me if I hit or made my save. This resulted me in being more careful with my play -- especially before getting into open combat with monsters. However, it must be admitted that this puts more of a burden on the GM and would serve to slow down the game bit. Back then, though, this was not a concern of mine. Overall, I think that this is a feature of OD&D that is worth keeping.
Second, in regards to "failing forward": As a player, I would come to the game table ready to play according to the rules as written; ready to contribute to the fun of the GM and the players; and ready to accept whatever rulings the GM made during the game. I did not come to the game expecting to be "entertained" or "told a story" by the GM. I would expect that my character to be part of a story as it unfolded during play, but the story or plot or outcome of the game was not pre-determined at the outset. I thus would not expect to have my hand held by the GM during the game. Nor would I expect any help from the GM during the game. Whatever was gained during game play would be earned by the players . . . So if we missed that roll to find a secret door, then we would just move on to another part of the dungeon . . . Back then, it was unlikely that finding that particular secret door would be a game stopper or essential to the adventure as a whole.
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Post by cooper on Aug 30, 2015 18:03:31 GMT -6
Good comments. I will say that "story game" is a bit of a misnomer. The story is emergent from player actions and that is universally explicit in the rules going so far that the GM not even prepare a campaign world or adventure. Failing 'forward' in things like Dungeon World RPG is forward in the emerging game world not forward in the GM's railroaded plot.
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Post by Fearghus on Aug 30, 2015 18:27:15 GMT -6
[admin voice]
Please, let's not get into a "Forge versus non-Forge" argument. That line of discussion leads to anger and locked threads.
Just trying to be proactive here. We've done this before.
[/admin voice] lol wtf is forge/non-forge? i thought i was up to speed on the lingo, but apparently not.
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Post by derv on Aug 30, 2015 19:03:29 GMT -6
I will say that "story game" is a bit of a misnomer. The story is emergent from player actions and that is universally explicit in the rules going so far that the GM not even prepare a campaign world or adventure. From your description, it doesn't sound like "story game" is a misnomer at all. Plot has to do with causality and plots are generally emergent. In the case of Dungeon World, the players actions are creating the plots. The rules primary purpose is to facilitate this very thing with the goal of creating a story about Dungeon World (or whatever). So, it is the plot that drives the game.
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Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
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Post by Deleted on Aug 30, 2015 20:10:17 GMT -6
I think you're just wrong. D&D requires every referee to select rules unknown to the players prior to play. And then use them to generate maps and stats of those maps for every construct in the game. Why do you think we are required to have referee campaign maps in OD&D, modules, and stats for everything before they can be added to the game? The referee is never allowed to improvise. That's rule #1 in D&D. To be a fair and impartial referee they are only to reveal elements from behind the screen - another essential element to D&D which hides the code being deciphered (aka enabling game play) Holy toast. You are SO far from "right" about the way OD&D was conceived, written, and played... ...that the light from "right" will not reach you until several quadrillion eternities after the heat death of the universe. ...and yes, I WAS there, and so was Dave Wesley and Greg Swenson who are both online so you can ask them...
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Post by Finarvyn on Aug 31, 2015 4:24:26 GMT -6
[admin voice]
Please, let's not get into a "Forge versus non-Forge" argument. That line of discussion leads to anger and locked threads.
Just trying to be proactive here. We've done this before.
[/admin voice] lol wtf is forge/non-forge? i thought i was up to speed on the lingo, but apparently not. There is a faction of the RPG industry who are self-labelled "indie" publishers and their main hangout was a message board called the Forge. Ron Edwards (author of the Sorcerer RPG and others) was the founder of the movement and of the Forge and he would encourage other like-minded folks to join and contribute. Essentially, Edwards seems to believe that role playing is all about character growth and story and his crowd looks down on D&D as being a lesser game because it doesn't focus on the same elements as his games. This has caused a lot of mud-slinging in the RPG industry, mostly between Edwards and RPG Pundit. They seem to really dislike each other, do not respect each other's viewpoint, and generally these discussions tend to poison threads such as these. I'm hoping we can respect each other and keep our conversations of this topic civil on this board. I will say that "story game" is a bit of a misnomer. The story is emergent from player actions and that is universally explicit in the rules going so far that the GM not even prepare a campaign world or adventure. Failing 'forward' in things like Dungeon World RPG is forward in the emerging game world not forward in the GM's railroaded plot. One problem we seem to be having is that folks don't all agree on what "story games" are and what they are not. Certainly, if the goal was to have players sit and listen to the GM's story that would be no fun at all and they might as well rent a movie or something. My experience with Amber Diceless is that the GM has a general plotline in mind (much like the goal in a module) and the events thereafter are mostly dependant upon the choices and actions of the players, and often not pre-determined at all. This story can be a sandbox adventure or a railroad, just like any other RPGs. There may be some "players make up the world" games out there, but I haven't seen them yet and clearly they are a different thing altogether. We must have had very different experiences with some of these games. When I get ready to run an Amber Diceless campaign I prep just like I would in most other RPGs. I build a setting, make up NPCs, stat out monsters, and the like. I set up a history and create plot hooks for players to grab. The big difference for me is the actual play. In OD&D if I'm stuck on a plot point I can throw a random encounter at players to eat up some time, but in ADRP every encounter is supposed to help move the plot along. (Consider a book or a movie. James Bond hardly ever has a true "random encounter" but instead might meet up with henchmen or someone like that.) This means no real downtime for the GM during play and requires a lot of energy on my part to run, along with needed a certain level of active participation on the part of the players. My OD&D players have enjoyed ADRP, but not enough to ditch OD&D.
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