D&D Player’s Strategy Guide

Having picked this up after seeing good things about it, I have to say this is a great book, and a smart one. It covers the two big issues that crop up in getting in the way of D&D 4E.

4E is not like any other D&D

D&D has the unique problem of competing with it’s previous editions in terms of how people understand roleplaying to work.

That is, if you came to D&D at 4th Edition, you probably wouldn’t take long to figure out that it makes sense to build characters to play off of each other, as a whole, as a party – simply by reading the books. But if you came with 10, 20 years of, “Well, I’ll just make my character, you go make yours and it’ll all work out”, you’re not going to be as successful at this game.

The book covers a ton of these sort of re-orienting ideas for players.

It covers a lot of tactical stuff and highlights what I realize is the love-it-or-hate-it of 4E compared to previous editions- every player has more to do and track now. To really play, you’re usually choosing between something like 5 or 6 possible choices, which is different than the classic “Hit or Run” that pervaded older editions (including 3E despite the extensive Full/Standard/Move options).

The longstanding issues of social contract

The other issue the book tackles is setting smart and clear guidelines for social contract and good practices which have been championed by the indie rpg community for the last decade.

Stuff like, building your character to actually -fit- the campaign setting, building characters as a group, communicating with each other, as in, literally asking and sharing what choices you’re making in builds to what you’d like to see in play. It even covers the first time I’ve seen actual advice about functional Participationism – advising players to look at ways/reasons to take plot hooks and to avoid “My Guy-ism” of “my guy wouldn’t do that” as obstructionist play. There’s a whole section called, “Don’t be a Jerk”.

Overall, this is a very solid book and I recommend it to anyone who is serious about playing some 4E. The sections are short, usually 1-4 pages, so if you want to give someone some spot advice, you can just flip it open and give them a few minutes to read it. There’s something in it for nearly everyone, and it’s probably the most useful book for focusing play so far.

Why Indeed?

I’ve been watching this thread on Story Games with much bemusement. Aside from the many problematic issues in the initial post and project*, I’m glad the real question, the question that has always come up, is stated so clearly:

What I’d like to know about minorities in roleplaying is the author’s overarching view of how and why this minority thing matters to me as a white male gamer.

Years back, someone asked me the same question at GenCon. And the answer is still the same:

Why should the experience of ANY GAMER, matter to you?

There’s people who, basically, unless they’re playing with someone, just don’t care about any other gamers’, their experiences, etc. You run into these folks occasionally, but since, for the most part, they’ve got their circles, they’re playing games, you don’t hear from them.

But, you know, if you’re on online communities about sharing and improving experiences of gamers, you’re clearly not one of those people. Perhaps it’s better to flip the question around – “Why is it you don’t care about these gamers’ experiences, when you care about all these others?” Or is it really only your experiences matter and people close enough like you that you gain benefit?

Recently, someone asked me about taking down Deep in the Game a couple years back and I pointed out that it wasn’t serving the community I wanted. I think about that a lot with this blog as well. As a gamer, who gets to hear people say how much they don’t care about my game experiences or thoughts, over and over, WHY should I write about game techniques or theory?

I speak repeatedly about the idea of mutuality. If the hobby rests on, “We like this thing, we want this thing to be awesome”, why aren’t we helping each other make it more awesome? Why is it only your fun matters, and not mine? Why are you so quick to accept my help, and offer none in return?

So, a book about POC in gaming so white people can learn about POC without interacting with us.

Sounds dandy.

* Prepare for snark-a-mighty:

“Hey assumed white peeple! What do YOU want to know about those weird, hard to find, not-like-us gamers over there? We’re making a book FOR YOU about THEM! Naturally, we’re totally going to be experts on it, because we’re asking questions that could have been answered if we bothered interacting, listening, or reading for the last few years but we can’t seem to find them anywhere and it’s totally NOT because we put work into ignoring them or anything.“

ETA: When asked why these questions (“What is her purpose in writing this book? Who is the intended audience?”) haven’t been answered, this is the response:

They’re very important questions! I haven’t replied because I don’t have answers to them. (That is one reason they’re very important questions.)

Um. Those aren’t deep ass “to be pondered” questions, those are basic requirements for understanding what the hell the project is you’re doing in the first place. As I mentioned, this kind of competence doesn’t lend itself well to faith in the final product, or how well it will actually communicate useful information…

The Ball: Again

The medium of roleplaying

There’s two aspects of the medium of tabletop roleplaying which shape play, all the time.

First, is that play works through speaking. Like any conversation, we take turns at speaking, we take turns at inputting to the stuff we’re imagining. Even though this is moment-to-moment, back and forth, quickly, almost invisibly, it still means one person at a time is directly inputing into play at any given moment.

Second, all play works on the group expressing buy-in. Lumpley-Care principle means the imaginary stuff only has weight because the group gives it weight. That said, while input is singular in the moment, the larger scale of play is determined by how the group chooses to give weight or ignore aspects. In other words, buy-in produces the direction of play.

The Ball Analogy

At any given moment, a single person in possession of the ability to shape play (has the ball) and is working with a team, the group, to push play in some direction or another. Like any team sport, roleplaying comes down to communication. Which direction to go? When to pass? Who to pass it to? Etc.

Most groups simply rely on learning to read each other’s non-verbal cues, which takes time to learn and a lot of practice to develop. A better culture of communication over the last few years has made strong use of metagame talk during play to coordinate things, though modern game design assists this significantly by adding stuff like Flag mechanics to help communication.

Skillful play is still about Fictional Positioning – knowing what the rest of the group is interested in and pushing play in that direction, gaining support by way of buy-in: again, teamwork.

Versus

On the flipside, you can see how a lot of conflicts between players about the direction of play are just like people fighting over a ball. It could easily be argued that a lot of modern rpg design is based around successfully negotiating that issue- providing rules and systems to resolve the direction of play. (For example, Luke Crane has often pointed to that as the source of Burning Wheel’s Duel of Wits rules).

As game design has moved in to support groups in negotiating/determining simple direction of play – there’s less and less need for stuff like GMing advice on how to “keep play from getting stuck” or to resolve arguments between players.

Also worth reading

My older posts on Creative Vectors and More on Creative Vectors covers what I’m talking about with “Direction of Play”.

Unbreakable?

“Your game is broken because I went out of my way to break it and then I broke it”

If you were trying to play chess, and your opponent deliberately tried to lose, would they be breaking the rules? There’s a certain social contract that goes with any game, including roleplaying games- it’s the goal or point of the game.

I was just reminded of this thing gamers do:

A: “Here’s this game I made about telling stories of tragedy.”
B: “But if you use the rules like this, this, and this, then someone could play the game and totally avoid having tragedy, therefore your game is broken!”

In the broadest sense, you could consider the overall goal/point of a game (“Chess: Checkmate their king, protect your own”) as the founding directive rule to any game.

Naturally this goes back to the usual issues of assuming all games being all things and general poor reading skills people do, but still, it’s really interesting the way in which folks act as if a game is supposed to somehow keep working when you’re not playing by the rules.

“Your game is broken because it doesn’t play itself for me!”

In a similar vein, I’ve also been reminded of people who look at a game, then complain about the part of the game that’s designed to exercise/challenge certain skill sets as the focus of play. That is:

A: “Here’s this game where players take turns adding imaginary bits to create a great story!”
B: “But the rules don’t MAKE the other players like what you contribute! It’s broken!”

“Chess doesn’t have rules that MAKE me make good tactical choices! It’s broken!”
…

Both of these things come back to not just understanding that games do specific things, but also a core aspect of social contract and buy-in:

Game design has no obligation to cater to people who don’t buy into the premise of the game.

Although you might be interested in Chessboxing, chess has no obligation to meet the expectations of boxers, and boxing has no obligation to meet the expectation of chess players – these are two games that do very different things.

In the same sense, as gamers, we have no obligation to the player(s) who don’t want to play the game we’re playing- if we agreed to play chess and then you start complaining that there’s not enough punching… guess who’s being out of line here?

Likewise, if you’re complaining that “only people who can think strategically can win at chess!” guess how much sympathy you’re likely to get?

In both cases, it’s people ignoring the premise of the game and complaining when it fulfills exactly what was advertised.

It’s pretty sad how many conversations get mired in this: from design, to play, to the GM asking for help how to deal with a “problem player”.

Game design is getting really damn good about being consistent in purpose and design, and being clear about telling players what the game is about.

I wonder how long it will take for folks to start catching up.

Procedures vs. Directives

Thinking more about general game design and how rules are communicated. Most games use both of these to different degrees, but the question is what parts should be procedural? What parts should be directives?

Procedure Rules

Procedure rules are mechanics or rules which indicate a procedure, a process.

“Roll for initiative, then move, then pick action, then roll dice” etc. It’s a process from A to B to C, and could be represented by a flowchart. (Many people use the term “system” or “mechanics” for these types of rules exclusively).

Procedures are clear, step by step processes in play. They’re constrained, good at focusing and shaping play, and reliably producing play experiences.

Examples include:
- Most combat systems in rpgs
- Trollbabe’s Conflict system
- Universalis play overall
- Polaris’ Bargaining mechanics
- Dogs in the Vineyard Town Creation
- Boardgames. (Boardgames ONLY have procedural rules)

Directive Rules

Directive rules are broad directions that rely primarily on judgment and social contract and not step-by-step procedures.

“Describe action in cinematic terms! Offer suggestions freely! Make comments, ask questions out of character!” etc. Directive rules could be represented by broad Venn diagrams.

They very often explain what’s the point of the game, and -when- and -how- to use the procedure rules. (Many people throw around terms like “style”, “good roleplaying”, “play advice” to talk about directive rules).

Directives give direction and shape to play in a broad sense and allow the group to use the procedure rules in more flexible ways. Due to the unstructured nature of directives, they require more skillfulness to apply, and often take practice to learn.

This also makes them significantly less reliable in communicating the game and play.

The other part that makes directives tough, is that historically they’ve been used very poorly. Either contradictory to themselves, contradictory to the procedures of play, and/or assumed useless or interchageable amongst all games. That is, a lot of folks assume that reading them, much less considering and applying them is a waste of time, so they tend to be less often translated into play.

Examples include:
- Sorcerer’s use of Loresheets
- Primetime Adventures advice on addressing Issues
- My Life With Master on how to play the Master
- Apocalypse World’s Principles
- The Quick Primer for Old School Gaming
- Polaris on how to play the Moons
- The Style rules in Houses of the Blooded
- The advice in Whitewolf games

Emergent vs. Directed Play

That said, the interaction of both types of rules in a game, determines -how- the game does what it does, how it achieves it’s Creative Agenda.

Emergent play is where the Creative Agenda primarily comes from a high reliance on procedural rules- just follow the procedure and the focus naturally arises.

If you play D&D 4E and follow the procedures, you will get a tactically focused strategy game. You don’t have to think about it, or put a guiding hand on the rules- they do what they do and the resulting game naturally rises from it.

In contrast, Directed play requires the group to apply the directives, the advice, to use the procedures in an intentional way to shape play. There has to be more care and thought to how you’re playing the game to successfully produce a coherent Creative Agenda.

You also notice that games that rely on this also have the potential to drift to different Creative Agendas and it becomes harder for groups to reliably get on the same page with new groupings or players.

Sorcerer would be a prime example here. The game has a lot of instructions about what the focus of play is about – crafting situations to stress Humanity, through the use of Kickers and Bangs, and you see in games where people do this, it works, and places where people don’t, they shrug their shoulders and go, “This game doesn’t DO anything different”… when they ignored the rules that told them how to play the game.

Communicating Procedures, Communicating Directives

Procedures:
- It helps to have a list, outline or flowchart that people can reference.

- If it ties into other procedure chains, it helps to give references (“See Magical Backlash, pg. 232″)

- It helps to repeat aspects where other procedure/rules tie into the current one (“Again, you can always spend Luck to get an extra die!”)

Directives:
- Be clear that it is literally rules and not vague mumble-advice.

- Repeat, repeat, repeat. If the directive is important, repeat it throughout the book.

- Show examples of how to use the directive to shape how you interface with the procedures and the rest of play. (“Jim suggests that maybe the two characters are actually related and didn’t know it until now! The group agrees, and decides to add a Rank 2 Relationship using the Trait rules”)

- You might need to explain how other types of directives don’t work with your game (“You can’t prep a story beforehand. It won’t work with the mechanics…”)

Be careful with this, as rpg history is full of games with random rants and One-True-Wayism. Practical advice is often mistaken with crusading, and crusading is often shoveled in under sections marked, “Advice”.

ETA: Also worth looking at – Vincent’s old post on Procedures and Principled decisions.