So if the players choose to go to the underdark, that sounds to me like a player decision that places the campaign in the underdark. A player decision that has such impact seems to fundamentally matter, at least on the surface.
How does it fundamentally matter?
I mean, it changes the scenery. But how does the campaign happening in the Underdark fundamentally shape what is at stake, what the premises and their thematic resolutions are, etc?
I'm not saying that there is no answer to the above - 4e has an answer, for instance - but I don't know what your answer is.
It sure helps that Gandalf is one of the most powerful and respected people in the setting, which the characters in the example probably weren't. Also, whilst he challenged Theoden's judgement, he didn't challenge his position. There also were other obvious things in the fictional positioning that helped these things go the way they did. (Though the scene in the movie version where Gandalf literally assaults Denethor and everyone is fine with it is still ludicrous to me.)
I am very willing to let my players to try crazy stuff, doesn't mean they will always succeed. And yeah, obviously this is something that could happen in a game given the right circumstance, but some (which I assume to be) low to medium ranking unknown just shouting at the king's face that he is bad and should get lost probably is not gonna be it.
At least from my point of view, the topic of this conversation is
can the players establish what is at stake in a scene? and
can they push a scene in a particular thematic direction?
So if the GM has established fiction - eg an unshakeable tyrant, unswervingly loyal servitors, the PCs as "unknowns" to whom no one will listen, etc - then all that tells me is that the answer to my questions is "No". The players can't establish what is at stake in the scene - the GM will do that - and the players can't push the scene in a particular thematic direction - the GM has decided that's off the table.
I also don't understand what this has to do with "they will always succeed". No one is talking about auto-success. The game I've repeatedly referenced - Apocalypse World, Burning Wheel, Torchbearer 2e, Prince Valiant, 4e D&D, Agon 2e, etc - all use dice to determine whether or not the PCs succeed at actions where meaningful things are at stake. My point about the post I linked to is that
the GM is in control of stakes, theme and outcomes. Hence it is an example where the players do not contribute to those things. It is an example of the sort of RPGing whose existence you seemed to query.
The GM determines what exists in the world, the player determines the actions of their characters. These together create the fictional positioning that helps us determine what happens. Also, why are those actions GM centred if it is the players who initiate them? What would not be GM centred? The player directly dictating the external reality of the setting? That's not their job.
If the player can have their PCs only find sympathisers if the GM decides to introduce such NPCs into the fiction; if, more generally, the success of a declared action depends upon
stuff the GM is imagining that is secret from the player; then we have GM-driven play.
These, again, would be examples of the sort of RPGing whose existence you seemed to query, and that contrast with what I am describing and what I took
@soviet and
@hawkeyefan to be referring to in their posts upthread.
Well, most people don't care whether their D&D is narrativist or not, and having participated in many of these discussions, I still do not know what it actually takes to qualify. It seems that every time it is pointed out how other games have the listed qualities goalpost shifting to show how it doesn't really count commences...
<snip>
How couldn't you do this in D&D? The meaningful difference I see is that it seems this game the player can decide whether the character can die in combat, but as this is not something the character could actually decide, puts us more into collaborative storytelling style rather than immersing to the viewpoint of the character style. Which BTW is my issue with a lot of the narrativist mechanics. I can play that way, but I don't prefer it.
But I don't think the impact of Golin challenging Megloss relies on that. In D&D he would risk death by default by initiating combat, the pathos is in why the player chooses to do it, rather the exact mechanics.
The only person asserting, in this thread, that narrativist 5e D&D is impossible is you.
But it's obviously harder than in Torchbearer. 5e D&D has no analogue to putting your life on the line. It has no analogue to channelling your Avenging Grudges Nature. The mechanical elements of combat resolution push the focus of play away from these thematically significant matters, into the question of who wins initiative, what's the AC, who has how many hp remaining - none of which are thematically significant matters. A (very rough) analogue in film would be to replace the actual Death Star duel between Darth Vader and Obi-Wan with a documentary describing the fencing manoeuvres and the physics of light-sabres: we might have an account of the same events, but we wouldn't have an emotionally-laden story.
No, it was
@thefutilist to whom I was responding.
But
@thefutilist said nothing about "crunch", or combat, being an obstacle to narrativist play. What thefutilist said is that
The main reason I wouldn’t is that I dislike a lot of the sub systems, I dislike the way magic is handled and it looks like it would be hard to give combat any kind of thematic weight. As opposed to say GURPS, which I could see working well, or HERO system, or cyberpunk 2020. To be ultra contrarian, I might choose 5E over Dungeon World. I’d want to hack both games heavily and I think I could hack 5E combat easier than I could hack Dungeon World combat. Although if I was forced to play out of the box I’d go for Dungeon World.
And I've just given some reasons why it is hard to give combat thematic weight in 5e D&D. thefutilist also gave an example in post 718.
My example was from Torchbearer: the mere fact that the player can choose to initiate a Drive Off conflict, or a Kill conflict, where only the latter puts death on the line, already changes the way in which combat can be given dramatic weight. Other features of the system - in particular, the way consequences are established - add to that. 5e doesn't have them. I mean, to the best of my understanding 5e doesn't even allow - in any remotely straightforward way - for a combat result in which the PC wins, but their magic blade is shattered.
in D&D the players cannot use mechanics to acausally summon sympathisers or towers. I get why being able to do that would give the player more control, but it also is something a lot of people don't want to have.
Here, as often seems to happen in these threads, we have a demonstration of ignorance of the actual systems used in games that permit the players to set stakes and that don't invite the GM to unilaterally determine consequences. As if the only options are either
GM decides unilaterally or
player authors unilaterally, without declaring an action for their PC.
Whereas I've referred to actual mechanics from actual games: Streetwise from Classic Traveller (1977 - not a radical indie game!) and Circles from Burning Wheel and Torchbearer. Both work by the player declaring an action (roughly,
I look around for such-and-such a sort of person) and then the GM setting a difficulty in accordance with the guidelines, and then the dice being rolled.
Now the next response presumably will be
The GM can just set a difficulty of impossible. To which my response is,
If the GM ignores the rulebooks and just decides to unilaterally decide what is at stake and what the outcomes are, then sure. No rulebook can stop a table from playing a GM-driven RPG. I'm simply pointing out that alternatives are possible, and have been contemplated by RPGers for at least 47 years.