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How We Talk Past Each Other: understanding how the war over the future of Dungeons and Dragons is the entirety of the culture war in a nutshell
In a thread on Reddit Motte at least six months ago, I became enlightened to the fundamental difference between drag and crossdressing. The latter is fundamentally serious, a personal choice of expressing something important about one’s inner self. The former is a form of playing, specifically, performing a role meant to be absorbed as part of a fiction. It is part of the larger genre of performance known as clowning, which can be described as colorful character archetypes performing bold actions with obvious consequences for an audience. Clowning also includes professional wrestling, F/SF cosplay, Muppets-style puppetry, and political ads.
The same split is seen elsewhere in fiction; genre fiction is considered non-literary because it typically involves stereotyped archetypical characters walking a well-trod path in a specific type of world: Hopalong Cassidy, Zorro, Sam Spade, Batman, Spider-Man, Elric of Melniboné, and so on. I used words containing the root “typ” three times in that sentence because typing is the core of genre: any individual is an instance of a type.
By contrast, novels focus on individuals as beings-in-themselves, and might use types as something they struggle against. So do graphic novels, explorations and deconstructions of characters in a more realistic or nuanced way, even if they have types. They are more akin to the arthouse spirit of crossdressing than the clowning spirit of drag: the sitcom without the laugh track, the invisible and silent audience who appreciates instead of enjoys. And these two spirits cannot exist in the same world.
That brings us to D&D. Gizmodo/io9 published an article about taking biodiversity typing out of the stats of D&D playable species.
D&D is an RPG which is built on the clowning spirit of types and power levels, using fantastic biodiversity to tell adventure game stories. It is a core nerd culture property, enjoyed historically by oppressed people with autism to imagine being powerful people who don’t just fit into their milieu but who thrive as adventurers and heroes.
This little corner of the culture war turns RPGs from Fun With Action Figures to Serious Representation.
I think one issue I see is that the critics will never be satisfied. There have been tribes of neutral orcs since 2nd Edition, and Planescape allowed them to explore concepts like non-evil succubi (even demons can sometimes not be evil!), while 3rd edition gave us Eberron, which was designed from the ground up with the idea that traditional alignments not being relevant - with evil metallic dragons, broadly good orc cultures, evil halfling tribes, etc.
By the time we get to the 5th edition core books, race was already almost a non-issue. Alignment was a vestigial structure that barely mattered mechanically anymore.
Is anyone really offended by the idea that orcs might be stronger on average than humans? Is anyone really offended by the idea that a dwarf might be able to drink you under the table because they're built a little tougher? I kind of doubt it.
But once ability bonuses are mental, then people have a big issue.
One D&D is moving away from making ability bonuses for player races baked in. Fair enough. But this isn't going to fix the issue. Are mind flayers going to exist in the next edition of D&D? Is the default mind flayer stat block going to have 19 Int? Is the mind flayer elder brain going to have 21 Int?
If that's even sort of true, we're back at bioessentialism. Mind flayers and their elder brains are just naturally smarter than the average human peasant. Unless WotC wants to do something stupid like say "actually mind flayers have the same Intelligence range as playable humanoid races, and it's just the really, really smart ones who become psionic and start attacking people to eat their brains, but all mind flayers have free will and can choose to be vegans if they want" then mind flayers as a concept are going to remain problematic going forward, no matter how many steps they make to "clean up" the game.
Sometimes fantasy might call for nuance, or deeper understanding. And sometimes you just want to mow through a horde of orcs and not think too hard about whether they're inherently evil, or whether you could have talked them out of it under the right circumstances.
The mental stats in DnD have always been in this weird place. How does your 100IQ player or GM portray an INT 25 Psychic super genius? The answer is badly in my experience. All it usually comes down to is a stat that impacts your skill rolls, spells modifiers and so on most often. Do your spells key off Intelligence, Wisdom or Charisma? What are you adding to your skill checks? It very rarely comes down to anything beyond that. Dumping INT as a Half-Orc Barbarian and then playing it with your own level of intelligence outside of stat modifiers is pretty common. And having an Int 20 Wizard played by someone who doesn't even themselves know what their spells do, or how many they get.
Should the player whose bard has 22 Charisma have to roleplay making a speech to convince the king to spare you or is their nigh supernatural charisma and a single die role the way to go?
Hah. That's easy. You cheat (within the rules of the game). The DM might not be able to predict the actions the players are going to take... But the genius villain would have, so the DM makes up some bullshit and throws in an extra trap or minions or defensive spell or escape route or whatever.
That can come across a little cheaply however. If the players come up with a clever tactic should the villain have precited it by virtue of being so much smarter? So now you have to gauge how smart is that 25 INT wizard compared to the players. Which then brings us back to the first issue with trying to emulate how a super genius would think in the first place.
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I do feel like "being on another plane of existence" is the number one advantage for players or writers who are trying to design the actions of characters smarter than they are. Take advantage of what extra time you have that they don't; do research that they can't, and that can help you with their snap decisions-
-More considered actions, though, probably remain tricky.
Absolutely, if I am deciding the BBEG's lair I might have a few weeks to think about what counter-measures he would take to ward off wandering bands of murder-hobos. On the other hand in universe he might well have had years or centuries. Eventually you just have to shrug and say good enough. or take advantage of knowing what the players or planning to ward against it, but do that too often and it starts to discourage players from planning. if it always fails might as well just kick down the front door and murder your way in room by room.
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You can also change reality (with agreement), which makes it easier to fake genius.
There's also the option to go, "yes, I obviously noticed the conclusion of this intricate riddle/web of deceit, but couldn't be bothered to care because I assumed everyone else did as well, and was busy focused on 'insert esoteric topic/grand unifying theory here'.
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I mean, the latter mechanic works for everything else in the game. I don't really understand why people want to ditch the game mechanics for this scenario, but are ok with players rolling a die instead of getting out blunted swords to fight the battles.
It is a tricky one. But consider this, the fighter picked his tactic, which square he was going to move into before he attacked, which weapon he was going to use, etc. In social combat, that might translate into which avenue are you taking to persuade the king. Appeal to his honor? his empathy? his pride? Are you portraying yourself as his equal or his subject? Appealing to the time you saved his daughter from orcs?
And that's normally how I run it when I am GM, I won't necessarily require a full speech, but I will want to know what weapon you are using and where you are metaphorically planting your feet. However someone who struggles with social skills, may even struggle with identifying those options. and that can be a bit of a quandary.
Depending on the group, there definitely can be expectations that you roleplay your character when you speak which helps with the shared fantasy.
In "Storming the Wizard's Tower" D. Vincent Baker came up with a neat mechanic for this. I can't find my copy of the manuscript, but in "Apocalypse World" the mechanics are similar:
READ A SITCH
When you read a charged situation, roll+sharp. On a hit, you can ask the MC
questions. Whenever you act on one of the MC’s answers, take +1. On a 10+, ask 3.
On a 7–9, ask 1:
Where’s my best escape route / way in / way past?
Which enemy is most vulnerable to me?
Which enemy is the biggest threat?
What should I be on the lookout for?
What’s my enemy’s true position?
Who’s in control here?
On a miss, ask 1 anyway, but be prepared for the worst.
READ A PERSON
When you read a person in a charged interaction, roll+sharp. On a 10+, hold 3.
On a 7–9, hold 1. While you’re interacting with them, spend your hold to ask their
player questions, 1 for 1:
Is your character telling the truth?
What’s your character really feeling?
What does your character intend to do?
What does your character wish I’d do?
How could I get your character to —?
On a miss, ask 1 anyway, but be prepared for the worst.
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I agree with that. When I GM, I'm looking for a general approach to the situation. You need to tell me are you trying flattery, or a bribe, and so on. And I then let you roll your social skill, with me determining how easy or hard it is to succeed using the stated approach. Depending on the situation I might nudge a player if they pick an inappropriate approach (e.g. a player trained in an insight sort of skill might get a note "with your practice in reading people, you think bribery may not work on this guard").
What I object to here is the GMs who just throw the rules out the window and want to hear you say exactly what your character says, and then judge by that. I've had GMs do that to me and it's bullshit. I'm not a persuasive person, don't ask me to actually persuade unless you're asking the fighter to actually win a sword fight.
Yeah it's a continuum I guess. If you just reduce everything to dice rolls then it's a board game not a roleplaying game almost, but if you base it on actual performance, then you are basically doing improv with not much of the game part. You have to balance those (and every group and individuals preferred balance will probably be somewhat different).
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Agreed. Mental stats are the unfortunate place where the fantasy of "you can be anyone" runs up against the reality of your real life "mental stats." It's not something you scream from the rooftops, but d&d is a cooperative roleplaying game, and your ability to depict the character you're playing matters. It's easy to abstract away swinging an axe or doing a fearsome war cry to the dice if you can't do those things but your character can. Coming up with a cunning plan or smooth-talking through an encounter... not as much.
The unfortunate result is that someone who freezes up when put on the spot simply cannot roleplay a suave rogue or bard as well as someone who can. Same goes for someone who, like you said, plays a 20 INT Wizard but can't memorize their spells. It's not like you need to be Bond or Einstein to play these characters — you just need to be able to approximate it well enough out of character that the other players can let their imaginations do the rest.
You could abstract things away to rolls like you said, but I find campaigns where that is the norm to be less engaged. If I have a bard as a player, I expect the player to be cracking wise and making rousing speeches instead of saying "I make a joke" or "I make a speech."
A lot of DMs expect players to actually come up with a motivational speech (or whatever) for their character to say, rather than rolling a die. But I think that's unreasonable. I don't ask the fighter to tell me in detail what sword form he uses to counter the enemy's defenses. I also don't ask the CHA character to actually have a silver tongue.
So yeah, I don't personally think there's a problem with abstracting mental stats behind die rolls. You use the same abstraction as for everything else, and don't impose harsh "your character can't do anything you can't" rules on only one aspect of the game.
How about "prior to rolling a die"? The role-playing is what makes TTRPGs better than computer games! If I'm DMing for my 10 year old, I'm not expecting a soliloquy that would sway royalty, but an argument that's especially good for a 10 year old might be worth a bonus to the subsequent Charisma roll, and one that's clearly just phoned in might be worth a penalty.
For young kids (this happened when one was 6, IIRC?) I've even gone so far as to say "make a Wisdom check" upon hearing a course of action that was likely to get the party killed, and when it passed I took that as an excuse to recount every line of reasoning that character would understand about why they're endangering themselves, though the final decision was out of my hands still. A bit of a cheat, I admit, since even a failure would have raised the question of "wait, why did daddy just ask for that" and so would have been a huge clue itself...
Nobody's yet given me the opposite problem. It turns out that the same sort of player who will min-max a low-Wis barbarian is also the same sort of player who will happily charge recklessly into danger rather than try to employ higher player wisdom. Not sure if that was intentional role-playing or a lack of higher player wisdom, but it was at least consistent and fun!
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The reason you ask for the player to roleplay his speech but not to describe his sword swing technique is because D&D is a game that exists in our heads. It is a real as the group believes it to be. That is to say, it can be very real, but this requires collective suspension of disbelief, engagement, buy-in, and yes — roleplaying. You aren't taken out of the collective fantasy by your fighter's player not knowing how to swing a sword, but you are by the player who is supposedly the high Charisma party face clamming up whenever an NPC speaks to him.
I don't have an issue with such players being at my table, and in my experience they tend to avoid those kinds of characters anyway. You don't need a silver tongue to be able to play a charismatic character, but you need to have some degree of wit and charm. If a player wants to give a speech, I'm not exactly expecting St. Crispin's Day, but he should have something to say.
Would you accept it if the player spoke in abstract about the themes his character is talking about, the buttons he tries to press, etc. without actually reciting it in first person?
Sure, especially if the player is less comfortable speaking in first person, or is performing something like a song that would take a long time to devise. I have a preference to first person roleplaying, but in the kind of example you gave the player is clearly demonstrating engagement and knowledge of what's going on, so it's all good to me. I take umbrage more with doing away with all of that and just rolling the dice in social situations.
Think "my character sings a song" vs "my character sings this folk song with specific themes that he uses to subtly mock the hostile lord."
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That's my preferred method. "I try to persuade the king to spare the captive by appealing to his sense of justice/diplomacy/humour/whatever." It's like how you don't just "attack", you attack with a weapon.
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