Incorporating Dogs in the Vineyard into D&D

[Levi Kornelsen]

So your argument that somehow the ground that cannot be covered by computer games has been mostly supported by story/plot/type games and mechanics? Complete, utter, 110% crap, as far as I'm concerned.

Let me put the emphasis here, for clarity:

Most of the recent moves in that direction have been dominated by story games.

They aren't the only ones doing it.  They're the loudest.

[Benoist]

And unfortunately, crap gamemastering is all too plentiful in this hobby.

Lord Hobie

First, your assertion that somehow crap gamemastering is plentiful in this hobby is unsupported.

Second, whatever the case may be, this isn't likely to improve if game designers keep believing that somehow adding rules to a game will fix people's behaviors. That'll never, ever happen. Rules don't fix people. People fix themselves. So what a game can do is provide pertinent advice and guidance for people to help themselves, not add rules that would supposedly fix people around the game table.

[Benoist]

Most of the recent moves in that direction have been dominated by story games.

Nope, I disagree with that as well, because what story games do is basically provide rules for narrative structures, or authorial input on the game etc, all of which is basically covered by game mechanics and can be replicated by computer programs.

So no. They haven't even participated to those efforts to cover the ground that computers cannot replicate. At all.

[Levi Kornelsen]

Nope, I disagree with that as well, because what story games do is basically provide rules for narrative structures, or authorial input on the game etc, all of which is basically covered by game mechanics and can be replicated by computer programs.

So no. They haven't even participated to those efforts to cover the ground that computers cannot replicate. At all.

Show me a video game where I can pick a target, and initiate a conflict for any stakes I choose to imagine - not just "I beat him up", but anything, whether the designer conceived of it or not - and I'll agree.

[Cole]

I wouldn't be Ryan Dancey if I didn't say something outrageous and quotable.  So I'll begin with this:

"If all you did was [...] substitute[d] Dogs in the Vineyard's rules for D&D, most D&D games would have an immediate improvement in the quality of the experience from the perspective of most of the players."

Ryan, I disagree, among reasons, because of the following -

2:  Mechanics designed to aid storytelling.  (I refer in particular to Relationships, Accomplishment, Escalation, and Fallout).  These mechanics promote good storytelling practices on the part of the players and the GM.

I dispute both that the aid of 'good storytelling practice' is equivalent to the aid of good play practice, and that mechanics are a good way to promote good storytelling practice even if that were the case - I do not find the argument that mechanical process results in good storytelling to be at all a convincing one.

The players would likely spend most of their time on diplomacy, politics, intrique, romance & seduction, espionage, reconnaissance, research, and other social challenges.

Why is this intrinsically desirable? We must also compare exploration, problem solving, claim of territory, or any number of concerns that are interesting and challenging to a wide variety of people, not just 'repetitive fights.' "Social Challenges" should, as a given, deserve outsized focus in the way some players, for example, claim that 'repetitive fights' do in, say, D&D4e?

Strength would become the "dump" stat.

Admittedly this is somewhat flippant, but even more so than the prior, why is this intrinsically desirable? I can't imagine you'd argue, for example, that AD&D 1st edition would have been improved if independent of anything else, Strength no longer applied to melee combat, but Charisma now afforded those bonuses in addition to its social effects, or by incorporating a Charisma based intimidation mechanic that almost always circumvented battles, rendering Strength of little value.

These character's stories would not be tales of mechanics - items gained, abilities changed, feats mastered, etc.  They would instead be much better stories of goals fulfilled (or failure), of love (and hate), of enemies overcome (or not), in every sense, of IMPACT on the game world.

Even if the results were "better stories," of which, again, I remain unconvinced, I do not think that the production of better stories relates in any direct way to the production of better holistic game experience, and I think playing with the better story as an agenda is often, maybe even usually, counter to the production of the better game experience. This has been central to recent discussion here, in fact.

The players did the unexpected, the GM rolled with it, everyone stayed engaged, and for a brief (or long) moment, the game became meaningful to everyone all at once.

The players doing the unexpected and the GM rolling with it does not come from 'story producing' rules to create the unexpected. The process manufactured by the mechanics does not produce the unexpected situation, and in fact tends to obviate such situations by actively rewarding the players' following of the expected models. Instead they create what I would myself call "tales of mechanics."

And that's what I'd like to talk about in this thread.

RyanD

I understand that, Ryan, but you can't expect automatic agreement with either your hypotheses or your conclusions.

[Benoist]

Show me a video game where I can pick a target, and initiate a conflict for any stakes I choose to imagine - not just "I beat him up", but anything, whether the designer conceived of it or not - and I'll agree.

The fact that this computer game might not exist is not the point. My point is that it's covered by rules, and if it's covered by defined rules, you can replicate it with a computer program.

If anything, in my mind, what story games did provide is a direct comparison between RPGs and other media, and actually weakened them as a medium of their own. Potentially crippling them for good. See this post about this very thing.

So they don't help make RPGs stand out, no. They are relegating them to the role of pale copies of other types of media which are performing MUCH better than RPGs on their own terms. Which is like... exactly the reverse of what you were trying to imply.

[Levi Kornelsen]

The fact that this computer game might not exist is not the point. My point is that it's covered by rules, and if it's covered by defined rules, you can replicate it with a computer program.

If anything, in my mind, what story games did provide is a direct comparison between RPGs and other media, and actually weakened them as a medium of their own. Potentially crippling them for good. See this post about this very thing.

So they don't help make RPGs stand out, no. They are relegating them to the role of pale copies of other types of media which are performing MUCH better than RPGs on their own terms. Which is like... exactly the reverse of what you were trying to imply.

*Shrug*

I think you're wrong.  You think I am.  There it is.

[Benoist]

*Shrug*

I think you're wrong.  You think I am.  There it is.

Indeed.

[ggroy]

Let me put the emphasis here, for clarity:

Most of the recent moves in that direction have been dominated by story games.

They aren't the only ones doing it.  They're the loudest.

Who/what else is doing it, besides story games?

[Levi Kornelsen]

Who/what else is doing it, besides story games?

Recently?

Greg Stolze (Reign, In spaaace...), John Wick (Houses of the Blooded).  Some (not all, just some) of the stuff from Evil Hat - though many of their moves also tend towards the metagame mechanics of story gaming (the stealth stunts in FATE, say).  Plenty of weird parlor-games, but I think of those as LARPs first, RPGs second.  I've also seen a few games that lauded by story-gamers as being "in their thing", which I thought weren't, really (Red Box Hack fit this mold).

Games with absolute descriptions, that assume you will decide how those apply, are doing it too.  When Clash says "This exerts X amount of force over Y area", and gives you some numbers, you're being left to sort out on your own what you can do with X amount of force over Y area.  When a game says "this does two damage", you know what it does exactly - it's a weapon; the presentation itself leads you away from "I use it to dig handholds in the clay cliffside".  The old schoolers with tales of flooding dungeons out of nearby rivers, and other insane crap, know all about this - more recent dungeon runners, and their designers, have apparently forgotten.

[John Morrow]

Given the amount of time I have spent in D&D games where little happened but arguments between characters trying to convince one another of something, shouldn't the game rules actually interact with that behavior?

If the engaging that behavior is a highlight of play and the players don't need help doing it, then the rules shouldn't interact with that behavior and they are only going to get in the way.  

A while ago, I asked myself why some people want rules or die rolls to deal with certain parts of the game and not others and why my own group needs to rules to interact with certain details but not others and the flippant answer to that is that people need rules to help them do things they'd rather not do themselves or which they do poorly and don't need rules to help them do things they enjoy doing and can do well without them.

A few years ago, I read some actual play descriptions of games like Dogs in the Vineyard hen Forge gamers first started posting actual play write-ups to see what the fuss was about and I couldn't see it.  They looked pretty much exactly like normal role-playing games to me in terms of what the characters said and did except that the players kept consulting the rules where the people in my group would just role-play the situation through.  What I realized, after some discussion (probably with Vincent Baker) was that apparently the people playing those games didn't normally just role-play through those situations that way so they apparently needed the rules to make them do things like escalate conflicts and have their character pull a gun on another PC (something my group does quite well without rules, thank you).

As such, I think such rules might help people, particularly beginners, do something they have trouble doing themselves or do poorly but for players who already know how to do those things by simply role-playing their character, it's like being forced to ride a bicycle with training wheels after you know how to ride a bicycle without them.  They aren't helping you do anything you can't do yourself and they actually get in the way of doing it effortlessly and well.  So I'd rather see such rules dealt with as training wheels -- something you can take off and don't have to use if you don't need them.  They should try to help people just do it without the rules, but be implemented in such a way that a player can keep them if they need them without forcing everyone else to play with them, too.

I also think a big part of how games like Dogs in the Vineyard create drama (and this goes back to my comments on the blog) is with the set-up or scenario of the game rather than the actual conflict resolution mechanics.  The idea that the players are in a role of authority promotes the idea that they have to step up and deal with the problem how they see fit.  The idea that every town has a serious problem that's plaguing it drops the PCs into a situation with a problem to solve.  Made generic and provided as advice on how a GM can plan their setting and the players should create characters, I think that could have a lot to offer players of games like D&D regardless of why they ploy.  It's basically good advice to create a setting full of adventure and characters prone to answer the call to that adventure.  

But do players really need rules to tell them what their character does, especially if "making decisions and taking action and speaking pretty much for that character" is their main reason for playing?  No, they don't need the rules telling them what to decide for their character any more than they need the GM telling them how to play their character.  And, yes, I treat personality mechanics in games that have them, including alignment in D&D (which I do use), as descriptive rather than prescriptive, describing how the character is rather than telling me how to play the character.

[John Morrow]

Show me a video game where I can pick a target, and initiate a conflict for any stakes I choose to imagine - not just "I beat him up", but anything, whether the designer conceived of it or not - and I'll agree.

If the conflict resolution rules are relatively generic and don't take much or any input from what's actually being said and done by the PCs as input into the resolution, it wouldn't be difficult to program them as a sort of MadLibs where you substitute words having to do with whatever the conflict is about into a generic structure, since the structure doesn't change from one conflict to another.  Think of an ELIZA program pulling the word "mother" out of something you type in to reply, "Tell me more about your mother."

[StormBringer]

I understand the quote fine. I just completely, utterly disagree with it. But fair enough! Since this thread is predicated on an agreement with said quote, I created my own thread to actually disagree with it.

I do disagree with the first paragraph. I've never seen anyone sit around and collaborate on a story. Each person is being an individual, and when someone starts giving suggestions on how another person should play their character, I normally tell them to stop it.

Players in my games don't sit their and say, "gee, if I do this, it will make a dramatic scene for so and so later." They just do what they do and see what happens.

Exactly agree with both comments.  For most RPGs, especially traditional RPGs, the story is what comes afterwards.  You might expect some good stories to come out of the bachelor(ette) party you have planned for the weekend based on who is attending, but you certainly don't set them up ahead of time.  Events play out in real time, and you create the stories that you will be telling for years afterwards based on the events that unfold.

This is precisely the reason that employing cinematic or literary techniques in RPGs are doomed to failure.  The techniques themselves can be helpful, but only as a starting point; they must, by necessity, have the outcome open-ended because the players are not going to willingly follow a script.  In books and movies, the story is laid down ahead of time; in RPGs, the stories arise after the events have been concluded.  The diametrically opposed flow in these two processes is what strips most of the 'game' out of story-games and reverts them into more of a collaborative literature exercise.

Considering RPGs as an a priori work of literature is an incorrect premise, hence, the results will always be questionable in both implementation and argumentation.

[ggroy]

A few years ago, I read some actual play descriptions of games like Dogs in the Vineyard hen Forge gamers first started posting actual play write-ups to see what the fuss was about and I couldn't see it.  They looked pretty much exactly like normal role-playing games to me in terms of what the characters said and did except that the players kept consulting the rules where the people in my group would just role-play the situation through.  What I realized, after some discussion (probably with Vincent Baker) was that apparently the people playing those games didn't normally just role-play through those situations that way so they apparently needed the rules to make them do things like escalate conflicts and have their character pull a gun on another PC (something my group does quite well without rules, thank you).

As such, I think such rules might help people, particularly beginners, do something they have trouble doing themselves or do poorly but for players who already know how to do those things by simply role-playing their character, it's like being forced to ride a bicycle with training wheels after you know how to ride a bicycle without them.  They aren't helping you do anything you can't do yourself and they actually get in the way of doing it effortlessly and well.  So I'd rather see such rules dealt with as training wheels -- something you can take off and don't have to use if you don't need them.  They should try to help people just do it without the rules, but be implemented in such a way that a player can keep them if they need them without forcing everyone else to play with them, too.

Sounds like "role playing" being turned into "roll playing".

[Levi Kornelsen]

If the conflict resolution rules are relatively generic and don't take much or any input from what's actually being said and done by the PCs as input into the resolution

The bolded bit there is not even remotely the case.