Comments on: 101 Days of D&D: Setting stakes and conflict resolution in D&D http://sjarvis.com/2005/12/06/101-days-of-dd-setting-stakes/ Wed, 29 Apr 2009 05:03:03 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=abc hourly 1 By: akmartin http://sjarvis.com/2005/12/06/101-days-of-dd-setting-stakes/#comment-128 akmartin Thu, 08 Dec 2005 20:03:07 +0000 http://sjarvis.com/2005/12/06/101-days-of-dd-setting-stakes/#comment-128 Timely post for me. My group is taking a between-arcs break from a game that’s been going for a year and a half. (This group has been playing together for two years.) We started experiencing incoherence about a year in, as the group dynamic began to solidify and my own DMing style finally started to mature (after 5 years). So I have been discussing CA with them while trying to avoid the required reading on the Forge, and we’re settling into a consensus that we want Story Now, with some opportunity to Step On Up or Dream, which is basically flipping D&D on its head. But people aren’t always immediately willing to jump immediately to a new paradigm, and there is still fun in D&D. So, rather than jump directly into BW, TSoY or DitV, we are exploring the idea of adding conflict resolution to D&D might work. I’ve explored a few approaches, starting with replacing certain mechanics, which ultimately didn’t appeal because it amounted to more of a system change than the group is ready to accept. So what I’m looking at is providing an option to use conflict resolution instead of task resolution. My current pass at this is to adapt DitV conflict resolution to the d20 character sheet, granting traits and relationships according to the well-balanced background. The reward cycle for conflict resolution will also follow DitV rules, creating a potentially interesting positive reinforcement for using that method. But there are a lot of pitfalls and unanswered questions. Will it be too complicated. How will this affect the value of the character sheet? Will players care less or will they want dice for skills? What about spells? What about class and race distinctions? It seems if those questions come up then it’s probably time to shift system entirely. Or, the many warnings against mixed-system gaming could be realized and result in utter failure. In the end, I don’t think that matters because we are beginning to explore and that cannot be a bad thing. If it doesn’t work out, we’ll change it and try again. We’ve dropped house rules in the first session they were used because they did not make the game more fun, and this experiment will be no different. The important thing is that we as a group are beginning to recognize that we don’t have to accept frustration in our game, and are taking responsibility for making the game fun. The game is in our hands. Timely post for me. My group is taking a between-arcs break from a game that’s been going for a year and a half. (This group has been playing together for two years.) We started experiencing incoherence about a year in, as the group dynamic began to solidify and my own DMing style finally started to mature (after 5 years).

So I have been discussing CA with them while trying to avoid the required reading on the Forge, and we’re settling into a consensus that we want Story Now, with some opportunity to Step On Up or Dream, which is basically flipping D&D on its head. But people aren’t always immediately willing to jump immediately to a new paradigm, and there is still fun in D&D. So, rather than jump directly into BW, TSoY or DitV, we are exploring the idea of adding conflict resolution to D&D might work.

I’ve explored a few approaches, starting with replacing certain mechanics, which ultimately didn’t appeal because it amounted to more of a system change than the group is ready to accept. So what I’m looking at is providing an option to use conflict resolution instead of task resolution. My current pass at this is to adapt DitV conflict resolution to the d20 character sheet, granting traits and relationships according to the well-balanced background. The reward cycle for conflict resolution will also follow DitV rules, creating a potentially interesting positive reinforcement for using that method.

But there are a lot of pitfalls and unanswered questions. Will it be too complicated. How will this affect the value of the character sheet? Will players care less or will they want dice for skills? What about spells? What about class and race distinctions? It seems if those questions come up then it’s probably time to shift system entirely. Or, the many warnings against mixed-system gaming could be realized and result in utter failure.

In the end, I don’t think that matters because we are beginning to explore and that cannot be a bad thing. If it doesn’t work out, we’ll change it and try again. We’ve dropped house rules in the first session they were used because they did not make the game more fun, and this experiment will be no different. The important thing is that we as a group are beginning to recognize that we don’t have to accept frustration in our game, and are taking responsibility for making the game fun.

The game is in our hands.

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