Recent content by pemerton

And as I've posted, D&D's combat resolution rules contradict that manifesto at multiple points: they are not "diegetic" and they don't preserve the correlation between in-fiction causation and at-the-table causation.

But obviously there is a choice to avoid the sort of non-simulationist play that hit points produce. Dozens upon dozens of RPGs show how this can be done.

The issue is not in-game time. In-game time can pass at the rate of seconds per hour of play, or years per hour of play, depending on how the participants and the system they are using choose to handle it. I'm talking about what play, at the table, is focused on. What it is about. This is why...

To me, it seems that your criteria are routinely violated in everyday RPGing. I've already pointed out, in this thread, that D&D combat resolution violates forward causality in at least two ways: (i) the turn-by-turn resolution (eg a person who takes cover later in the fiction but earlier in...

Not for the many 1000s of RPGers who adopted RPGs that were deliberately designed to eschew the non-simulationist elements of classic D&D (thing like hp, saving throws, class + level, etc).

For what it's worth - maybe not much - your play seems to me to include narrativist inclinations/tendencies, using the 5e D&D chassis (with a few adaptations/additions) for that purpose.

I'm not seeing rising conflict across a moral line. Here is my example, from upthread: I haven't spelled out any rising conflict, but I think it's fairly clear how rising conflict across a moral line is implicit in this situation: violation of a treaty, forfeiting our honour, etc; or the...

Right. As some internet rando once said, if all your formal rules do is structure your group's ongoing agreement about what happens in the game, they are a) interchangeable with any other rpg rules out there, and b) probably a waste of your attention. Live negotiation and honest collaboration...

I'm not seeing the rising conflict across a moral line.

The players had to compromise in the Convince conflict. So that meant they were committed to getting the river pirates to tithe to Lareth. They discharged that obligation a few sessions later.

OK? As I've posted ad nauseum for years, it is possible to play narrativist AD&D, although I think the resolution rules are a bit shaky as far as "authored by the players" is concerned.

Well, "setting logic" of course depends on how the setting is written. For instance, the setting logic of Middle Earth or Dragonlance or default 4e D&D generates rising conflict across a moral line. The setting logic of REH's Hyborean Age doesn't. EDIT: Also, this:

I think this sort of pawn stance with a splash of colour thrown over it is very common. And is what a typical D&D module/AP encourages. Because as soon as the player tries to introduce anything more substantive, they will start bumping into the limits of the module/AP. The "social contract"...

Nor are you forced to play a RPG that has rules like those found in Classic Traveller or Pendragon.

Moral: pertaining to how people should treat one another (perhaps also themselves; perhaps non-human animals; perhaps "the world"; etc). The domain of obligation and value. A line is a boundary, a limit. To cross a line is to depart, to trespass, to transgress. I gave an example of conflict...